Daniel M . Frost Daniel Marsh Frost ( August 9 , 1823 – October 29 , 1900 ) was an antebellum officer in the United States Army and then a brigadier general in the Missouri Volunteer Militia ( MVM ) and the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . He was one of a handful of Confederate generals born in the North , and commanded the MVM during the Camp Jackson Affair in May 1861 that fanned civil unrest in St . Louis . Early life and career . Daniel M . Frost was born near Duanesburg in rural Schenectady County , New York . He was appointed from New York to the United States Military Academy in nearby West Point and graduated in 1844 , ranking 4th in a class of 24 . Frost was brevetted as a second lieutenant in the infantry and assigned to garrison duty . With the outbreak of the Mexican - American War , he served under Winfield Scott in the Army of Occupation in Mexico and was brevetted for gallantry in action at the Battle of Cerro Gordo . Following the war , he spent part of 1849 as Regimental Quartermaster of an immense supply train sent to the Oregon Territory . He was assigned to Jefferson Barracks in St . Louis in 1850 . The following year , he met and married Elizabeth Brown ` Lily ' Graham , his second wife . They would have eleven children . After a brief assignment in Europe , Frost returned to the United States . He rejoined his regiment on the Texas frontier . In a skirmish with raiding Indians , he was severely wounded and nearly lost an eye . He resigned his commission in 1853 for domestic reasons and partnered in a lumber planing mill . He later established D . M . Frost & Co . , a prominent fur - trading company from Kansas to the West Coast . Politically active , Frost was elected in 1854 to the Missouri General Assembly as a senator from Benton County and was a strong supporter of " Central Clique " of wealthy planters in Missouri state politics . He worked against the Benton faction of the Missouri Democratic Party , and worked for the expansion of slavery into the Kansas Territory . He served until 1858 . He stayed involved with the army by serving on the Board of Visitors for West Point , and was appointed as a brigadier general in the Missouri Volunteer Militia in 1858 by the Governor of Missouri , Robert Marcellus Stewart . He was assigned command of the First Military District , which encompassed St . Louis and the surrounding county . Civil War . In the early days of the Civil War , General Frost supported the secessionist movement endorsed and led by Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson . In February 1861 Frost enrolled the members of the pro - secession Minutemen para - military organization as Companies in a new Second Regiment , MVM ( despite Missouri ' s " official " policy of neutrality ) . This allowed the Minutemen to operate and recruit overtly . He secretly met with Jackson and other secessionist leaders to discuss the possibility of attacking the Federal Arsenal in downtown St . Louis . Governor Jackson dispatched two members of the Minutemen to seek siege artillery from the Confederate Government . At the recommendation of General Frost , Governor Jackson ordered the mustered the MVM in St . Louis on May 6 , a deployment which would allow an attack on the Arsenal when the Confederate artillery arrived . Confederate President Jefferson Davis agreed to provide the weapons , and they arrived in St . Louis on May 8 . Frost ' s soldiers took possession of the Confederate weapons , and moved them to Camp Jackson , as the MVM encampment was named . Union Captain Nathaniel Lyon conducted a reconnaissance on May 9 , and verified the presence of the Confederate weapons . The next day , Lyon led a mixed force of U . S . Regular troops and Missouri volunteers to arrest the Militia . After surrounding the camp , they forced Frost and his militiamen to surrender without a shot being fired . As the prisoners were marched through the streets of St . Louis , however a riot broke out and 28 people were killed . on May 11 , Frost was paroled and returning to his home . Although he initially denied involvement in any conspiracy when questioned by authorities , Union intelligence later obtained a letter that revealed that Frost was indeed an active participant in Governor Jackson ' s plotting . After being exchanged for a captured Federal officer , Frost traveled south to Join the Confederate Army . On March 3 , 1862 , Frost was commissioned as a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and assigned to duty in Memphis , Tennessee , under Major General Sterling Price . He briefly served as the inspector general in the army of Gen . Braxton Bragg , and then in October was assigned to the Trans - Mississippi Department . Frost led a brigade into action at the Battle of Prairie Grove in the division of Maj . Gen . Thomas C . Hindman . On March 2 , 1863 , Hindman was relieved of duty and replaced by Frost in Little Rock , Arkansas . In August 1863 , Frost ' s wife was forced from their home in St . Louis because of the family ' s ardent Confederate sympathies and had taken the children and moved to Canada for safety and refuge . Frost reacted quickly upon hearing the news . He left the army , without first obtaining any official approval or permission , and traveled to Canada to join his family . Frost was listed as a deserter by the Confederate Army , and in December the Confederate War Department officially dropped Frost from the muster rolls . Frost stayed in Canada for the rest of the war and did not return to Missouri until late 1865 . Post War . Following the war , Frost became a farmer on his land near St . Louis . His second wife died in the early 1870s and Frost later married a third time , this time to a young widow with two children . The couple had two children of their own . General Frost spend much of his time in his later years simultaneously explaining : to Unionists that in May 1861 he had not be engaged in pro - Confederate plotting , and to ex - Confederates that he had not deserted from the Confederate Army in 1863 . While Frost wrote many post - war articles attempting to explain his contradictory actions during the civil war , his memoirs do not address the Civil War period . At the age of 77 , Daniel M . Frost died at Hazelwood , his estate in what is now Berkeley , MO ( suburban St . Louis ) . He is interred at Calvary Cemetery , section 18 . General Frost was memorialized by Saint Louis University which named its main campus Frost Campus in honor of the General at the request of his daughter Mrs . Harriet Frost Fordyce , who contributed $ 1 , 000 , 000 to the University in 1962 . Ironically , part of the Frost Campus covers the former " Camp Jackson " militia encampment site .