The Story of the Mormons:

W >> William Alexander Linn >> The Story of the Mormons:

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59

President Buchanan's position as regards Utah at this time was
thus stated in his first annual message to Congress (December 8,
1857):--

"The people of Utah almost exclusively belong to this [Mormon]
church, and, believing with a fanatical spirit that he [Young] is
Governor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his
commands as if these were direct revelations from heaven. If,
therefore, he chooses that his government shall come into
collision with the government of the United States, the members
of the Mormon church will yield implicit obedience to his will.
Unfortunately, existing facts leave but little doubt that such is
his determination. Without entering upon a minute history of
occurrences, it is sufficient to say that all the officers of the
United States, judicial and executive, with the single exception
of two Indian agents, have found it necessary for their own
safety to withdraw from the Territory, and there no longer
remained any government in Utah but the despotism of Brigham
Young. This being the condition of affairs in the Territory, I
could not mistake the path of duty. As chief executive
magistrate, I was bound to restore the supremacy of the
constitution and laws within its limits. In order to effect this
purpose, I appointed a new governor and other federal officers
for Utah, and sent with them a military force for their
protection, and to aid as a posse comitatus in case of need in
the execution of the laws.

"With the religious opinions of the Mormons, as long as they
remained mere opinions, however deplorable in themselves and
revolting to the moral and religious sentiments of all
Christendom, I have no right to interfere. Actions alone, when in
violation of the constitution and laws of the United States,
become the legitimate subjects for the jurisdiction of the civil
magistrate. My instructions to Governor Cumming have, therefore,
been framed in strict accordance with these principles."

This statement of the situation of affairs in Utah, and of the
duty of the President in the circumstances, did not admit of
criticism. But the country at that time was in a state of intense
excitement over the slavery question, with the situation in
Kansas the centre of attention; and it was charged that Buchanan
put forward the Mormon issue as a part of his scheme to "gag the
North" and force some question besides slavery to the front; and
that Secretary of War Floyd eagerly seized the opportunity to
remove "the flower of the American army" and a vast amount of
munition and supplies to a distant place, remote from Eastern
connections. The principal newspapers in this country were
intensely partisan in those days, and party organs like the New
York Tribune could be counted on to criticise any important step
taken by the Democratic President. Such Mormon agents as Colonel
Kane and Dr. Bernhisel, the Utah Delegate to Congress, were doing
active work in New York and Washington, and some of it with
effect. Horace Greeley, in his "Overland journey," describing his
call on Brigham Young a few years later, says that he was
introduced by "my friend Dr. Bernhisel." The "Tribune Almanac"
for 1859, in an article on the Utah troubles, quoted as "too
true" Young's declaration that "for the last twenty-five years we
have trusted officials of the government, from constables and
justices to judges, governors, and presidents, only to be
scorned, held in derision, insulted and betrayed."* Ulterior
motives aside, no President ever had a clearer duty than had
Buchanan to maintain the federal authority in Utah, and to secure
to all residents in and travellers through that territory the
rights of life and property. The just ground for criticising him
is, not that he attempted to do this, but that he faltered by the
way.**

* Greeley's leaning to the Mormon side was quite persistent,
leading him to support Governor Cumming a little later against
the federal judges. The Mormons never forgot this. A Washington
letter of April 24, 1874, to the New York Times said: "When Mr.
Greeley was nominated for President the Mormons heartily hoped
for his election. The church organs and the papers taken in the
territory were all hostile to the administration, and their
clamor deceived for a time people far more enlightened than the
followers of the modern Mohammed. It is said that, while the
canvass was pending, certain representatives of the
Liberal-Democratic alliance bargained with Brigham Young, and
that he contributed a very large sum of money to the treasury of
the Greeley fund, and that, in consideration of this
contribution, he received assurances that, if he should send a
polygamist to Congress, no opposition would be made by the
supporters of the administration that was to be, to his admission
to the House. Brigham therefore sent Cannon instead of returning
Hooper."

** It is curious to notice that the Utah troubles are entirely
ignored in the "Life of James Buchanan " (1883) by George Ticknor
Curtis, who was the counsel for the Mormons in the argument
concerning polygamy before the United States Supreme Court in
1886.

Early in 1856 arrangements were entered into with H. C. Kimball
for a contract to carry the mail between Independence, Missouri,
and Salt Lake City. Young saw in this the nucleus of a big
company that would maintain a daily express and mail service to
and from the Mormon centre, and he at once organized the Brigham
Young Express Carrying Company, and had it commended to the
people from the pulpit. But recent disclosures of Mormon methods
and purposes had naturally caused the government to question the
propriety of confiding the Utah and transcontinental mails to
Mormon hands, and on June 10, 1857, Kimball was notified that the
government would not execute the contract with him, "the
unsettled state of things at Salt Lake City rendering the mails
unsafe under present circumstances." Mormon writers make much of
the failure to execute this mail contract as an exciting cause of
the "war." Tullidge attributes the action of the administration
to three documents--a letter from Mail Contractor W. M. F. Magraw
to the President, describing the situation in Utah, Judge
Drummond's letter of resignation, and a letter from Indian Agent
T. S. Twiss, dated July 13, 1856, informing the government that a
large Mormon colony had taken possession of Deer Creek Valley,
only one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, driving out a
settlement of Sioux whom the agent had induced to plant corn
there, and charging that the Mormon occupation was made with a
view to the occupancy of the country, and "under cover of a
contract of the Mormon church to carry the mails."* Tullidge's
statement could be made with hope of its acceptance only to
persons who either lacked the opportunity or inclination to
ascertain the actual situation in Utah and the President's
sources of information.

* All these may be found in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session,
35th Congress.

As to the mails, no autocratic government like that of Brigham
Young would neglect to make what use it pleased of them in its
struggle with the authorities at Washington. As early as
November, 1851, Indian Agent Holman wrote to the Indian
commissioner at Washington from Salt Lake City: "The Gentiles, as
we are called who do not belong to the Mormon church, have no
confidence in the management of the post-office here. It is
believed by many that there is an examination of all letters
coming and going, in order that they may ascertain what is said
of them and by whom it is said. This opinion is so strong that
all communications touching their character or conduct are either
sent to Bridger or Laramie, there to be mailed. I send this
communication through a friend to Laramie, to be there mailed for
the States."

Testimony on this point four years later, from an independent
source, is found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855,
to the New York Herald. The writer said: "From September 5, to
the 27th instant the people of this territory had not received
any news from the States except such as was contained in a few
broken files of California papers.... Letters and papers come up
missing, and in the same mail come papers of very ancient dates;
but letters once missing may be considered as irrevocably lost.
Of all the numerous numbers of Harper's, Gleason's, and other
illustrated periodicals subscribed for by the inhabitants of this
territory, not one, I have been informed, has ever reached here."
The forces selected for the expedition to Utah consisted of the
Second Dragoons, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth in view of
possible trouble in Kansas; the Fifth Infantry, stationed at that
time in Florida; the Tenth Infantry, then in the forts in
Minnesota; and Phelps's Battery of the Fourth Artillery, that had
distinguished itself at Buena Vista--a total of about fifteen
hundred men. Reno's Battery was added later.

General Scott's order provided for two thousand head of cattle to
be driven with the troops, six months' supply of bacon,
desiccated vegetables, 250 Sibley tents, and stoves enough to
supply at least the sick. General Scott himself had advised a
postponement of the expedition until the next year, on account of
the late date at which it would start, but he was overruled. The
commander originally selected for this force was General W. S.
Harney; but the continued troubles in Kansas caused his retention
there (as well as that of the Second Dragoons), and, when the
government found that the Mormons proposed serious resistance,
the chief command was given to Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a
West Point graduate, who had made a record in the Black Hawk War;
in the service of the state of Texas, first in 1836 under General
Rusk, and eventually as commander-in-chief in the field, and
later as Secretary of War; and in the Mexican War as colonel of
the First Texas Rifles. He was killed at the battle of Shiloh
during the War of the Rebellion.

General Harney's letter of instruction, dated June 29, giving the
views of General Scott and the War Department, stated that the
civil government in Utah was in a state of rebellion; he was to
attack no body of citizens, however, except at the call of the
governor, the judges, or the marshals, the troops to be
considered as a posse comitatus; he was made responsible for "a
jealous, harmonious, and thorough cooperation" with the governor,
accepting his views when not in conflict with military judgment
and prudence. While the general impression, both at Washington
and among the troops, was that no actual resistance to this force
would be made by Young's followers, the general was told that
"prudence requires that you should anticipate resistance,
general, organized, and formidable, at the threshold."

Great activity was shown in forwarding the necessary supplies to
Fort Leavenworth, and in the last two weeks of July most of the
assigned troops were under way. Colonel Johnston arrived at Fort
Leavenworth on September 11, assigned six companies of the Second
Dragoons, under Lieutenant Colonel P. St. George Cooke, as an
escort to Governor Cumming, and followed immediately after them.
Major (afterward General) Fitz John Porter, who accompanied
Colonel Johnston as assistant adjutant general, describing the
situation in later years, said:--

"So late in the season had the troops started on this march that
fears were entertained that, if they succeeded in reaching their
destination, it would be only by abandoning the greater part of
their supplies, and endangering the lives of many men amid the
snows of the Rocky Mountains. So much was a terrible disaster
feared by those acquainted with the rigors of a winter life in
the Rocky Mountains, that General Harney was said to have
predicted it, and to have induced Walker [of Kansas] to ask his
retention."

Meanwhile, the Mormons had received word of what was coming. When
A. O. Smoot reached a point one hundred miles west of
Independence, with the mail for Salt Lake City, he met heavy
freight teams which excited his suspicion, and at Kansas City
obtained sufficient particulars of the federal expedition.
Returning to Fort Laramie, he and O. P. Rockwell started on July
18, in a light wagon drawn by two fast horses, to carry the news
to Brigham Young. They made the 513 miles in five days and three
hours, arriving on the evening of July 23. Undoubtedly they gave
Young this important information immediately. But Young kept it
to himself that night. On the following day occurred the annual
celebration of the arrival of the pioneers in the valley. To the
big gathering of Saints at Big Cottonwood Lake, twenty- four
miles from the city, Young dramatically announced the news of the
coming "invasion." His position was characteristically defiant.
He declared that "he would ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the
devil," and predicted that he would be President of the United
States in twelve years, or would dictate the successful
candidate. Recalling his declaration ten years earlier that,
after ten years of peace, they would ask no odds of the United
States, he declared that that time had passed, and that
thenceforth they would be a free and independent state--the State
of Deseret.

The followers of Young eagerly joined in his defiance of the
government, and in the succeeding weeks the discourses and the
editorials of the Deseret News breathed forth dire threats
against the advancing foe. Thus, the News of August 12 told the
Washington authorities, "If you intend to continue the
appointment of certain officers,"--that is, if you do not intend
to surrender to the church federal jurisdiction in Utah--"we
respectfully suggest that you appoint actually intelligent and
honorable men, who will wisely attend to their own duties, and
send them unaccompanied by troops"--that is, judges who would
acknowledge the supremacy of the Mormon courts, or who, if not,
would have no force to sustain them. This was followed by a
threat that if any other kind of men were sent "they will really
need a far larger bodyguard than twenty-five hundred soldiers."*
The government was, in another editorial, called on to "entirely
clear the track, and accord us the privilege of carrying our own
mails at our own expense," and was accused of "high handedly
taking away our rights and privileges, one by one, under pretext
that the most devilish should blush at."

* An Englishman, in a letter to the New York Observer, dated
London, May 26, 1857, said, "The English Mormons make no secret
of their expectation that a collision will take place with the
American authorities," and he quoted from a Mormon preacher's
words as follows: "As to a collision with the American
Government, there cannot be two opinions on the matter. We shall
have judges, governors, senators and dragoons invading us,
imprisoning and murdering us; but we are prepared, and are
preparing judges, governors, senators and dragoons who will know
how to dispose of their friends. The little stone will come into
collision with the iron and clay and grind them to powder. It
will be in Utah as it was in Nauvoo, with this difference, we are
prepared now for offensive or defensive war; we were not then."
Young in the pulpit was in his element. One example of his
declarations must suffice:--

"I am not going to permit troops here for the protection of the
priests and the rabble in their efforts to drive us from the land
we possess.... You might as well tell me that you can make hell
into a powder house as to tell me that they intend to keep an
army here and have peace.... I have told you that if there is any
man or woman who is not willing to destroy everything of their
property that would be of use to an enemy if left, I would advise
them to leave the territory, and I again say so to-day; for when
the time comes to burn and lay waste our improvements, if any man
undertakes to shield his, he will be treated as a traitor; for
judgment will be laid to the line and righteousness to the
plummet."*

* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 160.

The official papers of Governor Young are perhaps the best
illustrations of the spirit with which the federal authorities
had to deal.

Words, however, were not the only weapons which the Mormons
employed against the government at the start. Daniel H. Wells,
"Lieutenant General" and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, which
organization had been kept up in Utah, issued, on August 1, a
despatch to each of twelve commanding officers of the Legion in
the different settlements in the territory, declaring that "when
anarchy takes the place of orderly government, and mobocratic
tyranny usurps the powers of the rulers, they [the people of the
territory] have left the inalienable right to defend themselves
against all aggression upon their constitutional privileges"; and
directing them to hold their commands ready to march to any part
of the territory, with ammunition, wagons, and clothing for a
winter campaign. In the Legion were enrolled all the able-bodied
males between eighteen and forty-five years, under command of a
lieutenant general, four generals, eleven colonels, and six
majors.

The first mobilization of this force took place on August 15,
when a company was sent eastward over the usual route to aid
incoming immigrants and learn the strength of the federal force.
By the employment of similar scouts the Mormons were thus kept
informed of every step of the army's advance. A scouting party
camped within half a mile of the foremost company near Devil's
Gate on September 22, and did not lose sight of it again until it
went into camp at Harris's Fort, where supplies had been
forwarded in advance.

Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of General Harney's staff, was sent
ahead of the troops, leaving Fort Leavenworth on July 28, to
visit Salt Lake City, ascertain the disposition of the church
authorities and the people toward the government, and obtain any
other information that would be of use. Arriving in Salt Lake
City in thirty three and a half days, he was received with
affability by Young, and there was a frank interchange of views
between them. Young recited the past trials of the Mormons
farther east, and said that "therefore he and the people of Utah
had determined to resist all persecution at the commencement, and
that the TROOPS NOW ON THE MARCH FOR UTAH SHOULD NOT ENTER THE
GREAT SALT LAKE VALLEY. As he uttered these words, all those
present concurred most heartily."* Young said they had an
abundance of everything required by the federal troops, but that
nothing would be sold to the government. When told that, even if
they did succeed in preventing the present military force from
entering the valley the coming winter, they would have to yield
to a larger force the following year, the reply was that that
larger force would find Utah a desert; they would burn every
house, cut down every tree, lay waste every field. "We have three
years' provisions on hand," Young added, "which we will cache,
and then take to the mountains and bid defiance to all the powers
of the government."

* The quotations are from Captain Van Vliet's official report in
House Ex. Doc. No. 71, previously referred to. Tullidge's
"History of Salt Lake City" (p. 16l) gives extracts from Apostle
Woodruff's private journal of notes on the interview between
Young and Captain Van Vliet, on September 12 and 13, in which
Young is reported as saying: "We do not want to fight the United
States, but if they drive us to it we shall do the best we can.
God will overthrow them. We are the supporters of the
constitution of the United States. If they dare to force the
issue, I shall not hold the Indians by the wrist any longer for
white men to shoot at them; they shall go ahead and do as they
please."

When Young called for a vote on that proposition by an audience
of four thousand persons in the Tabernacle, every hand was raised
to vote yes. Captain Van Vliet summed up his view of the
situation thus: that it would not be difficult for the Mormons to
prevent the entrance of the approaching force that season; that
they would not resort to actual hostilities until the last
moment, but would burn the grass, stampede the animals, and cause
delay in every manner.

The day after Captain Van Vliet left Salt Lake City, Governor
Young gave official expression to his defiance of the federal
government by issuing the following proclamation:--

"Citizens of Utah: We are invaded by a hostile force, who are
evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and
destruction.

"For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the
government, from constables and justices to judges, governors,
and Presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted,
and betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and then burned, our
fields laid waste, our principal men butchered, while under the
pledged faith of the government for their safety, and our
families driven from their homes to find that shelter in the
barren wilderness and that protection among hostile savages,
which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christianity and
civilization.

"The constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all
that we do now or have ever claimed. If the constitutional rights
which pertain unto us as American citizens were extended to Utah,
according to the spirit and meaning thereof, and fairly and
impartially administered, it is all that we can ask, all that we
have ever asked.

"Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing
against us, because of our religious faith, to send out a
formidable host to accomplish our destruction. We have had no
privilege or opportunity of defending ourselves from the false,
foul, and unjust aspersions against us before the nation. The
government has not condescended to cause an investigating
committee, or other persons, to be sent to inquire into and
ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases. We know those
aspersions to be false; but that avails us nothing. We are
condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary
mob, which has been sent against us at the instigation of
anonymous letter writers, ashamed to father the base, slanderous
falsehoods which they have given to the public; of corrupt
officials, who have brought false accusations against us to
screen themselves in their own infamy; and of hireling priests
and howling editors, who prostitute the truth for filthy lucre's
sake.

"The issue which has thus been forced upon us compels us to
resort to the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in
our own defence, a right guaranteed to us by the genius of the
institutions of our country, and upon which the government is
based. Our duty to ourselves, to our families, requires us not to
tamely submit to be driven and slain, without an attempt to
preserve ourselves; our duty to our country, our holy religion,
our God, to freedom and liberty, requires that we should not
quietly stand still and see those fetters forging around us which
were calculated to enslave and bring us in subjection to an
unlawful, military despotism, such as can only emanate, in a
country of constitutional law, from usurpation, tyranny, and
oppression.

"Therefore, I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the
people of the United States in the Territory of Utah, forbid:

"First. All armed forces of every description from coming into
this Territory, under any pretence whatever.

"Second. That all forces in said Territory hold themselves in
readiness to march at a moment's notice to repel any and all such
invasion.

"Third. Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory
from and after the publication of this proclamation, and no
person shall be allowed to pass or repass into or through or from
this Territory without a permit from the proper officer.

"Given under my hand and seal, at Great Salt Lake City, Territory
of Utah, this 15th day of September, A.D. 1857, and of the
independence of the United States of America the eighty-second.

"BRIGHAM YOUNG."

The advancing troops received from Captain Van Vliet as he passed
eastward their first information concerning the attitude of the
Mormons toward them, and Colonel Alexander, in command of the
foremost companies, accepted his opinion that the Mormons would
not attack them if the army did not advance beyond Fort Bridger
or Fort Supply, this idea being strengthened by the fact that one
hundred wagon loads of stores, undefended, had remained
unmolested on Ham's Fork for three weeks. The first division of
the federal troops marched across Greene River on September 27,
and hurried on thirty five miles to what was named Camp Winfield,
on Ham's Fork, a confluent of Black Fork, which emptied into
Greene River. Phelps's and Reno's batteries and the Fifth
Infantry reached there about the same time, but there was no
cavalry, the kind of force most needed, because of the detention
of the Dragoons in Kansas.