USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > History of Salt Lake City > Part 24
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
CHAPTER XIX.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR YOUNG AND COLONEL ALEXANDER. UNFLINCHING ATTITUDE OF BOTH SIDES. EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES. THE GOVERNOR INVITES A PEACEFUL VISIT OF THE OFFICERS TO THE CITY. A REMARKABLE LETTER FROM APOSTLE JOHN TAYLOR TO CAPTAIN MARCY.
"GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, U. T , October 14, 1857.
" COLONEL : In consideration of our relative positions-you acting in your capacity as commander of the United States forces, and in obedience, as you have stated, to orders from the President of the United States, and I as governor of this Territory, impelled by every sense of justice, honor, integrity and patriotism to resist what I consider to be a direct infringement of the rights of the citizens of Utah, and an act of usurpation and tyranny unprecedented in the history of the United States-permit me to address you frankly as a citizen of the United States, untrammelled by the usages of official dignity or military etiquette.
" As citizens of the United States, we both, it is presumable, feel strongly attached to the Constitution and institu tions of our common country ; and, as gentlemen, should probably agree in sustaining the dear bought liberties be- queathed by our fathers-the position in which we are individually placed being the only apparent cause of our present antagonism ; you, as colonel command- ing, feeling that you have a rigid duty to perform in obedience to orders, and I, a still more important duty to the people of this Territory,
" I need not here reiterate what I have already mentioned in my official proclamation, and what I and the people of this Territory universally believe firmly to be the object of the administration in the present expedition against Utah, viz: the destruction, if not the entire annihilation of the Mormon com- munity, solely upon religious grounds, and without any pretext whatever ; for the administration do know, from the most reliable sources, that the base reports circulated by Drummond, and others of their mean officials, are barefaced calum - nies. They do, moreover, know that the people of Utah have been more peace- . able and law abiding than those of any other Territory of the United States, and have 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 au. thority although the conduct and deportment of many of them have merited, and in any other State or Territory would have met with summary punishment. 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
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
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.
" Now, Colonel, I do not charge you, nor those serving under you, with the instigation of these enormities. I consider that you are only the agent made use of by the administration, probably unwillingly so, to further their infamous designs. What high-minded gentleman can feel comfortable in being the mere catspaw of political jugglers and hucksters, penny-a-liners, hungry speculators and disgraced officials? Yet it is from the statements of such characters only that the adminstration has acted, attaching the official seal to your movements. Now, I feel that, when such treason is perpetrated, unblushingly, in open daylight, again st the liberties and most sacred rights of the citizens of this Territory, it is my duty, and the duty of every lover of his country and her sacred institutions, to resist it, and maintain inviolate the constitution of our common country.
" Perhaps, colonel, you may feel otherwise; education and associations have their influences ; but 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.
" We have sought diligently for peace. We have sacrificed millions of dol- lars worth of property to obtain it, and wandered a thousand miles from the con- fines of civilization, severing ourselves from home, the society of friends, and everything that makes life worth enjoyment. If we have war, it is not of our seeking; we have never gone nor sought to interfere with the rights of others, but they have come and sent to interfere with us. We had hoped that, in this barren and desolate country, we could have remained unmolested ; but it would seem that our implacable, blood-thirsty foes envy us even these barren deserts. Now, if our real enemies, the mobocrats, priests, editors and politicians, at whose instigation the present storm has been gathered, had come against us, instead of you and your command, I should never have addressed them thus. They never would have been allowed to reach the South Pass. In you we recognize only the agents and instruments of the administration, and with you, personally, have no quarrel. I believe it would have been more consonant with your feelings to have made war upon the enemies of your country than upon American citizens. . But to us the end to be accomplished is the same, and while I appreciate the un- pleasantness of your position, you must be aware that circumstances compel the people of Utah to look upon you, in your present belligerent attitude, as their enemies and the enemies of our common country, and notwithstanding my most sincere desires to promote amicable relations with you, I shall feel it my duty, as do the people of the Territory universally, to resist to the utmost every attempt to encroach further upon their rights.
" It, therefore, becomes a matter for your serious consideration, whether it would not be more in accordance with the spirit and institutions of our country to return with your present force rather than force an issue so unpleasant to all, 9
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
and which must result in great misery and, perhaps, bloodshed and, if persisted in, the total destruction of your army. And, furthermore, does it not become a question whether it is more patriotic for officers of the United States army to ward off, by all honorable means, a collision with American citi- zens or to further the precipitate move of an indiscreet and rash administration, in plunging a whole Territory into a horrible, fratricidal and sanguinary war.
" Trusting that the foregoing considerations may be duly weighed by you, and that the difficulties now impending may be brought to an amicable adjustment, with sentiments of esteem,
I have the honor to remain most respectfully etc.,
BRIGHAM YOUNG."
' HEADQUARTERS ARMY FOR UTAH.
Camp on Ham's Fork, October 12, 1857.
" SIR: Yesterday two young men, named Hickman, were arrested by the rear guard of the army, and are now held in confinement. They brought a let- ter from W. A. Hickman to Mr. Perry, a sutler of one of the regiments, but came under none of the privileges of bearers, of despatches, and are, perhaps, liable to be considered and treated as spies. But I am convinced, from conver- sation with them, that their conduct does not merit the serious punishment awarded to persons of that character, and I have accordingly resolved to release the younger one, especially in consideration of his having a wife and three chil- dren, dependent upon him, and to make him the bearer of this letter. The elder I shall keep until I know how this communication is received, and until I receive an answer to it, reserving, even then, the right to hold him a prisoner, if, in my judgment, circumstances require it. I need hardly assure you that his life will be protracted, and that he will receive every comfort and indulgence proper to be afforded him.
" I desire now, sir, to set before you the following facts: the forces under my command are ordered by the President of the United States, to establish a mili- tary post at or near Salt Lake City. They set out on their long and arduous march, anticipating a reception similar to that which they would receive in any other State or Territory in the Union. They were met at the boundary of the Territory of which you are the Governor, and in which capacity alone I have any business with you, by a proclamation issued by yourself, forbidding them to come . upon soil belonging to the United States, and calling upon the inhabitants to re- sist them with arms. You have ordered them to return, and have called upon them to give up their arms in default of obeying your mandate. You have resorted to open hostilities, and of a kind, permit me to say, far beneath the usages of civi- lized warfare, and only resorted to by those who are conscious of inability to re- sist by more honorable means, by authorizing persons under your control, some of the very citizens, doubtless, whom you have called to arms, to burn the grass ap- parently with the intention of starving a few beasts, and hoping that men would starve after them. Citizens of Utah, acting, I am bound to believe, under
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your authority, have destroyed trains containing public stores, with a similar humane purpose of starving the army. I infer also from your communications received day before yesterday, referring to "a dearth of news from the east and from home," that you have caused public and private letters to be diverted from their proper destination, and this, too, when carried by a public messenger on a public highway. It is unnecessary for me to adduce further instances to show that you have placed yourself, in your capacity of governor, and so many of the citizens of the Territory of Utah as have obeyed your decree, in a position of re- bellion and hostility to the general government of the United States. It becomes you to look to the consequences, for you must be aware that so unequal a contest can never be successfully sustained by the people you govern.
" It is my duty to inform you that I shall use the force under my control, and all honorable means in my power, to obey literally and strictly the orders under which I am acting. If you, or any acting under your orders, oppose me, I will use force, and I warn you that the blood that is shed in this contest will be upon your head. My means I consider ample to overcome any obstacle; and I assure you that any idea you may have formed of forcing these troops back, or of preventing them from carrying out the views of the government, will result in unnecessary violence and utter failure. Should you reply to this in a spirit which our relative positions give me a right to demand, I will be prepared to propose an arrangement with you. I have also the honor to inform you that all persons found lurking around or in any of our camps, will be put under guard and held prisoners as long as circumstances may require.
" I remain sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
E. B. ALEXANDER, Colonel Ioth Infantry, Commanding. "His Excellency Brigham Young, Governor of Utah Territory."
" GOVERNOR'S OFFICE,
Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, October 16, 1857.
"SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 12th instant, at 8:30 this morning, and embrace the earliest opportunity to reply, out of courtesy to your position, at this late season of the year.
" As you officially allege it, I acknowledge that you and the forces have been sent to the Territory by the President of the United States, but we shall treat you as though you were open enemies, because I have so many times seen armies in our country, under color of law, drive this people, commonly styled Mormons, from their homes, while mobs have followed and plundered at their pleasure, which is now most obviously the design of the general government, as all candid, thinking men know full well. Were not such the fact, why did not the government send an army here to protect us against the savages when we first settled here, and were poor and few in number? So contrary to this was their course, that they sent an informal requisition for five hundred of our most effi-
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cient men, (while we were in an Indian country and striving to leave the borders of the United States, from which its civilization (?) had expelled us,) with a pre- concerted view to cripple and destroy us. And do you fancy for a moment that we do not fully understand the tender (?) mercies and designs of our government against us? Again, if an army was ordered here for peaceful purposes, to pro- tect and preserve the rights and lives of the innocent, why did government send here troops that were withdrawn from Minnesota, where the Indians were slaughtering men, women, and children, and were banding in large numbers, threatening to lay waste the country ?
" You mention that it is alone in my gubernatorial capacity that you have any business with me, though your commanding officer, Brevet-Brigadier General Harney, addressed his letter by Captain Van Vliet to 'President Brigham Young, of the society of Mormons.'
" You acknowledge the receipt of my official proclamation, forbidding your entrance into the Territory of Utah, and upon that point I have only to again inform you that the matter set forth in that document is true, and the orders therein contained will be most strictly carried out.
" If you came here for peaceful purposes, you have no use for weapons of war. We wish, and ever have wished for peace, and have ever sued for it all the day long, as our bitterest enemies know full well ; and though the wicked, with the administration now at their head, have determined that we shall have no peace, except it be to lie down in death, in the name of Israel's God we will have peace, even though we be compelled by our enemies to fight for it.
" We have as yet studiously avoided the shedding of blood, though we have resorted to measures to resist our enemies, and through the operations of those mild measures, you can easily perceive that you and your troops are now at the mercy of the elements, and that we live in the mountains, and our men are all mountaineers. This the government should know, and also give us our rights and then let us alone.
"As to the style of those measures, past, present, or future, persons acting in self-defence have of right a wide scope for choice, and that, too, without being very careful as to what name their enemies may see fit to term that choice; for both we and the Kingdom of God will be free from all hellish oppressors, the Lord being our helper. Threatenings to waste and exterminate this people have been sounded in our ears for more than a score of years, and we yet live. The Zion of the Lord is here, and wicked men and devils cannot destroy it.
" If you persist in your attempt to permanently locate an army in this Ter- ritory, 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 scoun- drels, whore masters, 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.
"As to your inference concerning 'public and private letters,' it contains an ungentlemanly and false insinuation ; for, so far as I have any knowledge, the only stopping or detaining of the character you mention has alone been done by
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
the Post Office Department in Washington; they having, as you must have known, stopped our mail from Independence, Missouri, by which it was but fair to presume that you, as well as we, were measurably curtailed in mail facilities.
" In regard to myself and certain others, having placed ourselves 'in a posi- tion of rebellion and hostility to the general government of the United States,' I am perfectly aware that we understand our true and most loyal position far bet- ter than our enemies can inform us. We, of all people, are endeavoring to preserve and perpetuate the genius of the Constitution and constitutional laws, while the administration and the troops they have ordered to Utah are, in fact, themselves the rebels, and in hostility to the general government. And if George Washington were 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.
"You write: 'It becomes you to look to the consequences, for you must be aware that so unequal a contest can never be successfully sustained by the people you govern.' We have counted the cost it may be to us; we look for the United States to endeavor to swallow us up, and we are prepared for the contest, if they wish to forego the Constitution in their insane efforts to crush out all hu- man rights. But the cost of so suicidal a course to our enemies we have not wasted our time considering, rightly deeming it more particularly their business to figure out and arrive at the amount of so immense a sum. It is now the king- dom of God and the kingdom of the devil. If God is for us we will prosper, but if He is for you and against us, you will prosper, and we will say amen; let the Lord be God, and Him alone we will serve.
" As to your obeying ' orders,' my official counsel to you would be for you to stop and reflect until you know wherein are the just and right, and then, David Crocket like, go ahead. But if you undertake to come in here and build forts, rest assured that you will be opposed, and that you will need all the force now under your command, and much more. And, in regard to your warning, I have to inform you that my head has been sought during many years past, not for any crime on my part, or for so much as even the wish to commit a crime, but solely for my religious belief, and that, too, in a land of professed constitu- tional religious liberty.
" Inasmuch as you consider your force amply sufficient to enable you to come to this city, why have you so unwisely dallied so long on Ham's Fork at this late season of the year ?
" Carrying out the views of the government, as those views are now devel. oping themselves, can but result in the utter overthrow of that Union which we, in common with all American patriots, have striven to sustain; and as to our failure in our present efforts to uphold rights justly guaranteed to all citizens of the United States, that can be better told hereafter.
"I presume that the 'spirit' and tenor of my reply to your letter will be unsatisfactory to you, for doubtless you are not aware of the nature and object of the service in which you are now engaged. For your better information, permit me to inform you that we have a number of times been compelled to receive and submit to the most fiendish proposals, made to us by armies virtually belonging to
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the United States, our only alternative being to comply therewith. At the last treaty forced upon us by our enemies, in which we were required to leave the United States, and with which we, as hitherto, complied, two United States Sena- tors were present, and pledged themselves, so far as their influence might reach, that we should be no more pursued by her citizens. That pledge has been broken by our enemies, as they have ever done when this people were a party, and we have thus always proven that it is vain for us to seek or expect protection from the officials or administrators of our government. It is obvious that war upon the Saints is all the time determined, and now we, for the first time, possess the power to have a voice in the treatment that we will receive, and we intend to use that power, so far as the Constitution and justice may warrant, which is all we ask. True, in struggling to sustain the Constitution and constitutional rights belonging to every citizen of our republic, we have no arm or power to trust in but that of Jehovah and the strength and ability that He gives us.
" 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. You have had and still have plenty of time to retire within reach of supplies at the east, or to go to Fort Hall. Should you conclude to comply with so just a command, and need any assistance to go east, such assistance will be promptly and cheerfully extended. We do not wish to destroy the life of any human being, but, on the contrary, we ardently desire to preserve the lives and liberties of all, so far as it may be in our power. Neither do we wish for the property of the United States, notwithstanding they justly owe us millions.
" Colonel, should you, or any of the officers with you, wish to visit this city, unaccompanied by troops, as did Captain Van Vliet, with a view to personally learn the condition and feelings of this people, you are at liberty to do so, under my cheerfully proffered assurance that you will be safely escorted from our out- posts to this city and back, and that during your stay in our midst you will receive all that courtesy and attention your rank demands. Doubtless you have supposed that many of the people here would flee to you for protection upon your arrival, and if there are any such persons they shall be at once conveyed to your camp in perfect safety, so soon as such fact can be known.
" Were you and your fellow-officers as well acquainted with your soldiers as I am with mine, and did they understand the work they are now engaged in as well as you may understand it, you must know that many of them would immedi- ately 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. I have the honor to be,
Your obedient servant,
BRIGHAM YOUNG,
Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, U. 1." "E. B. Alexander, Colonel 10th Infantry, U. S. A."
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
" HEADQUARTERS ARMY FOR UTAH,
Camp on Ham's Fork, October 19, 1857.
"SIR: I have received by the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Beatie your letter of the 16th instant. It is not necessary for me to argue the points ad- vanced by you, and I have only to repeat my assurance that no harm would have happened to any citizen of Utah through the instrumentality of the army of the United States, in the performance of its legitimate duties without molestation. My disposition of the troops depends upon grave considerations not necessary to enumerate, and considering your order to leave the Territory illegal and beyond your authority to issue, or power to enforce, I shall not obey it.
"I am, sir, with respect, your obedient servant,
E. B. ALEXANDER, Colonel Commanding, 10th Infantry U. S. A.
" His Excellency Brigham Young,
Governor of Utah Territory."
" GOVERNOR'S OFFICE,
Great Salt Lake City, October 28, 1857.
"SIR: Having learned that Mrs. Mago, with her infant child, wishes to join her husband in your camp, also that Mr. Jesse Jones, who has been in this city a few weeks, was anxious to see Mr. Roup, it has afforded me pleasure to cause the necessary arrangements to be made for their comfortable and safe conveyance to your care, under the conduct and protection of Messrs. John Harvey, Joseph Sharp, Adam Sharp, and Thomas J. Hickman, the bearers of this communica- tion.
" Mrs. Mago and her infant are conveyed to your camp in accordance with my previously often expressed readiness to forward to you such as might wish to go, and is the only resident of that description in Utah, as far as I am informed. Her husband made his first appearance here in the capacity of a teamster for Captain W. H. Hooper. He was then in very destitute circumstances ; and has since been in the employ of the late United States surveyor general of Utah, and I am not aware that he has any property or tie of any description in this Territory, except the wife and child now conveyed to him in your camp. Should Colonel Conby and lady wish to partake of the hospitalities proffered by Mr. Heywood and family, and should Captain R. B. Marcy desire to favor me with a visit, as I infer from his letter of introduction forwarded and in my possession, or should you or any other officers in your command wish to indulge in a trip to this city, you will be kindly welcomed and hospitably entertained, and the vehicle and escort now sent to your camp are tendered for conveyance of such as may receive your permission to avail themselves of this cordial invitation.
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