In UtahA State Of Civil WarAfter Smith's Death - Rigdon's Last Days After The War Attitude Of The Mormons During The Southern Rebellion Beginning Of Active Hostilities Blood Atonement Brigham Young Brigham Young's Death - His Character Brigham Young's Despotism Colonel Kane's Mission Early Political History Eastern Visitors To Salt Lake City - Unpunished Murderers Even More On The History Of Mormonism Even More On The Religious Puzzle Facility Of Human Belief First Announcement Of The Golden Bible From The Mississippi To The Missouri From The Rockies To Salt Lake Valley Fruitless Negotiations With The Jackson County People Gentile Irruption And Mormon Schism Gifts Of Tongues And Miracles Growth Of The Church History Of Mormonism How Joseph Smith Became A Money-digger In Clay Caldwell And Daviess Counties Introductory Remarks Last Days At Kirtland More On Mormonism Social Puzzle More On The History Of Mormonism More On The Religious Puzzle Mormon Treatment Of Federal Officers Mormonism The Political Puzzle Nauvoo After The Exodus Notes On The History Of Mormonism Organization Of The Church Preparations For The Long March Progress Of The Settlement Public Announcement Of The Doctrine Of Polygamy Radical Dissensions In The Church - Origin Of The Danites - Tithing Renewed Trouble For The Mormons - The Burnings Rivalries Over The Succession Sidney Rigdon Smith A Candidate For President Of The United States Smith's Falling Out With Bennett And Higbee Smith's First Visits To Missouri Founding The City And The Temple Smith's Ohio Business Enterprises Smith's Picture Of Himself As Autocrat Social Aspects Of Polygamy Social Conditions In Nauvoo Some Church-inspired Murders The Building Up Of The City - Foreign Proselyting The Camps On The Missouri The Different Accounts Of The Revelation Of The Bible The Directions To The Saints About Their Zion The Evacuation Of Nauvoo - The Last Mormon War The Everlasting Gospel The Expulsion From Jackson County The Army Of Zion The Expulsion Of The Mormons The Fight Against Polygamy - Statehood The Final Expulsion From The State The First Converts At Kirtland The Following Companies - Last Days On The Missouri The Foreign Immigration To Utah The Founding Of Salt Lake City The Hand-cart Tragedy The Institution Of Polygamy The Last Years Of Brigham Young The Mormon Battalion The Mormon Bible The Mormon Purpose The Mormon War The Mormonism Of To-day The Mormons In Politics - Missouri Requisitions For Smith The Mormons' Beliefs And Doctrines Church Government The Mountain Meadows Massacre The Murder Of The Prophet - His Character The Nauvoo City Government - Temple And Other Buildings The Peace Commission The Pioneer Trip Across The Plains The Political Puzzle The Political Puzzle Continued The Reception Of The Mormons The Reformation The Religious Puzzle The Religious Puzzle Notes The Settlement Of Nauvoo The Smith Family The Social And Society Puzzle The Social Puzzle The Social Puzzle Notes The Spaulding Manuscript The Suppression Of The Expositor The Territorial Government - Judge Brocchus's Experience The Witnesses To The Plates Translation And Publication Of The Bible Uprising Of The Non-mormons Smith's Arrest Wild Vagaries Of The Converts The Story Of The MormonsA State Of Civil WarAfter Smith's Death - Rigdon's Last Days Beginning Of Active Hostilities Brigham Young Facility Of Human Belief First Announcement Of The Golden Bible From The Mississippi To The Missouri From The Rockies To Salt Lake Valley Fruitless Negotiations With The Jackson County People Gifts Of Tongues And Miracles Growth Of The Church How Joseph Smith Became A Money-digger In Clay Caldwell And Daviess Counties Last Days At Kirtland Nauvoo After The Exodus Organization Of The Church Preparations For The Long March Public Announcement Of The Doctrine Of Polygamy Radical Dissensions In The Church - Origin Of The Danites - Tithing Renewed Trouble For The Mormons - The Burnings Rivalries Over The Succession Sidney Rigdon Smith A Candidate For President Of The United States Smith's Falling Out With Bennett And Higbee Smith's First Visits To Missouri Founding The City And The Temple Smith's Ohio Business Enterprises Smith's Picture Of Himself As Autocrat Social Conditions In Nauvoo The Building Up Of The City - Foreign Proselyting The Camps On The Missouri The Different Accounts Of The Revelation Of The Bible The Directions To The Saints About Their Zion The Evacuation Of Nauvoo - The Last Mormon War The Everlasting Gospel The Expulsion From Jackson County The Army Of Zion The Expulsion Of The Mormons The Final Expulsion From The State The First Converts At Kirtland The Institution Of Polygamy The Mormon Battalion The Mormon Bible The Mormons In Politics - Missouri Requisitions For Smith The Mormons' Beliefs And Doctrines Church Government The Murder Of The Prophet - His Character The Nauvoo City Government - Temple And Other Buildings The Pioneer Trip Across The Plains The Reception Of The Mormons The Settlement Of Nauvoo The Smith Family The Spaulding Manuscript The Suppression Of The Expositor The Witnesses To The Plates Translation And Publication Of The Bible Uprising Of The Non-mormons Smith's Arrest Wild Vagaries Of The Converts |
The Mormon PurposeWhen 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." When the Mormons found that the federal forces had gone into winter quarters, the Nauvoo Legion was massed in a camp called Camp Weber, at the mouth of Echo Canon. This canon they fortified with ditches and breastworks, and some dams intended to flood the roadway; but they succeeded in erecting no defences which could not have been easily overcome by a disciplined force. A watch was set day and night, so that no movement of "the invaders" could escape them, and the officer in charge was particularly forbidden to allow any civil officer appointed by the President to pass. This careful arrangement was kept up all winter, but Tullidge says that no spies were necessary, as deserting soldiers and teamsters from the federal camp kept coming into the valley with information. The territorial legislature met in December, and approved Governor Young's course, every member signing a pledge to maintain "the rights and liberties" of the territory. The legislators sent a memorial to Congress, dated January 6, 1858, demanding to be informed why "a hostile course is pursued toward an unoffending people," calling the officers who had fled from the territory liars, declaring that "we shall not again hold still while fetters are being forged to bind us," etc. This offensive document reached Washington in March, and was referred in each House to the Committee on Territories, where it remained. When the federal forces reached Fort Bridger, they found that the Mormons had burned the buildings, and it was decided to locate the winter camp--named Camp Scott--on Black's Fork, two miles above the fort. The governor and other civil officers spent the winter in another camp near by, named "Ecklesville," occupying dugouts, which they covered with an upper story of plastered logs. There was a careful apportionment of rations, but no suffering for lack of food. An incident of the winter was the expedition of Captain Randolph B. Marcy across the Uinta Mountains to New Mexico, with two guides and thirty-five volunteer companions, to secure needed animals. The story of his march is one of the most remarkable on record, the company pressing on, even after Indian guides refused to accompany them to what they said was certain death, living for days only on the meat supplied by half-starved mules, and beating a path through deep snow. This march continued from November 27 to January 10, when, with the loss of only one man, they reached the valley of the Rio del Norte, where supplies were obtained from Fort Massachusetts. Captain Marcy started back on March 17, selecting a course which took him past Long's and Pike's Peaks. He reached Camp Scott on June 8, with about fifteen hundred horses and mules, escorted by five companies of infantry and mounted riflemen. During the winter Governor Cumming sent to Brigham Young a proclamation notifying him of the arrival of the new territorial officers, and assuring the people that he would resort to the military posse only in case of necessity. Judge Eckles held a session of the United States District Court at Camp Scott on December 30, and the grand jury of that court found indictments for treason, resting on Young's proclamation and Wells's instructions, against Young, Kimball, Wells, Taylor, Grant, Locksmith, Rockwell, Hickman, and many others, but of course no arrests were made. Meanwhile, at Washington, preparations were making to sustain the federal authority in Utah as soon as spring opened.* Congress made an appropriation, and authorized the enlistment of two regiments of volunteers; three thousand regular troops and two batteries were ordered to the territory, and General Scott was directed to sail for the Pacific coast with large powers. But General Scott did not sail, the army contracts created a scandal,** and out of all this preparation for active hostilities came peace without the firing of a shot; out of all this open defiance and vilification of the federal administration by the Mormon church came abject surrender by the administration itself. * For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of 1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II. ** Colonel Albert G. Brown, Jr., in his account of the Utah Expedition in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1859, said: "To the shame of the administration these gigantic contracts, involving an amount of more than $6,000,000, were distributed with a view to influence votes in the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the lesser ones, such as those for furnishing mules, dragoon horses, and forage, were granted arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were wavering upon that question. The principal contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies, involving for the year 1858 the amount of $4,500,000, was granted, without advertisement or subdivision, to a firm in Western Missouri, whose members had distinguished themselves in the effort to make Kansas a slave state, and now contributed liberally to defray the election expenses of the Democratic party." Previous: The Mormon War
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