History of Utah, Part 53

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH TERRITORY.

Sir : My attention having heen drawn to the letter of Justice W. W. Drummond, under the date of March 30th, 1857, addressed to yourself, tendering his resignation as Associate Justice for Utah, wherein my office is called in question, I feel it incumbent upon me to make to you the following report :

Justice W. W. Drummond, in his " fourth " paragraph says : "The records, papers, etc., of the supreme court have been destroyed by order of Governor B. Young, and the Federal officers grossly insulted for presuming to raise a single question about the treasonable act."

I do solemnly declare this assertion is without the slightest foundation in truth. The records, papers, etc., of the supreme court in this Territory, together with all decisions and documents of every kind belonging thereto, from Monday, September 22, 1851, at which time said court was first organized, up to this present moment, are all safe and complete in my custody, and not one of them missing, nor have they ever been disturbed by any person.

Again, in the decision of the supreme court in the case of Moroni Green, the which decision was written by Judge Drummond himself, I find the following words : "That as the case, for which Green was convicted, seems to have been an aggravated one, this court does remit the costs of the prosecution, [both in this court and in the court below," Green was provoked to draw a pistol in self-defense, but did not point it at any one. He was a lad of 18 years old. Much feeling was excited in his favor, and he was finally pardoned by the governor, upon a petition signed by the judges and officers of the United States courts, the honorable secretary of state, and many of the influential citizens of Great Salt Sake City.

Again : in relation to the "incarceration of five or six young men from Missouri and lowa, who are now, (March 30, 1857,) in the penitentiary of Utah, without those men having violated any criminal law in America," ete. This statement is also utterly false.

I presume he alludes to the incarceration, on the 22nd January, 1856, of three men, and on the 29th of January, 1856, of one more; if so these are the circumstances :

There were quite a number of persons came here as teamsters in Gilbert and Gerrish's train of goods, arriving here in December, 1855, after winter had set in. They arrived here very destitute ; and at that season of the year there is nothing a laboring man can get to do. Some of these men entered the store of S. M. Blair & Co., at various times in the night, and stole provisions, groceries, ete. Some six or eight were indicted for burglary and larceny. Three plead guilty, and a fourth was proven guilty; and the four were sentenced to the penitentiary for the shortest time the statute allowed for the crime ; and just as soon as the spring of 1856 opened, and a company was preparing to start for California, upon a petition setting forth mitigating circumstances, the governor pardoned them, and they went on their way to California. It was a matter well understood here at the time, that these men were incarcerated more particularly to keep them from commit- ting further erime during the winter.

Since that time there have been but four persons sentenced to the penitentiary, one for forgery and three for petty larceny, for terms of sixty and thirty days, to-wit; One on the 19th November, 1856, for larceny, thirty days ; two on the 24th November, 1856, for

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aggravated larceny, sixty days, and one on the 26th January, 1857, for forgery, thirty days. So that on the 30th March, 1857 (the date of W. W. Drummond's letter), there was not a white prisoner in the Utah penitentiary ; nor had there been for several days previous, nor is there at this present writing.

I could, were it my province in this affidavit, go on and refute all that Judge W. W. Drummond has stated in his aforesaid letter of resignation, by records, dates, and facts ; but believing the foregoing is sufficient to show you what reliance is to be placed upon the assertions or word of W. W. Drummond, I shall leave this subject.

In witness of the truth of the foregoing affidavit, I have hereunto subscribed my [L. s.] name and affixed the seal of the United States supreme court for Utah Territory, at Great Salt Lake City, this the twenty-sixth day of June, A. D. 1857.

CURTIS E. BOLTON,

Deputy Clerk of said U. S. Supreme Court for Utah,

in absence of W. I. Appleby, clerk.

Hon. Jeremiah S. Black,

Attorney General of the United States, Washington, D. C.

Several other letters found their way to Washington before or soon after Judge Drummond's resignation, and though some were of too late a date to have influenced the original action of the Govern- ment in sending troops to Utah, others arrived in ample time to con- tribute to that end, and all serve to show the feeling of hostility that inspired the movement, and shaped the policy of the adminis- tration toward the people of this Territory at that interesting and critical point in their history. Among them was the following epistle, which also came before Congress at the time of the post-bellum inves- tigation of the "Utah Rebellion :"

INDIAN AGENCY OF THE UPPER PLATTE, On Raw Hide Creek, July 15, 1857.

SIR : In a communication addressed to the Indian Office, dated April last, I called the attention of the department to the settlements being mnade within the boundaries of this agency by the Mormon Church, clearly in violation of law, although the pretext or pretense under which these settlements are made is under cover of a contract of the Mor- mon Church to carry the mail from Independence, Missouri, to Great Salt Lake City.

On the 25th of May, a large Mormon colony took possession of the valley of Deer Creek, one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, and drove away a band of Sioux Indians whom 1 had settled there in April, and had induced them to plant corn.

I left that Indian band on the 23rd of May, to attend to matters connected with the Cheyenne band, in the lower part of the agency.

I have information from a reliable source that these Mormons are about three hundred in number, have plowed and planted two hundred acres of prairie, and are building

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houses sufficient for the accommodation of five hundred persons, and have a large herd of cattle, horses and mules.

I am persuaded that the Mormon Church intend, by this plan thus partially developed, to monopolize all of the trade with the Indians and whites within, or passing through, the Indian country.

I respectfully and earnestly call the attention of the department to this invasion, and enter my protest against this occupation of the Indian country, in force, and the forcible ejection of the Indians from the place where I had settled them.

I am powerless to control this matter, for the Mormons obey no laws enacted by Con- gress. I would respectfully request that the President will be pleased to issue such orders as, in his wisdom and judgment, may seem best in order to correct the evil complained of. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOS. S. Twiss, Indian Agent, Upper Platte.

Hon. J. W. Denver, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Along with the Magraw letter, which was merely the preface to Judge Drummond's book of blood and horror, the foregoing docu- ments were presented by President Buchanan to Congress in 1858. Possibly it occurred to some of those astute lawyers and statesmen to enquire, after reading the charges relating to the murder of Captain Gunnison, Judge Shaver and Secretary Babbitt, what manner of men these Mormons were, to be suspected (?) of killing their best friends, and allowing their worst enemies, such as Judge Drummond, ex-mail contractor Magraw, Indian Agent Hurt and others, to say nothing of the Craigs and Kerrs, the Hockadays and Burrs, "Gentiles of Salt Lake City," to be among them, still alive, or to slip through the fingers of that awful "oath-bound organization," and escape unmolested from the Territory.

Whether or not Indian agent Twiss was a party to the conspiracy to bring about an invasion of Utah by United States troops, we cannot say. But his statements concerning the alleged aggressive occupation of the Deer Creek country by the Mormons, when com- pared with the plain facts of the case, almost warrant the suspicion. The reader must know that for some time prior to the awarding of the Government mail contract to Mr. Hiram Kimball,-the act which so displeased Mr. Magraw,-it had been the purpose of Governor

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Young, aided by his friends and associates, to establish a gigantic carrying company between the Missouri River and the Pacific coast. Such an enterprise, in the absence of an overland railway and tele- graph line, -which the Mormons had repeatedly though vainly besought Congress to construct,-and to supersede the miserable mail service between the frontier and Salt Lake Valley, was calculated to be of immense benefit, not only to Utah, but to California and the whole Pacific slope. It meant the protection of life and property along the wearisome and perilous overland route, and the consequent increase of emigration and spread of civilization westward. It pro- posed to carry not only passengers and freight, but a regular monthly mail, winter and summer. Snow and ice and hostile Indians were to be no barrier to the regular and systematic arrival and departure of the carriers at either end of the route, and the round trips were to be made in unprecedentedly short periods of time .* Brigham Young was the very man to put into effect and render operative a scheme of such magnitude; of such difficulty and danger. It involved not only an immense outlay at the start, since mail stations would have to be established all along the way, but a continuous heavy expense to keep such a vast line in successful operation. It meant also that the hardy and heroic men who acted as mail carriers would simply be taking their lives in their hands when they went forth, especially in winter, upon their perilous and important errands. The energy and resources of the Mormon leader were equal to the undertaking. The same could scarcely be said of any other man then in the whole wide west. Surrounded by men of strength and courage, with very little wealth, but with the power of uniting and calling to his aid an army of willing and intrepid souls, who at any moment would lay their all upon the altar to promote any project

* Sixty miles a day was about the average speed of these carriers after the system went into operation. One of them-John R. Murdock-in the summer of 1857 traveled from Salt Lake City to Independence, Mo., in fifteen days. This was at the surprising rate of eighty miles per day-the distance between those points being twelve hundred miles. It was accomplished with but three changes of animals, grass-fed; four twenty mile drives being made each day.

John R. Murdock

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for the public weal and safety-men who would accept such a call as a mission, and mingle religious zeal with public spirit and indomitable energy-Brigham Young was the man of all men to stand at the head of such an enterprise. It was therefore named in his honor the B. Y. Express Carrying Company,-subsequently abbreviated to "Y. X. Company." Steps toward its organization were taken in January, 1856; a mass meeting convening for that purpose at Salt Lake City in the latter part of the month. Shares to stock a thousand miles of the road were soon taken and the enterprise set on foot. The mail contract awarded to Hiram Kimball became the basis of its operations.

Now as to the complaint of Indian Agent Twiss regarding the occupation of the Deer Creek country. The facts were simply these. The Y. X. Company had planted one of its mail stations in that vicinity, and the imagination or anti-Mormon animus of the agent- who foresaw the possible limitation of his own trading operations among the natives-had magnified and distorted it into an invasion by Mormons "in force" of the Sioux Indian reservation. Hence his letter or letters to the Indian Department at Washington.

Other Federal officials, writing from Utah, or filing their affidavits at the national capital, also contributed to stir up prejudice throughout the east against the Mormon people. Among these were Associate Justice Stiles, who had had a difficulty with several local members of the bar, and accused the Saints of intimidating his court. Indian Agent Hurt found fault with Brigham Young, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, for his policy in relation to the red men, and intimated that the funds appropriated for them by Congress had been improperly expended. Mormon proselyting among the native tribes was represented as being highly prejudicial. Others, whose only grievance was that they hated Mormonism and all things connected with it, had complaints more or less trivial to lodge against the Mormon leader. In one of these the absurd charge was made that he opened and read all the letters that came into or went out of Utah.

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It was upon such allegations as these, most of them utterly false, and the remainder grossly exaggerated, that President Buchanan, in the spring of 1857, without taking time to investigate as to their truth or falsity,decided that a rebellion existed in Utah, appointed a succes- sor to Brigham Young as Governor of the Territory, and ordered an army to march to Salt Lake City to forcibly install and maintain in office the new Executive. "Happiness," says the pessimist, "consists in being well deceived." According to that view-the correctness of which we do not vouch for-President Buchanan must have been a very happy man; for no man was ever more completely deceived. No rebellion existed here, nor no thought of one. In no part of this broad land were the Constitution and laws of the country more honored and revered than in Utah, the home of as loyal and patriotic a people as the stars and stripes floated over. The spirit of rebellion truly was abroad,-a gigantic rebellion, destined, four years later, to baptize the nation in fire and blood,-but the seat of that rebellion was not in Utah. Its fœtid breath had not passed the Rocky Mountains. Here the pure air of patriotism remained untainted. It was enthroned in power at the nation's capital, and its baneful influence spread from the banks of the Potomac to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Secession and slavery were threatening the nation's life; not Mormonism and polygamy; though the Republican party, newly born, with Fremont as its standard-bearer, had gone into the presidential campaign of 1856 with "slavery and polygamy, twin relics of barbarism," as a plank of its platform, and Stephen A. Douglas, not to be outdone in policy, had made a bid for the Democratic nomination at some future time by styling Mormonism "the loathsome ulcer of the body politic," and recommending its removal with the knife .*

* Senator Douglas, in a speech delivered by him at Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 1857, said : " When the authentic evidence shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which are believed to exist, it will be the duty of Congress to apply the knife and cut out this loathsome and disgusting ulcer. No temporizing policy, no half-way measures will then answer. In my opinion the first step should be the absolute and unconditional repeal of

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The view has been taken, and it is undoubtedly a correct one, that there were other motives actuating the Buchanan administration in sending an army over the Rocky Mountains in 1857 than the suppression of an alleged rebellion among the Mormons, and the installation of a new set of Federal officials in this Territory. President Buchanan was suspected-perhaps unjustly-of favoring the cause of secession. We say unjustly, because he is on record as denying the right of a State to secede, and for refusing to receive the South Caro- lina commissioners after the withdrawal of that State from the Union. Some of his cabinet, however, were manifestly in favor of secession, and did all in their power to promote it. One of these was John Buchanan Floyd, Secretary of War, whose efforts to disarm the north and arm and fortify the south, in anticipation of the great civil con- flict, are matters of history .* It was doubtless due to Floyd's advice that Buchanan sent the troops to Utah, ostensibly to suppress a rebellion in this distant Territory, but in reality to favor a rebellion

the organic act-blotting the Territorial Government out of existence, on the ground that they are alien enemies and outlaws, denying their allegiance and defying the authorities of the United States."

In reference to this portion of the Senator's speech, Harper's Weekly said editorially at the time : " The facts as established on reliable evidence will bear no such construction, justify no such assumption. For years the Mormons have undoubtedly been self-confined and tolerably peaceful citizens. They have never pretended, nor has anyone ever charged them with owing allegiance to any other authorities than those of their own Territory and those of the United States. "Until latterly they invariably spoke of the United States Government as loyal citizens should. Brigham Young accepted a commission from the President, which he has never resigned and under which he still holds over. Other United States officers have for years exercised their functions in the Territory without disturbance. Till the late riots no single occurrence in the history of Salt Lake settlement can be said to have shaken the bond which united the Territory to the Union. Where then is the evi- dence of alienage ? Where the ground for disfranchising the people ?

* "At the commencement of the rebellion he (Floyd) resigned. He had done his utmost while Secretary to dispose of the regular army so as to favor the projected rebellion. He scattered the forces to remotest stations, and transferred a great supply of arms from the Northern to the Southern States. Besides this, he abstracted $870,000 in government bonds, for which he was indicted. In the Confederate service he was a brigadier general ; was defeated at Ganley Bridge, losing his baggage, ammunition, and camp equipage."- Library of Universal Knowledge, vol. 6, page 73.

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in the Southern States. Buchanan, though weakly yielding to evil counsel, was probably sincere in what he did, but Floyd, who influenced him to commit the fearful mistake, is believed to have been quite as much the factotum of Jefferson Davis and other con- spiring secessionists, who may one day stand revealed as the parties really responsible, with Secretary Floyd, for Buchanan's famous blunder. Of course this is only conjecture. But "theory is the father of fact," and conjecture may give birth to certainty .*

The following selection from Hon. James G. Blaine's valuable work entitled "Twenty Years in Congress," reveals something of the true inwardness of those times. Referring to the division and reorganization of President Buchanan's cabinet at the outbreak of the Rebellion, the great Republican leader says :

Judge Black entered upon his duties as Secretary of State on the 17th of December- the day on which the disunion convention of South Carolina assembled. He found the malign influence of Mr. Buchanan's message fully at work throughout the South. Under its encouragement only three days were required by the convention at Charleston to pass the ordinance of secession, and four days later Governor Pickens issued a proclamation declaring " South Carolina a separate, sovereign, free and independent State, with the right to levy war, conclude peace and negotiate treaties." From that moment Judge Black's position towards the Southern leaders was radically changed. They were no longer fellow-Democrats. They were the enemies of the Union to which he was devoted, they were conspirators against the Government to which he had taken a solemn oath of fidelity and loyalty.

Judge Black's change, however important to his own fame, would prove comparatively fruitless unless he could influence Mr. Buchanan to break with the men who had been artfully using the power of his administration to destroy the Union. The opportunity and the test came promptly. The new " sovereign, free and independent" government of South Carolina sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate for the surrender of the national forts and the transfer of the national property within her limits. Mr. Buchanan prepared

* H. H. Bancroft, in summing up the causes of the Utah Expedition, says : "Thus in part through the stubbornness of the Mormons, but in part also through the malice of a dissolute and iniquitous judge, the spite of a disappointed mail contractor, the wire- pulling of birds of prey at Washington, and possibly in accordance with the policy of the President, who, until the Confederate flag liad been unfurled at Fort Sumter, retained in the valley of the Great Salt Lake nearly all the available forces in the Union Army and a store of munitions of war sufficient to furnish an arsenal, was brought about the Utah war."

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an answer to their request, which was compromising to the honor of the Executive and perilous to the integrity of the Union. Judge Black took a decided and irrevocable stand against the President's position. He advised Mr. Buchanan that upon the basis of that fatal concession to the disunion leaders he could not remain in his Cabinet. It was a sharp issue, but was soon adjusted. Mr. Buchanan gave way and permitted Judge Black and his associates, Holt and Stanton, to frame a reply for the Administration.

Jefferson Davis, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Slidell, who had been Mr. Buchan- an's intimate and confidential advisers, and who had led him to the brink of ruin, found themselves suddenly supplanted, and a new power installed in the White House. Foiled and no longer able to use the National Administration as an instrumentality to destroy the national life, the secession leaders in Congress turned upon the President with angry re- proaches. In their rage they lost all sense of the respect due to the Chief Magistrate of the nation, and assaulted Mr. Buchanan with coarseness as well as violence. Senator Benjamin spoke of him as "a senile Executive under the sinister influence of insane counsels." This exhibition of malignity towards the misguided President afforded to the North the most convincing and satisfactory proof that there had been a change for the better in the plans and purposes of the Administration. They realized that it must be a deep sense of impending danger which could separate Mr. Buchanan from his political associations with the South, and they recognized in his position a significant proof of the desperate determination to which the enemies of the Union had come.

The stand taken by Judge Black and his loyal associates was in the last days of December, 1860. The reorganization of the Cabinet came as a matter of necessity. Mr. John B. Floyd resigned from the War Department, making loud proclamation that his action was based on the President's refusal to surrender the national forts in Charleston Harbor to the secession government of South Carolina. This manifesto was not necessary to establish Floyd's treasonable intentions towards the Government ; but, in point of truth, the plea was undoubtedly a pretense, to cover reasons of a more personal character which would at once deprive him of Mr. Buchanan's confidence. There had been irregularities in the War Department tending to compromise Mr. Floyd, for which he was afterwards in- dicted in the District of Columbia. Mr. Floyd well knew that the first knowledge of these shortcomings would lead to his dismissal from the Cabinet. Whatever Mr. Buchanan's faults as an Executive may have been, his honor in all transactions, both personal and public, was unquestionable, and he was the last man to tolerate the slightest deviation from the path of rigid integrity.

Evidently it was the purpose of the Government to keep the people of Utah uninformed, so far as possible, of the military movement projected against them. Resistance was anticipated, and preparations for carrying out the orders of the War Department, as well as the issuance of those orders, were conducted with great secrecy. The army was led to believe that a bona fide rebellion existed, and that the Mormons were already in the field against them.

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The troops, of course, had no alternative but to obey. They were simply doing their duty. The following circular issued by the General-in-Chief was the cue of the soldiers for their action:

To the Adjutant General, Quartermaster General, Commissary General, Surgeon General, Paymaster General, and Chief of Ordnance:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,

May 28, 1857.

Orders having been despatched in haste for the assemblage of a body of troops at Fort Leavenworth, to march thence to Utah as soon as assembled, the general-in- chief, in concert with the War Department, issues the following instructions, to be executed by the chiefs of the respective staff departments, in connection with the general orders of this date:

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History of Utah, Part 53

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026