Before the close of the day Captain Lyon received permission for mustering volunteers; he placed more than six hundred men into the service.

Regiments were organized under the name of "Home Guards," and by the 9th of May there were six thousand armed Union men in St.Louis, who were sworn to uphold the national honor.
Colonel Francis P.Blair, Jr., commanded the First Regiment of Missouri Volunteers, and stood faithfully by Captain Lyon in all those early and dangerous days.

The larger portion of the forces then available in St.Louis was made up of the German element, which was always thoroughly loyal.

This fact caused the Missouri Secessionists to feel great indignation toward the Germans.

They always declared they would have seized St.Louis and held possession of the larger portion of the State, had it not been for the earnest loyalty of "the Dutch." In the interior of Missouri the Secessionists were generally in the ascendant.