on april 23, the war department replaced harney with captain nathaniel lyon as acting commander. lyon, a passionate unionist, immediately began enlisting and arming st. louis unionists as home guard "missouri volunteers", an action previously ordered by the secretary of war but not acted upon by harney. most of lyon's early recruits were "forty-eighters" and "wide awakes" (a marching society formed during the 1860 election by the republican party). according to one estimate, 80% of the volunteers in the first missouri volunteer regiments were german-american immigrants. the anti-slavery foreign-born germans were prejudicially targeted by pro-slavery native-born missourians.