His coarse, opinionated manner had made him nearly impossible to like, and his uncompromising stance in St. Louis had alienated many. But until the rise of tough Union commanders like Grant and Sherman a couple of years later, his hard-driving style would be sorely missed in an army filled with too many Sigels and Frémonts. And few could have argued with Samuel Sturgis, who after Lyon's death remembered him to have been 'as brave a soldier as ever drew a sword, a man whose honesty of purpose was proverbial, a noble patriot, and one who held his life as nothing when his country demanded it of him.'
