I meant to post this earlier but it slipped my mind until a few days ago when I was looking something up in Louis Gerteis' fine history of St. Louis during the Civil War. Better late than never.
By summer 1861, St. Louis had become the staging ground for federal military operations in the lower Mississippi Valley...The husband of Sarah Hill, a builder by trade, had joined the federal army and served throughout the war as an engineer. She visited him at his camp in Lafayette Park..."Beautiful Lafayette Park," recalled Hill, "with its brilliant flower beds and stretches of green sward, looking like emerald velvet, was turned into a great military camp."
-Louis Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis
We have two secondary sources that mention the fact that Union troops occupied Lafayette Park in 1861, essentially putting an end to baseball activities there. The first is, of course, E.H. Tobias who, in his history of early St. Louis baseball that was published in The Sporting News, wrote that the Cyclone Club "enjoyed the benefit of the grounds for only a brief period as the war of the Rebellion had broken out, soldiers were being recruited and the military powers seized upon it as a fitting spot for an encampment." The second source is an April 21, 1895 article from the St. Louis Republic that noted that the Cyclone grounds at Lafayette Park "were occupied as a camp...with a troop of United States soldiers, and the 'Cyclones' became a thing of the past."
The article in the Republic, which was most likely written by Tobias, was basically a history of the Cyclones and quoted Leonard Matthews, Ferdinand Garesche, and Maurice Alexander. I've always found it interesting that Tobias essentially blames the breakup of the Cyclone Club on the occupation of their grounds by Union troops. We know that the Commercial Club was also using the grounds at Lafayette Park and the loss of those grounds didn't stop them from continuing on. The loss of the grounds may have been the final nail for the Cyclones but they had torn themselves apart in the spring of 1861. There was no way that a club with people like Basil Duke and Edward Bredell on one side and Merritt Griswold and Orville Matthews on the other was going to survive the outbreak of war. But it is interesting that Leonard Matthews, Garesche and Alexander were telling Tobias that the loss of the grounds ended the club. I don't really think it's true but it is interesting.
I've never found a lot of information about what was happening in the park after it was occupied and have never been able to find out when exactly the troops took over the park. The last game that I know was played at the park in 1861 took place in early June. Based on the journal of Sarah Jane Hill, we know that the troops had encamped at the park by August 2. So sometime in June or July of 1861, Union troops took over Lafayette Park and baseball activity there ceased. To the best of my knowledge, baseball games were not played again at the park until 1863.
The article in the Republic, which was most likely written by Tobias, was basically a history of the Cyclones and quoted Leonard Matthews, Ferdinand Garesche, and Maurice Alexander. I've always found it interesting that Tobias essentially blames the breakup of the Cyclone Club on the occupation of their grounds by Union troops. We know that the Commercial Club was also using the grounds at Lafayette Park and the loss of those grounds didn't stop them from continuing on. The loss of the grounds may have been the final nail for the Cyclones but they had torn themselves apart in the spring of 1861. There was no way that a club with people like Basil Duke and Edward Bredell on one side and Merritt Griswold and Orville Matthews on the other was going to survive the outbreak of war. But it is interesting that Leonard Matthews, Garesche and Alexander were telling Tobias that the loss of the grounds ended the club. I don't really think it's true but it is interesting.
I've never found a lot of information about what was happening in the park after it was occupied and have never been able to find out when exactly the troops took over the park. The last game that I know was played at the park in 1861 took place in early June. Based on the journal of Sarah Jane Hill, we know that the troops had encamped at the park by August 2. So sometime in June or July of 1861, Union troops took over Lafayette Park and baseball activity there ceased. To the best of my knowledge, baseball games were not played again at the park until 1863.
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