The Rocky Mountain Saints/Chapter 31

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When the pioneers left Nauvoo their destination was undetermined. Very little was then known of the geography of North America west of the Missouri River. Joseph had a whispering revelation about the location of the Church in the Rocky Mountains, and Brigham was said to have had a vision about the Salt Lake Valley, but with both revelation and vision there was no certainty as to the exact locality. To give expression to a slender hope, elder Taylor furnished the poor, homeless wanderers with a song:

which cheered many a fainting heart; and for that much good the error of the "Infallible Priesthood" should be overlooked, even though "Towers and Temples" have not arisen

as predicted.

The first company of the exiles arrived at the Missouri in the beginning of July, 1846, and a resting-place was there resolved upon, as the main body of the Saints could not reach that point till late in September. It is claimed that the pioneers would have continued westward that year but for a "demand" of the Government that the Mormons should furnish a battalion of five hundred men for the Mexican war.

As seen in the preceding chapters, the Mormons had up to ​this time only charged their neighbours in Missouri and in Illinois with persecution; the Federal Government was only held guilty by implication for not affording the Saints redress and protecting them in the peaceable possession of their homes. On the banks of the Missouri begins the national crime of "persecuting the Saints of the Most High God," a crime which has ten thousand times inspired the predictions in the Tabernacle and the assemblies of the Saints that "the Republic would be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, and be blotted out of existence."

Of all the preaching in the Tabernacle against the nation, nothing has ever made such an impression upon the people as Brigham Young's story of the Mormon battalion, in which he charges the Government with "the design of destroying the kingdom of God."

He asserts, unequivocally and unhesitatingly, that the Government demanded those five hundred men while the exiles were in an Indian country, hoping that, rather than expose their wives and children without protection in the midst of savages, they would rebel, and thus furnish the Government with a pretext for sending an army against the Saints to break them up, scatter them, and "wipe them out of existence."

This is a grave charge, and one which should not be entertained without a rigid examination of the facts of history.

One of the last official acts of Brigham Young before leaving Nauvoo was the appointment of elder Jesse C. Little, of New Hampshire, to preside over the Saints left in the Eastern States. This letter was dated—"Temple of God, Nauvoo, January 20, 1846," and contained the following instructions:

"If our Government shall offer any facilities for emigrating to the Western coast, embrace those facilities, if possible, as a wise and faithful man."

On the same day the high council at Nauvoo issued a circular, "to the members of the Church throughout the world," announcing the forth-coming early departure of the pioneers for the Rocky Mountains, where they were to "make a resting-place, until we can determine a place for a permanent location." With nothing certain but a long journey westward, and that in the midst of poverty, the Mormons were ready to ​undertake any labour that was harmonious with their own programme of travel. In this circular was the following statement:

"In the event of the President's recommendation, to build blockhouses and stockade forts on the road to Oregon, becoming a law, we have encouragement of having that work to do; and under our peculiar circumstances we can do it with less expense to the Government than any other people."

With his own letter of appointment, containing the instructions to accept "any facilities which the Government might offer," to aid the Mormons in their migration westward, and this public announcement in the circular, elder Little proceeded to the seat of Government. On his way thither he called a conference of the Saints at Philadelphia on the 13th of May, and then for the first time Colonel Thomas L. Kane became acquainted with this Mormon elder and representative of Brigham Young. Touched by the distress of the Mormons, which was then a matter of notoriety throughout the country, the colonel evidently resolved to be their good Samaritan. The high social standing of the family of Judge Kane, of Philadelphia, was a guarantee of pure philanthropy only in the good that the colonel sought to attain for the Mormons. This gentleman introduced elder Little to the Hon. George M. Dallas, the Vice-President, and to other distinguished gentlemen at Washington, and finally the Elder was presented to President James K. Polk. The President and some members of his cabinet, senators, and representatives, immediately took a lively interest in the situation of the Mormons, then wandering beyond the confines of civilization, and they were ready to favour any measure that would contribute assistance to them in their distress.

Elder Samuel Brannan, the predecessor of elder Little in the ecclesiastical charge of the Eastern Saints, had sailed in the ship Brooklyn from New York, in January, with six hundred Mormons for San Francisco. Elder Little, during his visit to Washington, contemplated sending another vessel with Saints to the same destination, provided that he "could obtain Government freight to ship on the vessel with the people to assist in defraying the expenses." In his address to President Polk he uses the following language:

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"From twelve to fifteen thousand Mormons have already left Nauvoo for California, and many others are making ready to go; some have gone around Cape Horn, and, I trust, before this time have landed at the bay of San Francisco. We have about forty thousand in the British Isles, all determined to gather to this land, and thousands will sail this fall. There are also many thousands scattered through the States, besides the great number in and around Nauvoo who will go to California as soon as possible, but many of them are destitute of money to pay their passage either by sea or land.

"We are true-hearted Americans, true to our native country, true to its laws, true to its glorious institutions; and we have a desire to go under the outstretched wings of the American eagle; we would disdain to receive assistance from a foreign power, although it should be proffered, unless our Government shall turn us off in this great crisis and compel us to be foreigners.

"If you will assist us in this crisis, I hereby pledge my honour, as the representative of this people, that the whole body will stand ready at your call, and act as one man in the land to which we are going; and should our Territory be invaded we will hold ourselves ready to enter the field of battle, and then, like our patriotic fathers, make the battle-field our grave or gain our liberty."

In the first week in June the cabinet considered the situation of the Mormons. Elder Little had an interview of some hours with the President, during which his Excellency stated that "he had no prejudice against the Saints;" "He believed them to be good citizens;" "was willing to do them all the good in his power consistently;" and "they should be protected;" "he had confidence in the Mormons as true^[1] American citizens, or he would not make such propositions as those he designed."

The news of the first battles with Mexico had just been reported at Washington, and the Government had resolved on taking forcible possession of California—then a part of Mexico; and from the conversation with elder Little, as subsequently reported, it is very evident that President Polk and his cabinet considered the movement opportune for using the Mormons al​ready en route for "Upper California," and also facilitating the transportation of those in the Eastern States by sending them round the Cape to the Pacific coast, if they would serve the country as soldiers.

On the 3rd of June the Hon. W. L. Marcy, Secretary of War, wrote to General S. W. Kearney, then in command at Fort Leavenworth, directing the General's attention to the migration of the Mormons, and saying that the Government desired the General to use all proper means to effect a good understanding with the leaders, to the end that the United States might obtain their "coöperation" in taking possession of and holding that country, and that the General was thereby authorized to muster into service such among them as could be "induced to volunteer," but the number was not to exceed one-third of the force^[2] which the General had been instructed to lead overland to California. The Mormon troops were also, as much as possible, to be allowed to elect their own officers.

The visit of elder Little to Washington, his petition for aid, the expressed sympathy of the President for the exiles, the favourable interviews of elder Little with the cabinet and influential gentlemen, the President's intimation of his confidence in the Mormons as "true American citizens," and his intention of making them a good proposition, with the prompt order of the Secretary of War to General Kearney to enlist volunteers among them, but not to exceed one-third of that officer's command—all these are so harmonious, and so like the honourable relations of a Government that sympathizes with a handful of its suffering citizens, and seeks to aid them as far as it consistently can, that the idea of duplicity or bad faith is utterly banished, and the contemplation of a design of either forcing the Mormons into rebellion, or exposing women and children to destruction by savages, is rendered perfectly absurd.

​Seeking to set at rest this disputed subject, the Author addressed the President of the United States, and Major-General Philip St. George Cooke, who led the battalion to California, asking for information, and the following correspondence ensued:

"Astor House, New York, October 17, 1871.

"President U. S. Grant:

"Your Excellency will, I trust, excuse the liberty that I take in soliciting through you information from the War Department, as your order only can procure it.

"In 1846, when the Mormon community were upon the western frontiers, on their way towards the Pacific, 500 of their number were enrolled by a United States officer, Capt. Allen, at Council Bluffs, Iowa, into the service of the Government, then at war with Mexico. That battalion, on the death of Capt. Alien, shortly after they took up their march to the Pacific, was placed under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, and by him led to southern California. Their service was highly commended by their commander, and they were honourably discharged on the Pacific coast, as per terms of enlistment.

"For over twenty years Brigham Young has used his version of this Mormon Battalion very effectively in attacking the Government, by representing that it was a cruel demand, made with the view of crippling the expedition and leaving it exposed to the attacks of the Indians. To this, he adds that the demand was made in the hope that the Mormons would refuse, and, in so refusing, furnish the Government a pretext for preventing their further exodus, under the charge that they were going to join an enemy's country.

"Ridiculous as this may appear to your Excellency, I know of nothing in all Mormon history that has been so potential in shaping the sentiments of the Mormon people against the Government.

"I have carefully considered and traced, wherever I could, the circumstances attending this Battalion affair, and all the evidence conveys to me the very contrary of what Brigham Young asserts. It was evidently in sympathy for their unfortunate condition that the Government accepted that Battalion, and paid them for going to the place they had at that time upon their minds to go to.

"If your Excellency will order copies of all that pertains to the Mormon Battalion to be placed at my disposal, I am satisfied that the publication of the facts, in the history of Utah and the Mormons which I will shortly have in press, will do much to destroy the pernicious influence of the mis-statements that have been made on the subject. It is due to the national Government that the facts should be properly understood.

"Soliciting your Excellency's favourable action,
"I am, your obedient servant,
"T. B. H. Stenhouse."

 

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"War Department, Washington City, December 15, 1871.

"T. B. H. Stenhouse, Esq., Astor House, New York:

"Sir: In compliance with your request of Oct. 17, 71, addressed to the President, for copies of documents in this Department relating to the Mormon Battalion, raised for the service of the U. S. during the Mexican war, I have the honour to send you, herewith, a copy of instructions from Head Quarters Army of the West, dated June 19, 1846, for the raising of the Battalion, which comprises all the information in this Department on the subject, except subsequent occasional mention of the whereabouts of the Battalion, which would be of no service to you.

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant.
Wm. W. Belknap, Secretary of War."

 

"Head Quarters Army of the West, Fort Leavenworth, June 19, 1846.

"Sir: It is understood that there is a large body of Mormons who are desirous of emigrating to California for the purpose of settling in that country, and I have therefore to direct that you will proceed to their camps and endeavour to raise from amongst them four or five companies of volunteers to join me in my expedition to that country—each company to consist of any number between 73 and 109—the officers of the companies will be a captain, first lieutenant and second lieutenant, who will be elected by the privates and subject to your approval, and the captain then to appoint the non-commissioned officers, also subject to your approval. The companies upon being thus organized, will be mustered by you into the service of the United States, and from that day will commence to receive the pay, rations, and other allowances given to the other infantry volunteers, each according to his rank. You will, upon mustering into service the Fourth company, be considered as having the rank, pay, emoluments of a lieutenant-colonel of infantry, and are authorized to appoint an adjutant, sergeant-major, and quarter-master sergeant for the Battalion.

"The companies, after being organized, will be marched to this post, where they will be armed and prepared for the field, after which they will, under your command, follow on my trail in the direction of Santa Fé, and where you will receive further orders from me.

"You will, upon organizing the companies, require provisions, wagons, horses, mules, etc. You must purchase everything that is necessary, and give the necessary drafts upon the quarter-master and commissary departments at this post, which drafts will be paid upon presentation.

"You will have the Mormons distinctly to understand, that I wish to take them AS VOLUNTEERS for twelve months, that they will be marched to California, receiving pay and allowances during the above time, and at its expiration they will be discharged and allowed to retain as their private property the guns and accoutrements to be furnished to them at this post. Each company will be allowed four women as laundresses, who will travel with the company, receiving rations and the other allowances given to the laundresses of our army.

​"With the foregoing conditions, which are hereby pledged to the Mormons, and which will be faithfully kept by me and other officers in behalf of the Government of the United States, I cannot doubt but that you will in a few days be able to raise five hundred young and efficient men for this expedition.

"Very respectfully your obedient servant,
(Signed) S. W. Kearny, Colonel First Dragoons.

"Capt. James Allen, First Regiment Dragoons, Fort Leavenworth."

"I certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file at this office.

John Potts, Chief Clerk.

"War Department, Washington, December 15, 1871."

 

"Head Quarters Department of the Lakes,
"Detroit, Michigan, August 17, 1871.

"T. B. H. Stenhouse, Esq., Astor House, New York:

"Sir: I have received your communication of the 11th inst., which invites any statement I may be able to make-as commander of the 'Mormon Battalion' in the war with Mexico—of the circumstances of their enlistment and service.

"You say, 'If Brigham Young is right in the statement of intended "persecution" on the part of the Government, I have no wish to make it otherwise appear, nor shall I try it; but if he is wrong, which I believe he is, in this work, I deem it my duty to not only defend that action of the Government, but to show its kindness and sympathy.

"'If the Battalion understood that the Government demanded their enlistment with the view of leaving their families unprotected and exposed to the Indians, as Brigham Young has so frequently stated it since, it seems that the commanding officer who led them in their march through that severe campaign would have heard of it in their trying hour.'

"I was not at Fort Leavenworth when General S. W. Kearney sent Captain Allen, First Dragoons, to meet the migration of the Mormons from Nauvoo toward the Pacific coast, and raise a volunteer battalion, and I resigned their command prior to their discharge. I know only from frequent intercourse, subsequently, with General Kearney, and my intimate and quite friendly relations with the Battalion, that it could scarcely have been otherwise than a friendly interest in the misfortunes of that sect in which the idea was conceived and executed, to enrol a portion of them, as volunteers,^[3] and so assist their migration. The usual regulations, or laws, for volunteers, regarding age, and also the number of women to be transported and fed, were much relaxed in their favour.

"I do not remember the dates of their payments; nor do I know if they retained their arms at discharge.

"Respectfully, your obedient servant,
"Philip St. George Cooke, Brigadier-General U. S. A."

​These official documents should undeceive the Mormon people and enable them to see how grossly they have been deluded by the story of the Government "persecution."

On the 12th of June, Col. Kane left Washington for the West to overtake the Mormon camp, and was accompanied by elder Little. The colonel was the bearer of dispatches from the Government to General Kearney at Fort Leavenworth, and others in California. They were accompanied as far as St. Louis by Judge Kane, who was deeply interested, on behalf of the Mormons, in their success. On the 26th, Captain Allen had reached the Mormon camp at Mount Pisgah, but Brigham Young and the majority of the apostles were still further west, and that officer had to advance thither before he could be listened to on the subject of volunteers.

It is very unlikely that Brigham and the migrating Mormons at this time had any knowledge of the proceedings at Washington between elder Little and the Government. There were no post routes in that country in those days, and on the appearance of Captain Allen among them, it is natural to suppose that in their ignorance of the facts, the very mention of enlisting volunteers to serve the country should have produced the excitement that it did. For anything that Brigham might have said at the first sight of Captain Allen, he would be richly entitled to a hearty forgiveness. Much patriotism could not be expected in fleeing, homeless exiles. A "demand," if such had been made, for five hundred men, was enough to provoke the wrath of any Saint; but it is his after-utterances, with a full knowledge of the facts, that give point to the charge, that Brigham designedly calumniates the Government.

Colonel Kane in his Historical Discourse tells the story of recruiting the Battalion:

"At the commencement of the Mexican war, the President considered it desirable to march a body of reliable infantry to California at as early a period as practicable, and the known hardihood and habits of discipline of the Mormons were supposed peculiarly to fit them for this service. As California was supposed to be also their ultimate destination, the long ​march might cost them less than other citizens. They were accordingly invited to furnish a battalion of volunteers early in the month of July.

"The call could hardly have been more inconveniently timed. The young, and those who could best have been spared, were then away from the main body, either with pioneer companies in the van, or, their faith unannounced, seeking work and food about the north-western settlements, to support them till the return of the season for commencing emigration. The force was, therefore, to be recruited from among fathers of families, and others, whose presence it was most desirable to retain.

"There were some, too, who could not view the invitation without jealousy. They had twice been persuaded by (State) Government authorities in Illinois and Missouri to give up their arms on some special appeals to their patriotic confidence, and had then been left to the malice of their enemies. And now they were asked, in the midst of the Indian country, to surrender over five hundred of their best men for a war march of thousands of miles to California, without the hope of return till after the conquest of that country. Could they view such a proposition with favour?

"But the feeling of country triumphed. The Union had never wronged them: 'You shall have your battalion at once, if it has to be a class of our elders,' said one, himself a ruling elder. A central 'mass meeting' for council, some harangues at the more remotely scattered camps, an American flag brought out from a storehouse of things rescued, and hoisted to the top of a tree mast, and in three days the force was reported, mustered, organized, and ready to march."

The colonel's account of the ball given to the Battalion is deserving of its place in this history:

"There was no sentimental affectation at their leave-taking. The afternoon before was appropriated to a farewell ball; a more merry dancing rout I have never seen, though the company went without refreshments, and their ball-room was of the most primitive. It was the custom, whenever the larger camps rested for a few days together, to make great arbours, or boweries, as they called them, of poles and brush and wattling, as places of shelter for their meetings of devotion or conference. In one of these, where the ground had been trodden firm and hard by the worshippers of the popular Father Taylor's precinct, were gathered now the mirth and beauty of the Mormon Israel.

"If anything told the Mormons had been bred to other lives, it was the appearance of the women as they assembled here. Before their flight they had sold their watches and trinkets as the most available resource for raising ready money; and hence, like their partners who wore waistcoats cut with useless watch-pockets, they, although their ears were pierced and bore the loop-marks of rejected pendants, were without ear-rings, finger-rings, chains, or brooches. Except such ornaments, however, they lacked nothing most becoming the attire of decorous maidens. The neat​ly darned white stockings, and clean bright petticoat, the artistically clear-starched collar and chemisette, the something faded, only because too well washed, lawn or gingham gown, that fitted modishly to the waist of its pretty wearer—these, if any of them spoke of poverty, spoke of a poverty that had known its better days.

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The Battalion Ball.

"With the rest attended the elders of the Church within call, including nearly all the chiefs of the High Council, with their wives and children. They, the gravest and most trouble-worn, seemed the most anxious of any to be first to throw off the burden of heavy thoughts. Their leading off the dancing in a great double cotillion was the signal which bade the festivity commence. To the canto of debonnair violins, the cheer of horns, the jingle of sleigh-bells, and the jovial snoring of the tambourine, they did dance! None of your minuets or other mortuary processions of gentles in etiquette, tight shoes, and pinching gloves, but the spirited and scientific displays of our venerated and merry grandparents, who were not above following the fiddle to the Fox-Chase Inn or Gardens of Gray's Ferry. French fours, Copenhagen jigs, Virginia reels, and the like forgotten figures, executed with the spirit of people too happy to be slow, or bashful, or constrained. Light hearts, lithe figures, and light feet had it their own way from an early hour till after the sun had dipped behind the sharp sky line of the Omaha hills. Silence was then called, and a well-cultivated mezzo-soprano voice, belonging to a young lady with fair face and dark eyes, gave, with quartette accompaniment, a little song, the notes of which I have been unsuccessful in repeated efforts to obtain since—a version of the text, touching to all earthly wanderers:

"'By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept:
We wept when we remembered Zion.'

​"There was danger of some expression of feeling when the song was over, for it had begun to draw tears; but, breaking the quiet with his hard voice, an elder asked the blessing of Heaven on all who, with purity of heart and brotherhood of spirit, had mingled in that society, and then all dispersed, hastening to cover from the falling dews."

With the departure of the Battalion, an agent accompanied them to Leavenworth, where he is reported to have drawn $20,000 "advance pay," and with that timely aid, Brigham Young made such outfitting purchases in St. Louis as were greatly needed. It is also understood that an agent continued with the Battalion until another draft could be made for their pay, before entering upon their march across the desert. Small as such sums were, yet in the situation and poverty of the exiles it was certainly timely aid from the Government. There has been much personal dissatisfaction expressed about the use made of these funds, yet the most bitter of his opponents acknowledged that Brigham showed great sagacity in at once furnishing the Battalion.^[4]

With the presence of Col. Kane and elder Little among the apostles, the Washington proceedings were explained. On the 7th of August, the Saints assembled to choose twelve men from among the elders to act as a High Council in the new Stake of Zion, organized on the banks of the Missouri, and to transact other business pertaining to the settlement of "Winter Quarters." After this meeting, a consultation was held with Colonel Kane, and the apostles advised together. It was then resolved that an address to President Polk should be framed, expressive of the gratitude of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints towards him for his benevolent design "of arming and planting five hundred of our volunteers in California, to take possession of that country, and for our good^[5] and also praying the President of the United States not to appoint Governor Boggs of Missouri–the notorious enemy ​of the Saints—as Governor of California and Oregon." This is a quotation from the written language of one of the apostles, and bears the stamp of the genuine sentiments of the Mormon leaders at the time. The allusion to ex-Governor Boggs is thoroughly characteristic.

Some months after the Battalion was in the service of the country, another apostle^[6] addressed the following language to the British Saints:

"Although we have been inhumanly and barbarously dealt with by the surrounding country where we dwelt, yet the President of the United States is favourably disposed to us. He has sent out orders to have five hundred of our brethren employed in an expedition that was fitting out against California, with orders for them to be employed for one year, and then to be discharged in California, and to have their arms and implements of war given to them at the expiration of the term; and as there is no prospect of any opposition, it amounts to the same as paying them for going to the place where they were destined to go without. They also had the privilege of choosing their own leaders."

Another apostle, very recently, haranguing the people in the Tabernacle upon the persecutions of the Saints, is reported in the Chicago Tribune to have uttered the following:

"The Government sent an agent who demanded five hundred volunteers for the Mexican war, which was two hundred times the proportion raised by the country. This was done that our teams, and our women, and our children, might be left defenceless in the Indian country, and so be killed or perish. They said that if we would furnish them the men, we might go on in peace; if not, they would cut us off on our journey."

This fruitful subject—"the Government persecution"—has done incalculable mischief to the Saints. It has robbed them of the natural loyalty of good citizens, and led them to curse the Government which protects them, and to pray for the overthrow and destruction of the nation.

​To say that Brigham did alone invent the story of the Government seeking the destruction of the Saints when the Battalion was recruited, would be charging him unjustly. One of the elders wrote to him from the East, stating that Senator Benton, of Missouri, disliked the Mormons, and had prevailed upon President Polk to call for volunteers, believing that they would refuse, and in that case the President pledged to the Senator that the forces of the United States should be sent against them, to annihilate the whole migrating body.

That a man of Brigham Young's hard sense should believe such a statement, is only credible upon the theory that people easily adopt what is harmonious with their own inclinations. He naturally hated Missouri, and he could, therefore, willingly accept any vicious story told him about that State, or any one from it. On such an unlikely report "Old Tom Benton" has been consigned to "his place," and now keeps company in the nether regions with "Old Zach Taylor," who in some unfortunate way had given umbrage to the Prophet Brigham. It is proper to add that in a recent conversation with Mrs. Gen. John C. Fremont, who had the pleasure of assisting her honoured father, Senator Benton, as private secretary, the Author discovered nothing that suggested confirmation of Brigham's charge, but much to the contrary. That distinguished lady claimed that Senator Benton was not the man to seek to reach the Mormons through any covert means, involving another's responsibility.

Besides this, there is such an air of good faith in the action of the Government throughout, that no sane man could believe in the diabolical scheme attributed to Senator Benton and said to have been approved by President Polk. The story was only good to tell the Saints, in order to cultivate their dislike to the Republic, and increase their endearment to "the kingdom." No other motive is apparent, and certainly no other result has been attained.

It is greatly to be regretted that a battalion recruited from the suggestions of the kindest philanthropy, responded to so promptly, at such personal sacrifice to the volunteers and their families, and with such an excellent record for faithful service, should be for ever marred in the mention of its name by such bitter vindictiveness against the national Government.