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No secret was made of the intention to settle in California. It was mentioned in some of the introdue- tory letters to which I have alluded; and in a peti- tion addressed by Little to the president he wrote: "From twelve to fifteen thousand Mormons have al- ready left Nauvoo for California, and many others are making ready to go; some have gone around Cape Horn, and I trust before this time have landed at the bay of San Francisco. We have about forty thou- sand in the British Isles, all determined to gather to
this land, and thousands will sail this fall. There are also many thousands scattered through the states, besides the great number in and around Nauvoo, who will go to California as soon as possible, but many of them are destitute of money to pay their passage either by sea or land. We are true-hearted Amer- icans, true to our native country, true to its laws, true to its glorious institutions. . . We would disdain to re- eeive assistance from a foreign power, although it
472
THE MORMON BATTALION.
should be proffered, unless our government shall turn us off in this great crisis and compel us to be foreign- ers. If you will assist us in this crisis I hereby pledge my honor as the representative of this people, that the whole body will stand ready at your call, and act as one man in the land to which we are going; and should our territory be invaded, we will hold ourselves ready to enter the field of battle, and then, like our patriotic fathers, make the battle-field our grave, or gain our liberty."1
While negotiations were in progress, news came that hostilities with Mexico had begun; and most oppor- tunely in certain respects for the Mormon designs, though defeating their purposes in other directions. Little's memorial quoted above was drawn out by Kendall's announcement that the administration had resolved to occupy California, and was disposed to accomplish that object through the Mormons, by aid- ing them to hasten their journey across the continent. The project promptly arranged by Polk and his ad- visers, if we may credit Little's version, was for a thou- sand picked men to press on overland, and 'make a dash' into California, while another thousand were to be sent out by sea on a U. S. transport. Possibly the elder in his enthusiasm was disposed to exaggerate the president's promiscs; while on the other hand we may readily imagine that Polk, on further consideration, either with or without the promptings of enemies to the church, or of promoters of other military and colo- nization schemes, concluded that he had promised too much, that it was not altogether desirable or neces- sary to allow the Mormons too much power in Cali- fornia; that it would be as well to use rather than be used by them; and that there would be no difficulty
1 Life of Brigham Young; or Utah and her Founders. By Edward W. Tullidge, N. Y. 1876, Svo, iv. 458, S1 p. Little's instructions and petition are quoted from this work, which contains a more complete account of the transactions at Washington than I have found elsewhere; though the leading facts are given in other works. It was in a conversation with Kendall about the Mormons that Stevenson claims to have first suggested the idea of send- ing a volunteer regiment to Cal.
473
KEARNY'S ORDERS TO ALLEN.
in obtaining other volunteer colonist soldiers. Church- men believe that Thomas H. Benton did more than than any other to turn the president against them, which is not at all unlikely.
Whatever may have been the original proposition, and it is well to remember that details of preceding negotiations rest almost exclusively on Mormon authority, the final decision was to raise a battalion of five hundred men, to be mustered into the U. S. service for twelve months, and to march by Santa Fé to California, where they were to be discharged at the expiration of their term, retaining their arms and accoutrements. Little and Kane went to Fort Leav- enworth with despatches for Colonel Kearny, who on June 19th issued to Captain James Allen of the 1st dragoons the order appended in a note.2 Allen started at once for the north, and on June 26th, at Mount
2 June 19, 1846, Kearny to Allen. 'It is understood that there is a large body of Mormons who are desirous of emigrating to California, for the pur- pose of settling in that country, and I have therefore to direct that you will proceed to their camps and endeavor to raise from amongst them 4 or 5 companies of volunteers, to join me in my expedition to that country, each company to consist of any number between 73 and 109; the officers of each company will be a captain, Ist lieut, and 2d lieut, who will be elected by the privates and subject to your approval, and the captains then to appoint the non-commissioned officers, also subject to your approval. The companies, upon being thus organized, will be mustered by you into the service of the U. S., and from that day will commence to receive the pay, rations, and other allowances given to the other infantry volunteers, each according to his rauk. You will, upon mustering into service the 4th company, be considered as hav- ing the rank, pay, and emoluments of a lieut-colonel of infantry, and are authorized to appoint an adjutant, sergeant-major, and quartermaster-ser- geant for the battalion. The companies, after being organized, will be marched to this post, where they will be armed and prepared for the field, after which they will, under your command, follow on my trail in the direc- tion of Santa Fe, where you will receive further orders from me. . . You will have the Mormons distinctly to understand that I wish to have them as vol- unteers for 12 months; that they will be marched to California, receiving pay and allowances during the above time, and at its expiration they will be dis- charged and allowed to retain, as their private property, the guns and accon- trements furnished to them at this post. Each company will be allowed 4 women as laundresses, who will travel with the company, receiving rations and other allowances given to the laundresses of our army. With the foregoing conditions, which are hereby pledged to the Mormons, and which will be faith- fully kept by me and other officers iu behalf of the govt of the U. S., I can- not doubt but that you will in a few days be able to raise 500 young and efficient men for this expedition.' The subject is included in Sec. Marcy's instructions of June 3d to Kearny, who was to enlist a number of Mormons not to exceed one third of his entire force. Cal. and N. Mex., Mess, and Doc., 1850, p. 236.
474
THE MORMON BATTALION.
Pisgah, Iowa, one of the principal camps of the Mor- mons, issued a circular announcing his mission. In this document he repeated the substance of Kearny's in- structions, and added: "This gives 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 advanced party can thus pave the way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them. Those of the Mormons who are desirous of serving their country, on the conditions here enumerated, are re- quested to meet me without delay at their principal camp at Council Bluff's, whither I am now going to consult with their principal men, and to receive and organize the force contemplated to be raised. I will receive all healthy, able-bodied men of from eighteen to forty-five years of age. I hope to complete the or- ganization within nine days from this time."3 By the high council of Mount Pisgah, Captain Allen was sent westward with a letter to President Young at Coun- cil Bluff's, the main and frontier encampment. Here a council was held the Ist of July, at which it was de- termined by Young and his advisers that the battalion as called for must be raised; and corresponding orders were issued at once.
Thus is explained the origin of the Mormon Battal- ion, involving, it would seem, nothing mysterious or underhanded in any of its phases. The Mormons had asked for aid in moving part of their people to Cali- fornia; the government needed a volunteer force which in no other way could be raised so promptly ; the favor was mutual. The Mormons, however, not receiving aid to the extent or of the kind they had hoped for, regarded the action taken as a mere requi- sition for troops, and in numbers out of all proportion to the population that was to furnish them.4 In its
3 June 26, 1846, Allen's circular to the Mormons, in Tyler's IFist., 114; Tullidge's Life Young, 42.
+ 'It may well be imagined that many of the saints hesitated. It was not from lack of courage either. The danger would never have caused them to
475
A TEST OF LOYALTY.
best aspect, the call for troops was a test of Mormon loyalty; some have claimed to regard it as a device to weaken the saints and hasten their destruction; and it has even been given out as the secret history of the transaction, "as President Young was afterward informed on the best of authority," writes George Q. Cannon, "that Thomas H. Benton got a pledge from President Polk that if the Mormons did not raise the battalion he might have the privilege of raising volunteers in the upper counties of Missouri to fall upon them and use them up."5 Some think
shrink; but they had been deceived so many times by those who held autho- rity in the nation that they looked upon this new requisition with distrust .. . Assistance in emigrating with their families westward would have been hailed with joy. Work of any kind and at any price on the route of their proposed journey, by which they could earn a subsistence, would have been considered a godsend. But joining the army and leaving their families in such a con- dition was repugnant to their feelings. Such a thing had never been thought of, much less asked for, by the saints. The assertion which has been made by their enemies, that they desired and solicited the privilege of joining the army to go against Mexico, leaving their wives and children homeless and destitute wanderers on the banks of the Missouri, is a base libel on the char- acter of the saints. They were loyal citizens, but they never expected such a sacrifice would be required of them to prove their loyalty to the govern- ment. Though Captain Allen represented the call as an act of benevolence on the part of the govt, and assured the saints that here were hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the states ready to enlist, it is doubtful whether he would have got one of the saints to join him if it had been left to his own in- fluence.' Tyler's Hist., 115-16. 'One view is that the govt, prompted by such men as Benton, sought to destroy, or at least to cripple, the Mormons, by taking from them 500 of their best meu in an Indian country and in their exodus; while the other view is that the govt designed their good and honor. The truth is, that a few honorable gentlemen did so design; but it is equally true that the great majority heartily wished for their utter extinction; while Sen. Douglas and many other politicians, seeing in this vast migration of Mor- mons the ready aud most efficient means to wrest California from Mexico, favored the calling of the battalion for national conquest without caring what afterward became of these heroic men who left their families in the wilder- ness, or whether those families perished by the way or not .. . The reader has noted Mr Brannan's letter, received by the leaders before starting; they looked upon this "call" for 500 or 1,000 of the flower of their camps as the fulfilment of the threat. The excuse to annihilate them they believed was sought; even the govt dared not disperse and disarm them without an ex- cuse. At the best, an extraordinary test of their loyalty was asked of them, under circumstances that would have required the thrice hardening of a Pharaoh's heart to have exacted.' Tullidge's Life Brig. Young, 44-5.
5 All the speakers at a reuniou of the battalion in 1855 regarded the rais- ing of the troops in the light of a sacrifice which had saved their people. Fa- ther Pettegrew addressed the women as 'wives and daughters of those men who were offered a sacrifice for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,' men ordered 'to go and fight for the rights of the people before whom they were fleeing.' Said President Kimball: 'I know that resulted in the salvation of this people, and had you not done this, we should not have
47G
THE MORMON BATTALION.
that the leaders looked upon the raising of the bat- talion as an advantage to their cause.
Whatever their views, the Mormon chiefs set them- selves to work most zealously as recruiting officers. Young, Kimball, and Richards rode back to Mount Pisgah, sending letters to encampments farther east. Doubtless there was a little hesitation among the peo- ple, since the enlistment of married men involved many hardships for their families;6 but promises of protection for women and children, with predictions of exemption from disaster to the men, joined to eloquent and authoritative teachings on duty to the nation and the church, rapidly overcame all opposition. The battalion, about five hundred strong, was recruited in about two weeks; and four companies and part of the fifth were mustered in at Council Bluffs the 16th of July, the fifth company being filled a little later. I append a list of officers. The name of each member of the battalion who reached California will be found in the Pioneer Register at the end of these volumes.7
been here. President J. M. Grant had visited Washington and testified to Benton's bloody project; and if we could not have raised the complement of men, what would have been the fate of this people ? Israel must have been put in the tomb, unless by the interference of high heaven a ram bad been found in the thicket. . . Yes, brethren, had it not been for this battalion. a horrible massacre would have taken place upon the bauks of the Missouri.' President Young took the same view of Benton's project. . Without doubt. this was decreed in Washington, and I was moved upon to forestall it. As quick as this idea entered my mind it came to me, I will beat them at their own game. Did we not do it ?'
6 Thomas L. Kane, in The Mormons: A discourse delivered before the Ilis- torical Society of Pennsylvania, March 26, 1850, says: 'The call could hardly have been more inconveniently timed. The young, and those who could best have been spared, were then away from the main body, either with pioneer companies in the van, or, their faith unannounced, seeking work and food about the south-western settlements to support them till the return of the season for commencing emigration. The force was therefore to be recruited from among the fathers of families, and others whose presence it was most desir- able to retain. There were some, too, who could not view the invitation with- out jealousy. . . But the feeling of country triumphed. The union had never wronged them. "You shall have your battalion at once if it has to be a class of elders," said one, himself a ruling elder. A central mass meeting for council, some harangues at the more remotely scattered camps, an Ameri- can flag brought out from the storehouse of things rescued and hoisted to a tree mast-and in three days the force was reported mastered, organized, and ready to march.'
" An official report, U. S. Gort Doc., 31st cong. Ist sess., H. Ex. Doc., 24 p. 22 g, gives the number mustered in as 15 officers and 481 men, joined
477
TYLER'S HISTORY.
It should here be stated that the experiences of the Mormon battalion have been written by Sergeant Tyler in a manner that leaves little or nothing to be desired.8 I have followed his work as my chief authority. The troops started on their journey the 20th of July. "There was no sentimental affectation at their leave-taking. The afternoon before their march was devoted to a farewell ball; and a more
later 7, resigned and discharged 3, deathis 7, desertion 1, and mustered out in Cal. 17 officers and 468 men. There is apparently some error here, to say nothing of the fact that about 150 men did not reach California. Tyler gives the names of 506 men, including officers and the men left behind. Kane says there were 520 men. Other authorities speak of the number as about 500.
List of officers in the Mormon battalion: Commander, Lieut-col. * James Allen; later Lieut A. J. Smith; and finally Lient-col. Philip St George Cooke, all of the Ist U. S. dragoons. Adjutant, Lieut Geo. P. Dykes, and later Lieut P. C. Merrill; quartermaster, Lieut *Sam. L. Gully, and later Lieut Geo. Stoneman; sergeant-major, James H. Glines, and later James Fergu- son; quartermaster-sergeant, Sebert C. Shelton, Redick N. Alhed; sur- geon, Dr Geo. B. Sanderson; assistant-surgeon, Dr Wm L. McIntyre; spirit- ual directors, David Pettegrew and Levi W. Hancock.
Co. A, Capt. Jefferson Hunt; lieut, Geo. W. Oman, Lorenzo Clark, *Wm W. Willis; sergeants, James Ferguson, Phinehas R. Wright, Reddick N. Aldred, Alex. McCord, Wm S. Muir.
Co. B, Capt. Jesse D. Hunter; lieut, *Elam Luddington, Ruel Barrus, Philemon C. Merrill: sergeants, Wm Coray, Wm Hyde, Albert Smith.
Co. C, Capt. James Brown; lieut, Geo. W. Rosecrans, Sam. Thompson, Robert Clift; sergeants, Orson B. Adams, Elijah Elmer, Joel J. Terrill, David Wilkin, Edward Martin, Daniel Tyler.
Co. D, Capt. * Nelson Higgins; lieut, Geo. P. Dykes, Sylvester Hulett, Cyrus C. Canfield; sergeants, Nathaniel V. Jones, Thomas Williams, Luther T. Tuttle, Alpheus P. Haws.
Co. E, Capt. Daniel C. Davis; lieut, James Pace, Andrew Lytle, *Sam. L. Gully; sergeants, Sam. L. Brown, Richard Brazier, Ebenezer Hanks, Daniel Browett.
Those whose names are marked with a * did not reach Cal. There were seven or eight young men who went as servants to the officers, whose rela- tives they were in most cases. For biographical notices of each officer and private, see my Pioneer Register and Index.
8 A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1846- 1847. By Sergeant Daniel Tyler, no place (Salt Lake City), 1881, Svo, 376 p. 'Neither labor, pains, nor expense has been spared in the effort to make this a just and authentic history. The author has not aimed at sensational effect, nor made any attempt at literary embellishment, but rather endeavored to offer a plain statement of facts and give due credit to all concerned,' says Tyler in his preface, and the result shows that no better man could have un- dertaken the task. Naturally his narrative is marked by that display of faith which is a characteristic of all religious writers; but this, while adding a charm, detracts in no respect from the value of the record. His authorities are chiefly diaries written by his comrades at the time, and letters written by them in later years. The 'introductory ' includes a sketch of The Martyrdom of Joseph Smith, by President John Taylor, and Col Kane's discourse of 1850 on The Mormons, as already cited; also a poem on the Mormon battalion by Mrs Eliza R. Snow. There is appended an account of the battalion festival at Salt Lake City in 1855.
478
THE MORMON BATTALION.
merry dancing rout I have never seen, though the company went without refreshments, and their ball was of the most primitive," writes Colonel Kane. One of the soldiers' last acts before departure was to subscribe a large part of their pay for their families and the Mormon poor. The elders made parting addresses of encouragement, and Brigham Young formally predicted, as he had done before, that "not one of those who might enlist would fall by the hands of the nation's foe; that their only fighting would be with wild beasts." That their subsequent safety resulted from this prediction the Mormons had no doubt; and that they were under divine protec- tion soon became evident to them when a tornado threw down the trees of a forest in which they were encamped without harming a man. The captains and some of the men were accompanied by their families, and there were in all about eighty women and chil- dren who started on the journey. Much of their way was through a country inhabited by their old foes, the Missouri 'mobocrats,' but there were no hostilities and few hardships. The arrival at Fort Leavenworth was on August 1st, and here the bat- talion remained two weeks, drawing their arms and accoutrements, with forty dollars in money for each man, most of which was sent back to the church by elders Hyde, Taylor, and Little, who here took final leave of their soldier disciples. Here Lieutenant- colonel Allen fell sick and died before the end of August. He was very popular with his men, none of whom have anything but words of praise for him.
On the 12th and 14th of August the troops started on their long march to Santa Fe; and now their troubles began. It is not necessary to chronicle here the hardships and petty adventures incident to such a journey, though as given in the Mormon diaries9
9 Besides the diaries quoted by Tyler, I have Henry W. Bigler's Diary of a Mormon in California, MS., which contains a most valuable and interest- ing record, not only of the march to Sta Fé and thence across the continent, but of the later discovery of gold in California.
479
THE MARCH TO SANTE FE.
the narrative is not without a charm. Sufferings re- sulted mainly from heat and bad water, and there was much sickness, with several deaths; but there were also miraculous cures attributed to faith, prayer, and baptism. One phase of the battalion's troubles, how- ever, merits somewhat more extended notice-that re- sulting from complaints against the officers. On the death of Allen, Lieutenant A. J. Smith of the reg- ular army was sent from Fort Leavenworth to take command temporarily. The Mormon privates and part of their officers claimed that the command be- longed to the senior captain, Hunt, and that Colonel Allen had promised such an arrangement in the event of his own removal from the position. The fact that such a promise had been made was comfirmed by Brigham Young. On the other hand, it was claimed that Allen had no right to make the promise; never- theless a council of the Mormon officers with only three dissenting votes decided in favor of Smith. From that time the lieutenant was naturally an object of dislike to the soldiers, who looked on him as un- friendly to the Mormons, cruel in his treatment of the sick, and perhaps disposed to destroy the battalion by overwork and privations. Only divine protection en- abled the saints to survive, and only the patriotic devotion that had prompted the original sacrifice of their enlistment kept them from mutiny. Such was their view of the matter;10 yet their wrongs must be
10 'And on the brave battalion went With Colonel Allen, who was sent As officer of government. The noble Colonel Allen knew His " Mormon boys " were brave and true, And he was proud of his command As he led forth his " Mormon band." He sickencd, died, and they were left Of a loved leader soon bereft 1 And his successors proved to be The embod .ment of cruelty. Lieutenant Smith, the tyrant, led The cohort on in Allen's stead To Santa Fé, where Colonel Cooke The charge of the battalion took.'
Mrs Snow's poetical version.
'It would have been difficult to select the same number of American citizens from any other community who would have submitted to the tyranny and abuse that the battalion did from Smith and Sanderson. Nor would we have done so on any consideration other than as servants to our God and patriots to our
450
THE MORMON BATTALION.
regarded as in some measure imaginary. Raw re- cruits chafe under the discipline imposed by an officer of the regular army, and often attribute to him' the hardships of their march. It was hard for the Mor- mons to realize their position as volunteers in the U. S. service, and they were prone to include in their list of grievances all that did not please them.
It was not, however, against their leader that the bitterest feelings were excited, but against Sanderson, the surgeon of the battalion. The Mormons have their own views on medical science, and do not enter- tain the highest respect for the methods of the schools. They rely for the cure of ordinary ailments on herbs; while for more serious illness prayer, anointing with oil, laying-on of hands, and baptism are prescribed. And now, a 'mineral quack' had against their will been made superior to Dr McIntyre, 'a good bo- tanie physician,' and insisted on dosing them with his 'calomel and arsenic.' The Mormons claimed that their religion discountenanced the taking of min- eral medicines. Adjutant Dykes, however, affirmed that they had no such religious scruples, and that the church authorities themselves took such medicines, and Captain Hunt would say no more than that it "was rather against our religious faith." Therefore Smith supported the surgeon and insisted that his instruc- tions must be followed, though subsequently a letter
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