gave him a hearty welcome, while the secessionists received him with many a frown.

Major Conant, of General Lyon’s staff, visited the penitentiary, which was full of convicts, who cheered heartily as he entered. They had hoped to be liberated when the rebels left town, and no doubt would have been willing to enter the service as a condition of getting outside the stone walls that surrounded them. They had been secession in sentiment, but finding the rebels had gone without them they suddenly changed their politics and shouted lustily for the Union when the officer representing the authority of the United States came among them. A few only held out and cheered for Jeff Davis and Governor Jackson, probably for the reason that they believed in secession, and especially in secession from where they were. There was gloom all around when they found that General Lyon had no intention of setting them free, and that the sole object of the visit of Major Conant was to see that the prison was properly guarded, and ascertain that no work on behalf of the rebels was being carried on there.

The editor of the Examiner, a newspaper which had been advocating secession in the most violent manner, called upon General Lyon, and said he had been a union man always, and was in favor of keeping the state in the Union, though he had thought differently only a short time before. There were several cases of equally sudden conversion, but the general did not consider these professions-of patriotism anything more than skin deep. Missouri was full of men of this sort—men who were in favor of the rebellion at heart, but in presence of the Union flag were the most profound unionists that the country ever saw.

As soon as it was positively known that