Their destination could not have been determined in advance, because so little was known of the Far West. The territory now embraced in the boundaries of California and Utah was then under Mexican government, and "California" was, in common use, a name covering the Pacific coast and a stretch of land extending indefinitely eastward. Oregon had been heard of a good deal, and it, as well as Vancouver Island, had been spoken of as a possible goal if a westward migration became necessary. Lorenzo Snow, in describing the westward start, said: "On the first of March, the ground covered with snow, we broke encampment about noon, and soon nearly four hundred wagons were moving to—WE KNEW NOT WHERE." *
The first step taken by the Mormon authorities to explain the removal to their people was an explanation made at a conference in the new Temple, three days after the correspondence with the commission closed. P. P. Pratt stated to the conference that the removal meant that the Lord designed to lead them to a wider field of action, where no one could say that they crowded their neighbors. In such a place they could, in five years, become richer than they then were, and could build a bigger and a better Temple. "It has cost us," said he, "more for sickness, defence against mob exactions, persecutions, and to purchase lands in this place, than as much improvement will cost in another." It was then voted unanimously that the Saints would move en masse to the West, and that every man would give all the help he could to assist the poorer members of the community in making the journey.*
Brigham Young next issued an address to the church at large, stating that even the Mormon Bible had foretold what might be the conduct of the American nation toward "the Israel of the last days," and urging all to prepare to make the journey. A conference of Mormons in New York City on November 12, 1845, attended by brethren from New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut, voted that "the church in this city move, one and all, west of the Rocky Mountains between this and next season, either by land or by water."
Active preparations for the removal began in and around Nauvoo at once. All who had property began trading it for articles that would be needed on the journey. Real estate was traded or sold for what it would bring, and the Eagle was full of advertisements of property to sell, including the Mansion House, Masonic Hall, and the Armory. The Mormons would load in wagons what furniture they could not take West with them, and trade it in the neighborhood for things more useful. The church authorities advertised for one thousand yokes of oxen and all the cattle and mules that might be offered, oxen bringing from $40 to $50 a yoke. The necessary outfit for a family of five was calculated to be one wagon, three yokes of cattle, two cows, two beef cattle, three sheep, one thousand pounds of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, a tent and bedding, seeds, farming tools, and a rifle—all estimated to cost about $250. Three or four hundred Mormons were sent to more distant points in Illinois and Iowa for draft animals, and, when the Western procession started, they boasted that they owned the best cattle and horses in the country.
In the city the men were organized into companies, each of which included such workmen as wagonmakers, blacksmiths, and carpenters, and the task of making wagons, tents, etc., was hurried to the utmost. "Nauvoo was constituted into one great wagon shop," wrote John Taylor. If any members of the community were not skilled in the work now in demand, they were sent to St. Louis, Galena, Burlington, or some other of the larger towns, to find profitable employment during the winter, and thus add to the moving fund.
On January 20, 1846, the High Council issued a circular announcing that, early in March, a company of hardy young men, with some families, would be sent into the Western country, with farming utensils and seed, to put in a crop and erect houses for others who would follow as soon as the grass was high enough for pasture.
This circular contained also the following declaration:—
"We venture to say that our brethren have made no counterfeit money; and if any miller has received $1500 base coin in a week from us, let him testify. If any land agent of the general government has received wagon loads of base coin from us in payment for lands, let him say so. Or if he has received any at all, let him tell it. These witnesses against us have spun a long yarn."
This referred to the charges of counterfeiting, which had resulted in the indictment of some of the Twelve at Springfield, and which hastened the first departures across the river. That counterfeiting was common in the Western country at that time is a matter of history, and the Mormons themselves had accused such leading members of their church as Cowdery of being engaged in the business. The persons indicted at Springfield were never tried, so that the question of their guilt cannot be decided. Tullidge's pro-Mormon "Life of Brigham Young" mentions an incident which occurred when the refugees had gone only as far as the Chariton River in Iowa, which both admits that they had counterfeit money among them, and shows the mild view which a Bishop of the church took of the offence of passing it:—"About this time also an attempt was made to pass counterfeit money. It was the case of a young man who bought from a Mr. Cochran a yoke of oxen, a cow and a chain for $50. Bishop Miller wrote to Brigham to excuse the young man, but to help Cochran to restitution. The President was roused to great anger, the Bishop was severely rebuked, and the anathemas of the leader from that time were thundered against thieves and 'bogus men,' and passers of bogus money.... The following is a minute of his diary of a council on the next Sunday, with the twelve bishops and captains: 'I told them I was satisfied the course we were taking would prove to be the salvation, not only of the camp but of the Saints left behind. But there had been things done which were wrong. Some pleaded our sufferings from persecution, and the loss of our homes and property, as a justification for retaliating on our enemies; but such a course tends to destroy the Kingdom of God'."
As soon as the leaders decided to make a start, they sent a petition to the governor of Iowa Territory, explaining their intention to pass through that domain, and asking for his protection during the temporary stay they might make there. No opposition to them seems to have been shown by the Iowans, who on the contrary employed them as laborers, sold them such goods as they could pay for, and invited their musicians to give concerts at the resting points. Lee's experience in Iowa confirmed him, he says, in his previous opinion that much of the Mormons' trouble was due to "wild, ignorant fanatics"; "for," he adds, "only a few years before, these same people were our most bitter enemies, and, when we came again and behaved ourselves, they treated us with the utmost kindness and hospitality."*
How much property the Mormons sacrificed in Illinois cannot be ascertained with accuracy. An investigation of all the testimony obtainable on the subject leads to the conclusion that a good deal of their real estate was disposed of at a fair price, and that there were many cases of severe individual loss. Major Warren, in a communication to the Signal from Nauvoo, in May, 1846, said that few of the Mormons' farms remained unsold, and that three-fourths of the improved property on the flat in Nauvoo had been disposed of.
A correspondent of the Signal, answering on April 11 an assertion that the Mormons had a good deal of real estate to dispose of before they could leave, replied that most of their farms were sold, and that there were more inquiries after the others than there were farms. As to the real estate in the city, he explained:—
"It is scattered over an area of eight or ten square miles, and contains from 1500 to 2000 houses, four-fifths of which, at least, are wretched cabins of no permanent value whatever. There are, however, 200 or 300 houses, large and small, built of brick and other desirable material. Such will mostly sell, though many of them, owing to the distance from the river and other unfavorable circumstances, only at a very great sacrifice." *
A general epistle to the church from the Twelve, dated Winter Quarters, December 23, 1847, stated that the property of the Saints in Hancock County was "little or no better than confiscated." *
The first party to leave Nauvoo began crossing the Mississippi early in February, 1846, using flatboats propelled by oars for the wagons and animals, and small boats for persons and the lighter baggage. It soon became colder and snow fell, and after the 16th those who remained were able to cross on the ice.
Brigham Young, with a few attendants, had crossed on February 10, and selected a point on Sugar Creek as a gathering place.* He seems to have returned secretly to the city for a few days to arrange for the departure of his family, and Lee says that he did not have teams enough at that time for their conveyance, adding, "such as were in danger of being arrested were helped away first." John Taylor says that those who crossed the river in February included the Twelve, the High Council, and about four hundred families.**
"Camp of Israel" was the name adopted for the camp in which President Young and the Twelve might be, and this name moved westward with them. The camp on Sugar Creek was the first of these, and there, on February 17, Young addressed the company from a wagon. He outlined the journey before them, declaring that order would be preserved, and that all who wished to live in peace when the actual march began "must toe the mark," ending with a call for a show of hands by those who wanted to make the move. The vote in favor of going West was unanimous.*
The turning out of doors in midwinter of so many persons of all ages and both sexes, accustomed to the shelter of comfortable homes, entailed much suffering. A covered wagon or a tent is a poor protection from wintry blasts, and a camp fire in the open air, even with a bright sky overhead, is a poor substitute for a stove. Their first move, therefore, gave the emigrants a taste of the trials they were to endure. While they were at Sugar Creek the thermometer dropped to 20 degrees below zero, and heavy falls of snow occurred. Several children were born at this point, before the actual Western journey began, and the sick and the feeble entered upon their sufferings at once. Before that camp broke up it was found necessary, too, to buy grain for the animals.
The camp was directly in charge of the Twelve until the Chariton River was reached. There, on March 27, it was divided into companies containing from 50 to 60 wagons, the companies being put in charge of captains of fifties and captains of tens—suggesting Smith's "Army of Zion." The captains of fifties were responsible directly to the High Council. There were also a commissary general, and, for each fifty, a contracting commissary "to make righteous distribution of grains and provisions." Strict order was maintained by day while the column was in motion, and, whenever there was a halt, special care was taken to secure the cattle and the horses, while at night watches were constantly maintained. The story of the march to the Missouri does not contain a mention of any hostile meeting with Indians.
The company remained on Sugar Creek for about a month, receiving constant accessions from across the river, and on the first of March the real westward movement began. The first objective point was Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River, about 400 miles distant; but on the way several camps were established, at which some of the emigrants stopped to plant seeds and make other arrangements for the comfort of those who were to follow. The first of these camps was located at Richardson's Point in Lee County, Iowa, 55 miles from Nauvoo; the next on Chariton River; the next on Locust Creek; the next, named by them Garden Grove, on a branch of Grand River, some 150 miles from Nauvoo; and another, which P. P. Pratt named Mt. Pisgah, on Grand River, 138 miles east of Council Bluffs. The camp on the Missouri first made was called Winter Quarters, and was situated just north of the present site of Omaha, where the town now called Florence is located. It was not until July that the main body arrived at Council Bluffs.
The story of this march is a remarkable one in many ways. Begun in winter, with the ground soon covered with snow, the travellers encountered arctic weather, with the inconveniences of ice, rain, and mud, until May. After a snowfall they would have to scrape the ground when they had selected a place for pitching the tents. After a rain, or one of the occasional thaws, the country (there were no regular roads) would be practically impassable for teams, and they would have to remain in camp until the water disappeared, and the soil would bear the weight of the wagons after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one time bad roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find wet garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is an extract from Orson Pratt's diary:—"April 9. The rain poured down in torrents. With great exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six miles, while others were stuck fast in the deep mud. We encamped at a point of timber about sunset, after being drenched several hours in rain. We were obliged to cut brush and limbs of trees, and throw them upon the ground in our tents, to keep our beds from sinking in the mud. Our animals were turned loose to look out for themselves; the bark and limbs of trees were their principal food." **
Game was plenty,—deer, wild turkeys, and prairie hens,—but while the members of this party were better supplied with provisions than their followers, there was no surplus among them, and by April many families were really destitute of food. Eliza Snow mentions that her brother Lorenzo—one of the captains of tens—had two wagons, a small tent, a cow, and a scanty supply of provisions and clothing, and that "he was much better off than some of our neighbors." Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, says of the situation of his family, that he had the ague, and his wife was in bed with it, with two children, one a few days old, lying by her, and the oldest child well enough to do any household work was a boy who could scarcely carry a two-quart pail of water. Mrs. F. D. Richards, whose husband was ordered on a mission to England while the camp was at Sugar Creek, was prematurely confined in a wagon on the way to the Missouri. The babe died, as did an older daughter. "Our situation," she says, "was pitiable; I had not suitable food for myself or my child; the severe rain prevented our having any fire."
The adaptability of the American pioneer to his circumstances was shown during this march in many ways. When a halt occurred, a shoemaker might be seen looking for a stone to serve as a lap stone in his repair work, or a gunsmith mending a rifle, or a weaver at a wheel or loom. The women learned that the jolting wagons would churn their milk, and, when a halt occurred, it took them but a short time to heat an oven hollowed out of a hillside, in which to bake the bread already "raised." Colonel Kane says that he saw a piece of cloth, the wool for which was sheared, dyed, spun, and woven during this march.
The leaders of the company understood the people they had in charge, and they looked out for their good spirits. Captain Pitt's brass band was included in the equipment, and the camp was not thoroughly organized before, on a clear evening, a dance—the Mormons have always been great dancers—was announced, and the visiting Iowans looked on in amazement, to see these exiles from comfortable homes thus enjoying themselves on the open prairie, the highest dignitaries leading in Virginia reels and Copenhagen jigs.
John Taylor, whose pictures of this march, painted with a view to attract English emigrants, were always highly colored, estimated that, when he left Council Bluffs for England, in July, 1846, there were in camp and on the way 15,000 Mormons, with 3000 wagons, 30,000 head of cattle, a great many horses and mules, and a vast number of sheep. Colonel Kane says that, besides the wagons, there was "a large number of nondescript turnouts, the motley makeshifts of poverty; from the unsuitable heavy cart that lumbered on mysteriously, with its sick driver hidden under its counterpane cover, to the crazy two-wheeled trundle, such as our own poor employ in the conveyance of their slop barrels, this pulled along, it may be, by a little dry-dugged heifer, and rigged up only to drag some such light weight as a baby, a sack of meal or a pack of clothes and bedding." *
There was no large supply of cash to keep this army and its animals in provisions. Every member who could contribute to the commissary department by his labor was expected to do so. The settlers in the territory seem to have been in need of such assistance, and were very glad to pay for it in grain, hay, or provisions. A letter from one of the emigrants to a friend in England* said that, in every settlement they passed through, they found plenty of work, digging wells and cellars, splitting rails, threshing, ploughing, and clearing land. Some of the men in the spring were sent south into Missouri, not more than forty miles from Far West, in search of employment. This they readily secured, no one raising the least objection to a Mormon who was not to be a permanent settler. Others were sent into that state to exchange horses, feather beds, and other personal property for cows and provisions.
A part of the plan of operations provided for sending out pioneers to select the route and camping sites, to make bridges where they were necessary, and to open roads. The party carried light boats, but a good many bridges seem to have been required because of the spring freshets. It was while resting after a march through prolonged rain and mud, late in April, that it was decided to establish the permanent camp called Garden Grove. Hundreds of men were at once set to work, making log houses and fences, digging wells, and ploughing, and soon hundreds of acres were enclosed and planted.
The progress made during April was exasperatingly slow. There was soft mud during the day, and rough ruts in the early morning. Sometimes camp would be pitched after making only a mile; sometimes they would think they had done well if they had made six. The animals, in fact, were so thin from lack of food that they could not do a day's work even under favorable circumstances. The route, after the middle of April, was turned to the north, and they then travelled over a broken prairie country, where the game had been mostly killed off by the Pottawottomi Indians, whose trails and abandoned camps were encountered constantly.
On May 16, as the two Pratts and others were in advance, locating the route, P. P. Pratt discovered the site of what was called Mt. Pisgah (the post-office of Mt. Pisgah of to-day) which he thus describes: "Riding about three or four miles over beautiful prairies, I came suddenly to some round sloping hills, grassy, and crowned with beautiful groves of timber, while alternate open groves and forests seemed blended into all the beauty and harmony of an English park. Beneath and beyond, on the west, rolled a main branch of Grand River, with its rich bottoms of alternate forest and prairie."* As soon as Young and the other high dignitaries arrived, it was decided to form a settlement there, and several thousand acres were enclosed for cultivation, and many houses were built.
Young and most of the first party continued their westward march through an uninhabited country, where they had to make their own roads. But they met with no opposition from Indians, and the head of the procession reached the banks of the Missouri near Council Bluffs in June, other companies following in quite rapid succession.
The company which was the last to leave Nauvoo (on September 17), driven out by the Hancock County forces, endured sufferings much greater than did the early companies who were conducted by Brigham Young. The latter comprised the well-to-do of the city and all the high officers of the church, while the remnant left behind was made up of the sick and those who had not succeeded in securing the necessary equipment for the journey. Brayman, in his second report to Governor Ford, said:—
"Those of the Mormons who were wealthy or possessed desirable real estate in the city had sold and departed last spring. I am inclined to the opinion that the leaders of the church took with them all the movable wealth of their people that they could control, without making proper provision for those who remained. Consequently there was much destitution among them; much sickness and distress. I traversed the city, and visited in company with a practising physician the sick, and almost invariably found them destitute, to a painful extent, of the comforts of life."*
It was on the 18th of September that the last of these unfortunates crossed the river, making 640 who were then collected on the west bank. Illness had not been accepted by the "posse" as an excuse for delay. Thomas Bullock says that his family, consisting of a husband, wife, blind mother-in-law, four children, and an aunt, "all shaking with the ague," were given twenty minutes in which to get their goods into two wagons and start.* The west bank in Iowa, where the people landed, was marshy and unhealthy, and the suffering at what was called "Poor Camp," a short distance above Montrose, was intense. Severe storms were frequent, and the best cover that some of the people could obtain was a tent made of a blanket or a quilt, or even of brush, or the shelter to be had under the wagons of those who were fortunate enough to be thus equipped. Bullock thus describes one night's experience: "On Monday, September 23, while in my wagon on the slough opposite Nauvoo, a most tremendous thunderstorm passed over, which drenched everything we had. Not a dry thing left us—the bed a pool of water, my wife and mother-in-law lading it out by basinfuls, and I in a burning fever and insensible, with all my hair shorn off to cure me of my disease. A poor woman stood among the bushes, wrapping her cloak around her three little orphan children, to shield them from the storm as well as she could." The supply of food, too, was limited, their flour being wheat ground in hand mills, and even this at times failing; then roasted corn was substituted, the grain being mixed by some with slippery elm bark to eke it out.** The people of Hancock County contributed something in the way of clothing and provisions and a little money in aid of these sufferers, and the trustees of the church who were left in Nauvoo to sell property gave what help they could.
On October 9 wagons sent back by the earlier emigrants for their unfortunate brethren had arrived, and the start for the Missouri began. Bullock relates that, just as they were ready to set out, a great flight of quails settled in the camp, running around the wagons so near that they could be knocked over with sticks, and the children caught some alive. One bird lighted upon their tea board, in the midst of the cups, while they were at breakfast. It was estimated that five hundred of the birds were flying about the camp that day, but when one hundred had been killed or caught, the captain forbade the killing of any more, "as it was a direct manifestation and visitation by the Lord." Young closes his account of this incident with the words, "Tell this to the nations of the earth! Tell it to the kings and nobles and great ones."
Wells, in his manuscript, "Utah Notes" (quoted by H. H. Bancroft), says: "This phenomenon extended some thirty or forty miles along the river, and was generally observed. The quail in immense quantities had attempted to cross the river, but this being beyond their strength, had dropped into the river boats or on the banks."*
The westward march of these refugees was marked by more hardships than that of the earlier bodies, because they were in bad physical condition and were in no sense properly equipped. Council Bluffs was not reached till November 27.
The division of the emigrants and their progress was thus noted in an interview, printed in the Nauvoo Eagle of July 10, with a person who had left Council Bluffs on June 26, coming East. The advance company, including the Twelve, with a train of 1000 wagons, was then encamped on the east bank of the Missouri, the men being busy building boats. The second company, 3000 strong, were at Mt. Pisgah, recruiting their cattle for a new start. The third company had halted at Garden Grove. Between Garden Grove and the Mississippi River the Eagle's informant counted more than 1000 wagons on their way west. He estimated the total number of teams engaged in this movement at about 3700, and the number of persons on the road at 12,000. The Eagle added:—
"From 2000 to 3000 have disappeared from Nauvoo in various directions, and about 800 or less still remain in Illinois. This comprises the entire Mormon population that once flourished in Hancock County. In their palmy days they probably numbered 15,000 or 16,000."
The camp that had been formed at Mt. Pisgah suffered severely from the start. Provisions were scarce, and a number of families were dependent for food on neighbors who had little enough for themselves. Fodder for the cattle gave out, too, and in the early spring the only substitute was buds and twigs of trees. Snow notes as a calamity the death of his milch cow, which had been driven all the way from Ohio. Along with their destitution came sickness, and at times during the following winter it seemed as if there were not enough of the well to supply the needed nurses. So many deaths occurred during that autumn and winter that a funeral came to be conducted with little ceremony, and even the customary burial clothes could not be provided.* Elder W. Huntington, the presiding officer of the settlement, was among the early victims, and Lorenzo Snow, the recent head of the Mormon church, succeeded him. During Snow's stay there three of his four wives gave birth to children.
Notwithstanding these depressing circumstances, the camp was by no means inactive during the winter. Those who were well were kept busy repairing wagons, and making, in a rude way, such household articles as were most needed—chairs, tubs, and baskets. Parties were sent out to the settlements within reach to work, accepting food and clothing as pay, and two elders were selected to visit the states in search of contributions. These efforts were so successful that about $600 was raised, and the camp sent to Brigham Young at Council Bluffs a load of provisions as a New Year's gift.
The usual religious meetings were kept up during the winter, and the utility of amusements in such a settlement was not forgotten. Ingenuity was taxed to give variety to the social entertainments. Snow describes a "party" that he gave in his family mansion—"a one-story edifice about fifteen by thirty feet, constructed of logs, with a dirt roof, a ground floor, and a chimney made of sod." Many a man compelled to house four wives (one of them with three sons by a former husband) in such a mansion would have felt excused from entertaining company. But the Snows did not. For a carpet the floor was strewn with straw. The logs of the sides of the room were concealed with sheets. Hollowed turnips provided candelabras, which were stuck around the walls and suspended from the roof. The company were entertained with songs, recitations, conundrums, etc., and all voted that they had a very jolly time.
In the larger camps the travellers were accustomed to make what they called "boweries"—large arbors covered with a framework of poles, and thatched with brush or branches. The making of such "boweries" was continued by the Saints in Utah.
During the halt of a part of the main body of the Mormons at Mt. Pisgah, an incident occurred which has been made the subject of a good deal of literature, and has been held up by the Mormons as a proof both of the severity of the American government toward them and of their own patriotism. There is so little ground for either of these claims that the story of the Battalion should be correctly told.
When hostilities against Mexico began, early in 1846, the plan of campaign designed by the United States authorities comprised an invasion of Mexico at two points, by Generals Taylor and Wool, and a descent on Santa Fe, and thence a march into California. This march was to be made by General Stephen F. Kearney, who was to command the volunteers raised in Missouri, and the few hundred regular troops then at Fort Leavenworth. In gathering his force General (then Colonel) Kearney sent Captain J. Allen of the First Dragoons to the Mormons at Mt. Pisgah, not with an order of any kind, but with a written proposition, dated June 26, 1846, that he "would accept the service, for twelve months, of four or five companies of Mormon men" (each numbering from 73 to 109), to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and march thence to California, where they would be discharged. These volunteers were to have the regular volunteers' pay and allowances, and permission to retain at their discharge the arms and equipments with which they would be provided, the age limit to be between eighteen and forty-five years. The most practical inducement held out to the Mormons to enlist was thus explained: "Thus is offered to the Mormon people now—this year—an opportunity of sending a portion of their young and intelligent men to the ultimate destination of their whole people, and entirely at the expense of the United States; and this advance party can thus pave the way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them."
There was nothing like a "demand" on the Mormons in this invitation, and the advantage of accepting it was largely on the Mormon side. If it had not been, it would have been rejected. That the government was in no stress for volunteers is shown by the fact that General Kearney reported to the War Department in the following August that he had more troops than he needed, and that he proposed to use some of them to reenforce General Wool.*
The initial suggestion about the raising of these Mormon volunteers came from a Mormon source.* In the spring of 1846 Jesse C. Little, a Mormon elder of the Eastern states, visited Washington with letters of introduction from Governor Steele of New Hampshire and Colonel Thomas L. Kane of Philadelphia, hoping to secure from the government a contract to carry provisions or naval stores to the Pacific coast, and thus pay part of the expense of conveying Mormons to California by water. According to Little, this matter was laid before the cabinet, who proposed that he should visit the Mormon camp and raise 1000 picked men to make a dash for California overland, while as many more would be sent around Cape Horn from the Eastern states. This big scheme, according to Mormon accounts, was upset by one of the hated Missourians, Senator Thomas H. Benton, whose Macchiavellian mind had designed the plan of taking from the Mormons 500 of their best men for the Battalion, thus crippling them while in the Indian country. All this part of their account is utterly unworthy of belief. If 500 volunteers for the army "crippled" the immigrants where they were, what would have been their condition if 1000 of their number had been hurried on to California? **
Aside from the opportunity afforded by General Kearney's invitation to send a pioneer band, without expense to themselves, to the Pacific coast, the offer gave the Mormons great, and greatly needed, pecuniary assistance. P. P. Pratt, on his way East to visit England with Taylor and Hyde, found the Battalion at Fort Leavenworth, and was sent back to the camp* with between $5000 and $6000, a part of the Battalion's government allowance. This was a godsend where cash was so scarce, as it enabled the commissary officers to make purchases in St. Louis, where prices were much lower than in western Iowa.** John Taylor, in a letter to the Saints in Great Britain on arriving there, quoted the acceptance of this Battalion as evidence that "the President of the United States is favorably disposed to us," and said that their employment in the army, as there was no prospect of any fighting, "amounts to the same as paying them for going where they were destined to go without."***
The march of the federal force that went from Santa Fe (where the Mormon Battalion arrived in October) to California was a notable one, over unexplored deserts, where food was scarce and water for long distances unobtainable. Arriving at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers on December 26, they received there an order to march to San Diego, California, and arrived there on January 29, after a march of over two thousand miles.
The war in California was over at that date, but the Battalion did garrison duty at San Luis Rey, and then at Los Angeles. Various propositions for their reenlistment were made to them, but their church officers opposed this, and were obeyed except in some individual instances. About 150 of those who set out from Santa Fe were sent back invalided before California was reached, and the number mustered out was only about 240. These at once started eastward, but, owing to news received concerning the hardships of the first Mormons who arrived in Salt Lake Valley, many of them decided to remain in California, and a number were hired by Sutter, on whose mill-race the first discovery of gold in that state was made. Those who kept on reached Salt Lake Valley on October 16, 1847. Thirty-two of their number continued their march to Winter Quarters on the Missouri, where they arrived on December 18.
Mormon historians not only present the raising of the Battalion as a proof of patriotism, but ascribe to the members of that force the credit of securing California to the United States, and the discovery of gold.*
When Elder Little left Washington for the West with despatches for General Kearney concerning the Mormon enlistments, he was accompanied by Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a brother of the famous Arctic explorer. On his way West Colonel Kane visited Nauvoo while the Hancock County posse were in possession of it, saw the expelled Mormons in their camp across the river, followed the trail of those who had reached the Missouri, and lay ill among them in the unhealthy Missouri bottom in 1847. From that time Colonel Kane became one of the most useful agents of the Mormon church in the Eastern states, and, as we shall see, performed for them services which only a man devoted to the church, but not openly a member of it, could have accomplished.
It was stated at the time that Colonel Kane was baptized by Young at Council Bluffs in 1847. His future course gives every reason to accept the correctness of this view. He served the Mormons in the East as a Jesuit would have served his order in earlier days in France or Spain. He bore false witness in regard to polygamy and to the character of men high in the church as unblushingly as a Brigham Young or a Kimball could have done. His lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1850 was highly colored where it stated facts, and so inaccurate in other parts that it is of little use to the historian. A Mormon writer who denied that Kane was a member of the church offered as proof of this the statement that, had Kane been a Mormon, Young would have commanded him instead of treating him with so much respect. But Young was not a fool, and was quite capable of appreciating the value of a secret agent at the federal capital.
Mormon accounts of the westward movement from Nauvoo represent that the delay which occurred when they reached the Missouri River was an interruption of their leaders' plans, attributing it to the weakening of their force by the enlistment of the Battalion, and the necessity of waiting for the last Mormons who were driven out of Nauvoo. But after their experiences in a winter march from the Mississippi, with something like a base of supplies in reach, it is inconceivable that the Council would have led their followers farther into the unknown West that same year, when their stores were so nearly exhausted, and there was no region before them in which they could make purchases, even if they had the means to do so.
When the Mormons arrived on the Missouri they met with a very friendly welcome. They found the land east of the river occupied by the Pottawottomi Indians, who had recently been removed from their old home in what is now Michigan and northern Illinois and Indiana; and the west side occupied by the Omahas, who had once "considered all created things as made for their peculiar use and benefit," but whom the smallpox and the Sioux had many years before reduced to a miserable remnant.
The Mormons won the heart of the Pottawottomies by giving them a concert at their agent's residence. A council followed, at which their chief, Pied Riche, surnamed Le Clerc, made an address, giving the Mormons permission to cut wood, make improvements, and live where they pleased on their lands.
The principal camp on the Missouri, known as Winter Quarters, was on the west bank, on what is now the site of Florence, Nebraska. A council was held with the Omaha chiefs in the latter apart of August, and Big Elk, in reply to an address by Brigham Young, recited their sufferings at the hands of the Sioux, and told the whites that they could stay there for two years and have the use of firewood and timber, and that the young men of the Indians would watch their cattle and warn them of any danger. In return, the Indians asked for the use of teams to draw in their harvest, for assistance in housebuilding, ploughing, and blacksmithing, and that a traffic in goods be established. An agreement to this effect was put in writing.
The arrival of party after party of Mormons made an unusually busy scene on the river banks. On the east side every hill that helped to make up the Council Bluffs was occupied with tents and wagons, while the bottom was crowded with cattle and vehicles on the way to the west side. Kane counted four thousand head of cattle from a single elevation, and says that the Mormon herd numbered thirty thousand. Along the banks of the river and creeks the women were doing their family washing, while men were making boats and superintending in every way the passage of the river by some, and the preparations for a stay on the east side by others—building huts, breaking the sod for grain, etc. The Pottawottomies had cut an approach to the river opposite a trading post of the American Fur Company, and established a ferry there, and they now did a big business carrying over, in their flat-bottom boats, families and their wagons, and the cows and sheep. As for the oxen, they were forced to swim, and great times the boys had, driving them to the bank, compelling them to take the initial plunge, and then guiding them across by taking the lead astride some animal's back.
Sickness in the camps began almost as soon as they were formed. "Misery Bottom," as it was then called, received the rich deposit brought down by the river in the spring, and, when the river retired into its banks, became a series of mud flats, described as "mere quagmires of black dirt, stretching along for miles, unvaried except by the limbs of half-buried carrion, tree trunks, or by occasional yellow pools of what the children called frog's spawn; all together steaming up vapors redolent of the savor of death." In the previous year—not an unusually bad one—one-ninth of the Indian population on these flats had died in two months. The Mormons suffered not only from the malaria of the river bottom, but from the breaking up of many acres of the soil in their farming operations.
The illness was diagnosed as, the usual malarial fever, accompanied in many cases with scorbutic symptoms, which they called "black canker," due to a lack of vegetable food. In and around Winter Quarters there were more than 600 burials before cold weather set in, and 334 out of a population of 3483 were reported on the sick list as late as December. The Papillon Camp, on the Little Butterfly River, was a deadly site. Kane, who had the fever there, in passing by the place earlier in the season had opened an Indian mound, leaving a deep trench through it. "My first airing," he says, "upon my convalescence, took me to the mound, which, probably to save digging, had been readapted to its original purpose. In this brief interval they had filled the trench with bodies, and furrowed the ground with graves around it, like the ploughing of a field."
But amid such affliction, in which cows went unmilked and corpses became loathsome before men could be found to bury them, preparations continued at all the camps for the winter's stay and next year's supplies. Brigham Young, writing from Winter Quarters on January 6, 1847, to the elders in England, said: "We have upward of seven hundred houses in our miniature city, composed mostly of logs in the body, covered with puncheon, straw, and dirt, which are warm and wholesome; a few are composed of turf, willows, straw, etc., which are comfortable this winter, but will not endure the thaws, rain, and sunshine of spring." * This city was divided into twenty-two wards, each presided over by a Bishop. The principal buildings were the Council House, thirty-two by twenty-four feet, and Dr. Richard's house, called the Octagon, and described as resembling the heap of earth piled up over potatoes to shield them from frost. In this Octagon the High Council held most of their meetings. A great necessity was a flouring mill, and accordingly they sent to St. Louis for the stones and gearing, and, under Brigham Young's personal direction as a carpenter, the mill was built and made ready for use in January. The money sent back by the Battalion was expended in St. Louis for sugar and other needed articles.