The Story of the Mormons:

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On September 30 General Wells forwarded to Colonel Alexander,
from Fort Bridger, Brigham Young's proclamation of September 15,
a copy of the laws of Utah, and the following letter addressed to
"the officer commanding the forces now invading Utah Territory":

"GOVERNOR'S OFFICE, UTAH TERRITORY,

GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, September 29, 1857.

"Sir: By reference to the act of Congress passed September 9,
1850, organizing the Territory of Utah, published in a copy of
the laws of Utah, herewith forwarded, pp. 146-147, you will find
the following:--

'Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, that the executive power and
authority in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a
Governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his
successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed
by the President of the United States. The Governor shall reside
within said Territory, shall be Commander-in-chief of the militia
thereof', etc., etc.

"I am still the Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for
this Territory, no successor having been appointed and qualified,
as provided by law; nor have I been removed by the President of
the United States.

"By virtue of the authority thus vested in me, I have issued, and
forwarded you a copy of, my proclamation forbidding the entrance
of armed forces into this Territory. This you have disregarded. I
now further direct that you retire forthwith from the Territory,
by the same route you entered. Should you deem this
impracticable, and prefer to remain until spring in the vicinity
of your present encampment, Black's Fork or Greene River, you can
do so in peace and unmolested, on condition that you deposit your
arms and ammunition with Lewis Robinson, Quartermaster General of
the Territory, and leave in the spring, as soon as the condition
of the roads will permit you to march; and, should you fall short
of provisions, they can be furnished you, upon making the proper
applications therefor. General D. H. Wells will forward this, and
receive any communications you may have to make.

Very respectfully,

"BRIGHAM YOUNG,

"Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Utah Territory."

General Wells's communication added to this impudent announcement
the declaration, "It may be proper to add that I am here to aid
in carrying out the instructions of Governor Young."

On October 2 Colonel Alexander, in a note to Governor Young,
acknowledged the receipt of his enclosures, said that he would
submit Young's letter to the general commanding as soon as he
arrived, and added, "In the meantime I have only to say that
these troops are here by the orders of the President of the
United States, and their future movements and operations will
depend entirely upon orders issued by competent military
authority."

Two Mormon officers, General Robinson and Major Lot Smith, had
been sent to deliver Young's letter and proclamation to the
federal officer in command, but they did not deem it prudent to
perform this office in person, sending a Mexican with them into
Colonel Alexander's camp.* In the same way they received Colonel
Alexander's reply.

* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 171.

The Mormon plan of campaign was already mapped out, and it was
thus stated in an order of their commanding general, D. H. Wells,
a copy of which was found on a Mormon major, Joseph Taylor, to
whom it was addressed:--

"You will proceed, with all possible despatch, without injuring
your animals, to the Oregon road, near the bend of Bear River,
north by east of this place. Take close and correct observations
of the country on your route. When you approach the road, send
scouts ahead to ascertain if the invading troops have passed that
way. Should they have passed, take a concealed route and get
ahead of them, express to Colonel Benton, who is now on that road
and in the vicinity of the troops, and effect a junction with
him, so as to operate in concert. On ascertaining the locality or
route of the troops, proceed at once to annoy them in every
possible way. Use every exertion to stampede their animals and
set fire to their trains. Burn the whole country before them and
on their flanks. Keep them from sleeping by night surprises;
blockade the road by felling trees or destroying river fords,
where you can. Watch for opportunities to set fire to the grass
on their windward, so as if possible to envelop their trains.
Leave no grass before them that can be burned. Keep your men
concealed as much as possible, and guard against surprise. Keep
scouts out at all times, and communications open with Colonel
Benton, Major McAllster and O. P. Rockwell, who are operating in
the same way. Keep me advised daily of your movements, and every
step the troops take, and in which direction.

"God bless you and give you success. Your brother in Christ."

The first man selected to carry out this order was Major Lot
Smith. Setting out at 4 P.M., on October 3, with forty-four men,
after an all night's ride, he came up with a federal supply train
drawn by oxen. The captain of this train was ordered to "go the
other way till he reached the States." As he persistently
retraced his steps as often as the Mormons moved away, the latter
relieved his wagons of their load and left him. Sending one of
his captains with twenty men to capture or stampede the mules of
the Tenth Regiment, Smith, with the remainder of his force,
started for Sandy Fork to intercept army trains.

Scouts sent ahead to investigate a distant cloud of dust reported
that it was made by a freight train of twenty-six wagons. Smith
allowed this train to proceed until dark, and then approached it
undiscovered. Finding the drivers drunk, as he afterward
explained, and fearing that they would be belligerent and thus
compel him to disobey his instruction "not to hurt any one except
in self-defence," he lay concealed until after midnight. His
scouts meanwhile had reported to him that the train was drawn up
for the night in two lines.

Allowing the usual number of men to each wagon, Smith decided
that his force of twenty-four was sufficient to capture the
outfit, and, mounting his command, he ordered an advance on the
camp. But a surprise was in store for him. His scouts had failed
to discover that a second train had joined the first, and that
twice the force anticipated confronted them. When this discovery
was made, the Mormons were too close to escape observation.
Members of Smith's party expected that their leader would now
make some casual inquiry and then ride on, as if his destination
were elsewhere. Smith, however, decided differently. As his force
approached the camp-fire that was burning close to the wagons, he
noticed that the rear of his column was not distinguishable in
the darkness, and that thus the smallness of their number could
not be immediately discovered. He, therefore, asked at once for
the captain of the train, and one Dawson stepped forward. Smith
directed him to have his men collect their private property at
once, as he intended to "put a little fire" into the wagons. "For
God's sake, don't burn the trains," was the reply. Dawson was
curtly told where his men were to stack their arms, and where
they were themselves to stand under guard. Then, making a torch,
Smith ordered one of the government drivers to apply it, in order
that "the Gentiles might spoil the Gentiles," as he afterward
expressed it. The destruction of the supplies was complete. Smith
allowed an Indian to take two wagon covers for a lodge, and some
flour and soap, and compelled Dawson to get out some provisions
for his own men. Nothing else was spared.

The official list of rations thus destroyed included 2720 pounds
of ham, 92,700 of bacon, 167,900 of flour, 8910 of coffee, 1400
of sugar, 1333 of soap, 800 of sperm candles, 765 of tea, 7781 of
hard bread, and 68,832 rations of desiccated vegetables. Another
train was destroyed by the same party the next day on the Big
Sandy, besides a few sutlers' wagons that were straggling behind.

On October 5 Colonel Alexander assumed command of all the troops
in the camp. He found his position a trying one. In a report
dated October 8, he said that his forage would last only fourteen
days, that no information of the position or intentions of the
commanding officer had reached him, and that, strange as it may
appear, he was "in utter ignorance of the objects of the
government in sending troops here, or the instructions given for
their conduct after reaching here." In these circumstances, he
called a council of his officers and decided to advance without
waiting for Colonel Johnston and the other companies, as he
believed that delay would endanger the entire force. He selected
as his route to a wintering place, not the most direct one to
Salt Lake City, inasmuch as the canons could be easily defended,
but one twice as long (three hundred miles), by way of Soda
Springs, and thence either down Bear River Valley or northeast
toward the Wind River Mountains, according to the resistance he
might encounter.

The march, in accordance with this decision, began on October 11,
and a weary and profitless one it proved to be. Snow was falling
as the column moved, and the ground was covered with it during
their advance. There was no trail, and a road had to be cut
through the greasewood and sage brush. The progress was so slow--
often only three miles a day--and the supply train so long, that
camp would sometimes be pitched for the night before the rear
wagons would be under way. Wells's men continued to carry out his
orders, and, in the absence of federal cavalry, with little
opposition. One day eight hundred oxen were "cut out" and driven
toward Salt Lake City.

Conditions like these destroyed the morale of both officers and
men, and there were divided counsels among the former, and
complaints among the latter. Finally, after having made only
thirty-five miles in nine days, Colonel Alexander himself became
discouraged, called another council, and, in obedience to its
decision, on October 19 directed his force to retrace their
steps. They moved back in three columns, and on November 2 all of
them had reached a camp on Black's Fork, two miles above Fort
Bridger.

Colonel Johnston had arrived at Fort Laramie on October 5, and,
after a talk with Captain Van Vliet, had retained two additional
companies of infantry that were on the way to Fort Leavenworth.
As he proceeded, rumors of the burning of trains, exaggerated as
is usual in such times, reached him. Having only about three
hundred men to guard a wagon train six miles in length, some of
the drivers showed signs of panic, and the colonel deemed the
situation so serious that he accepted an offer of fifty or sixty
volunteers from the force of the superintendent of the South Pass
wagon road. He was fortunate in having as his guide the well
known James Bridger, to whose knowledge of Rocky Mountain weather
signs they owed escapes from much discomfort, by making camps in
time to avoid coming storms.

But even in camp a winter snowstorm is serious to a moving
column, especially when it deprives the animals of their forage,
as it did now. The forage supply was almost exhausted when South
Pass was reached, and the draught and beef cattle were in a sad
plight. Then came another big snowstorm and a temperature of l6°,
during which eleven mules and a number of oxen were frozen to
death. In this condition of affairs, Colonel Johnston decided
that a winter advance into Salt Lake Valley was impracticable.
Learning of Colonel Alexander's move, which he did not approve,
he sent word for him to join forces with his own command on
Black's Fork, and there the commanding officer arrived on
November 3.

Lieutenant Colonel Cooke, of the Second Dragoons, with whom
Governor Cumming was making the trip, had a harrowing experience.
There was much confusion in organizing his regiment of six
companies at Fort Leavenworth, and he did not begin his march
until September 17, with a miserable lot of mules and
insufficient supplies. He found little grass for the animals, and
after crossing the South Platte on October 15, they began to die
or to drop out. From that point snow and sleet storms were
encountered, and, when Fort Laramie was reached, so many of the
animals had been left behind or were unable to travel, that some
of his men were dismounted, the baggage supply was reduced, and
even the ambulances were used to carry grain. After passing
Devil's Gate, they encountered a snowstorm on November 5. The
best shelter their guide could find was a lofty natural wall at a
point known as Three Crossings. Describing their night there he
says: "Only a part of the regiment could huddle behind the rock
in the deep snow; whilst, the long night through, the storm
continued, and in fearful eddies from above, before, behind,
drove the falling and drifting snow. Thus exposed, for the hope
of grass the poor animals were driven, with great devotion, by
the men once more across the stream and three-quarters of a mile
beyond, to the base of a granite ridge, which almost faced the
storm. There the famished mules, crying piteously, did not seek
to eat, but desperately gathered in a mass, and some horses,
escaping guard, went back to the ford, where the lofty precipice
first gave us so pleasant relief and shelter."

The march westward was continued through deep snow and against a
cold wind. On November 8 twenty-three mules had given out, and
five wagons had to be abandoned. On the night of the 9th, when
the mules were tied to the wagons, "they gnawed and destroyed
four wagon tongues, a number of wagon covers, ate their ropes,
and getting loose, ate the sage fuel collected at the tents." On
November 10 nine horses were left dying on the road, and the
thermometer was estimated to have marked twenty-five degrees
below zero. Their thermometers were all broken, but the freezing
of a bottle of sherry in a trunk gave them a basis of
calculation.

The command reached a camp three miles below Fort Bridger on
November 19. Of one hundred and forty-four horses with which they
started, only ten reached that camp.

CHAPTER XIII. THE MORMON PURPOSE

When Colonel Johnston arrived at the Black's Fork camp the
information he received from Colonel Alexander, and certain
correspondence with the Mormon authorities, gave him a
comprehensive view of the situation; and on November 5 he
forwarded a report to army headquarters in the East, declaring
that it was the matured design of the Mormons "to hold and occupy
this territory independent of and irrespective of the authority
of the United States," entertaining "the insane design of
establishing a form of government thoroughly despotic, and
utterly repugnant to our institutions."

The correspondence referred to began with a letter from Brigham
Young to Colonel Alexander, dated October 14. Opening with a
declaration of Young's patriotism, and the brazen assertion that
the people of Utah "had never resisted even the wish of the
President of the United States, nor treated with indignity a
single individual coming to the territory under his authority,"
he went on to say:--

"But when the President of the United States so far degrades his
high position, and prostitutes the highest gift of the people, as
to make use of the military power (only intended for the
protection of the people's rights) to crush the people's
liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to
self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and
expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to
need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we
should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor,
integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed
tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of
the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against the
rights, liberties, and lives of our forefathers."

He then appealed to Colonel Alexander, as probably "the unwilling
agent" of the administration, to return East with his force,
saying, "I have yet to learn that United States officers are
implicitly bound to obey the dictum of a despotic President, in
violating the most sacred constitutional rights of American
citizens."

On October 18 Colonel Alexander, acknowledging the receipt of
Young's letter, said in his reply that no one connected with his
force had any wish to interfere in any way with the religion of
the people of Utah, adding: "I repeat my earnest desire to avoid
violence and bloodshed, and it will require positive resistance
to force me to it. But my troops have the same right of self-
defence that you claim, and it rests entirely with you whether
they are driven to the exercise of it."

Finding that he could not cajole the federal officer, Young threw
off all disguise, and in reply to an earlier letter of Colonel
Alexander, he gave free play to his vituperative powers. After
going over the old Mormon complaints, and declaring that "both we
and the Kingdom of God will be free from all hellish oppressors,
the Lord being our helper," he wrote at great length in the
following tone:--

"If you persist in your attempt to permanently locate an army in
this Territory, contrary to the wishes and constitutional rights
of the people therein, and with a view to aid the administration
in their unhallowed efforts to palm their corrupt officials upon
us, and to protect them and blacklegs, black-hearted scoundrels,
whoremasters, and murderers, as was the sole intention in sending
you and your troops here, you will have to meet a mode of warfare
against which your tactics furnish you no information....

"If George Washington was now living, and at the helm of our
government, he would hang the administration as high as he did
Andre, and that, too, with a far better grace and to a much
greater subserving the best interests of our country....

"By virtue of my office as Governor of the Territory of Utah, I
command you to marshal your troops and leave this territory, for
it can be of no possible benefit to you to wickedly waste
treasures and blood in prosecuting your course upon the side of a
rebellion against the general government by its
administrators.... Were you and your fellow officers as well
acquainted with your soldiers as I am with mine, and did they
understand the work they were now engaged in as well as you may
understand it, you must know that many of them would immediately
revolt from all connection with so ungodly, illegal,
unconstitutional and hellish a crusade against an innocent
people, and if their blood is shed it shall rest upon the heads
of their commanders. With us it is the Kingdom of God or
nothing."

To this Colonel Alexander replied, on the 19th, that no citizen
of Utah would be harmed through the instrumentality of the army
in the performance of its duties without molestation, and that,
as Young's order to leave the territory was illegal and beyond
his authority, it would not be obeyed.

John Taylor, on October 21, added to this correspondence a letter
to Captain Marcy, in which he ascribed to party necessity the
necessity of something with which to meet the declaration of the
Republicans against polygamy--the order of the President that
troops should accompany the new governor to Utah; declared that
the religion of the Mormons was "a right guaranteed to us by the
constitution"; and reiterated their purpose, if driven to it, "to
burn every house, tree, shrub, rail, every patch of grass and
stack of straw and hay, and flee to the mountains." "How a large
army would fare without resources," he added, "you can picture to
yourself."*

* Text of this letter in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th
Congress, and Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City."

The Mormon authorities meant just what they said from the start.
Young was as determined to be the head of the civil government of
the territory as he was to be the head of the church. He had
founded a practical dictatorship, with power over life and
property, and had discovered that such a dictatorship was
necessary to the regulation of the flock that he had gathered
around him and to the schemes that he had in mind. To permit a
federal governor to take charge of the territory, backed up by
troops who would sustain him in his authority, meant an end to
Young's absolute rule. Rather than submit to this, he stood ready
to make the experiment of fighting the government force,
separated as that force was from its Eastern base of supplies; to
lay waste the Mormon settlements, if it became necessary to use
this method of causing a federal retreat by starvation; and, if
this failed, to withdraw his flock to some new Zion farther
south.

In accordance with this view, as soon as news of the approach of
the troops reached Salt Lake Valley, all the church industries
stopped; war supplies weapons and clothing were manufactured and
accumulated; all the elders in Europe were ordered home, and the
outlying colonies in Carson Valley and in southern California
were directed to hasten to Salt Lake City. A correspondent of the
San Francisco Bulletin at San Bernardino, California, reported
that in the last six months the Mormons there had sent four or
five tons of gunpowder and many weapons to Utah, and that, when
the order to "gather" at the Mormon metropolis came, they
sacrificed everything to obey it, selling real estate at a
reduction of from 20 to 50 per cent, and furniture for any price
that it would bring. The same sacrifices were made in Carson
Valley, where 150 wagons were required to accommodate the movers.
In Salt Lake City the people were kept wrought up to the highest
pitch by the teachings of their leaders. Thus, Amasa W. Lyman
told them, on October 8, that they would not be driven away,
because "the time has come when the Kingdom of God should be
built up."* Young told them the same day, "If we will stand up as
men and women of God, the yoke shall never be placed upon our
necks again, and all hell cannot overthrow us, even with the
United States troops to help them."** Kimball told the people in
the Tabernacle, on October 18: "They [the United States] will
have to make peace with us, and we never again shall make peace
with them. If they come here, they have got to give up their
arms." Describing his plan of campaign, at the same service,
after the reading of the correspondence between Young and Colonel
Alexander, Young said: "Do you want to know what is going to be
done with the enemies now on our border? As soon as they start to
come into our settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes and
slumber from their eyelids until they sleep in death. Men shall
be secreted here and there, and shall waste away our enemies in
the name of Israel's God."***

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. V, p. 319.

** Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332

*** Ibid., Vol. V, p. 338.

Young was equally explicit in telling members of his own flock
what they might expect if they tried to depart at that time. In a
discourse in the Tabernacle, on October 25, he said:--

"If any man or woman in Utah wants to leave this community, come
to me and I will treat you kindly, as I always have, and will
assist you to leave; but after you have left our settlements you
must not then depend upon me any longer, nor upon the God I
serve. You must meet the doom you have labored for.... After this
season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never
again say to a man, 'Stay your rifle ball,' when our enemies
assail us, but shall say, 'Slay them where you find them."'*

* Ibid, Vol. V, p. 352.

Kimball, on November 8, spoke with equal plainness on this
subject:--

"When it is necessary that blood should be shed, we should be as
ready to do that as to eat an apple. That is my religion, and I
feel that our platter is pretty near clean of some things, and we
calculate to keep it clean from this time henceforth and forever
.... And if men and women will not live their religion, but take
a course to pervert the hearts of the righteous, we will 'lay
judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet,' and we
will let you know that the earth can swallow you up as did Koran
with his hosts; and, as Brother Taylor says, you may dig your
graves, and we will slay you and you may crawl into them."*

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, p. 34.

The Mormon songs of the day breathed the same spirit of defiance
to the United States authorities. A popular one at the Tabernacle
services began:--

"Old Uncle Sam has sent, I understand,
Du dah,
A Missouri ass to rule our land,
Du dah! Du dah day.
But if he comes we'll have some fun,
Du dah,
To see him and his juries run,
Du dah! Du dah day.

Chorus: Then let us be on hand,
By Brigham Young to stand,
And if our enemies do appear,
We'll sweep them from the land."

Another still more popular song, called "Zion," contained these
words:--

"Here our voices we'll raise, and will sing to thy praise,
Sacred home of the Prophets of God;
Thy deliverance is nigh, thy oppressors shall die,
And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod."