USA > Utah > History of Utah > Part 59
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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 constitutional 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 developing 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 unsatis- factory 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 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 Senators 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 outposts to this city and back, and that during your stay in our midst you will receive all that courtesy and
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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 immediately revolt from all connection with so ungodly, illegal, unconstitutional and hellish a crusade against an innocent people, and if their blood is shed it shall rest upon the heads of their com- manders. 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. T.
E. B. Alexander, Colonel 10th Infantry, U. S. A.
In a letter from the Governor to Colonel Alexander, written two days prior to the foregoing, and before the receipt of the Colonel's communication, the following passage occurs :
We have sought diligently for peace. We have sacrificed millions of dollars worth of property to obtain it, and wandered a thousand miles from the confines 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 instiga- tion 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 instru- ments 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 unpleasantness of your position, you must be aware that circum- stances 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.
A clear and forcible statement of the situation, as viewed by the Mormon people, is contained in a letter written by Apostle John Taylor to Captain Marcy, one of Colonel Alexander's officers. Marcy
Edwin D. Woolley
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had previously sent by Major Lot Smith, whom he encountered soon after the burning of the trains, an epistle to Elder Taylor, enclosing a letter of introduction from a Mr. Fuller of New York, with whom the Apostle had become acquainted while publishing The Mormon in that city. We will present but a portion of Apostle Taylor's letter, which was written from Salt Lake City on the 21st of October:
I can readily believe your statement, that it is very far from your feelings, and most of the command that are with you, to interfere with our social habits or religious views. One must naturally suppose that among gentlemen educated for the army alone, who have been occupied by the study of the art of war, whose pulses have throbbed with pleasure at the contemplation of the deeds of our venerated fathers, whose minds have been elated by the recital of the heroic deeds of other nations, and who have listened almost exclusively to the declamations of patriots and heroes, that there is not much time, and less inclination, to listen to the low party bickerings of political demagogues, the interested twaddle of sectional declaimers, or the throes and contortions of contracted religious bigots. You are supposed to stand on elevated ground, representing the power and securing the interests of the whole of a great and mighty nation. That many of you are thus honorable, 1 am proud, as an American citizen, to acknowledge ; but you must excuse me, my dear sir, if I cannot concede with you that all your officials are so high-toned, disinterested, humane and gentlemanly, as a knowledge of some of their antecedents expressly demonstrates. However, it is not with the personal character, the amiable qualities, high-toned feelings, or gentlemanly deportment of the officers in your expedition, that we at present have to do. The question that concerns us is one that is independent of your personal, generous, friendly and humane feelings or any individual predilection of yours ; it is one that involves the dearest rights of American citizens, strikes at the root of our social and political exis- tence, if it does not threaten our entire annihilation from the earth.
Excuse me, sir, when I say that you are merely the servants of a lamentably corrupt administration ; that your primary law is obedience to orders, and that you came here with armed foreigners with cannon, rifles, bayonets, and broadswords, expressly and for the openly avowed purpose of " cutting out the loathsome ulcer from the body politic." I am aware what our friend Fuller says in relation to this matter, and I entertain no doubt of his generous and humane feelings, nor do I of yours, sir ; but I do know that he is mis- taken in relation to the rabid tone and false, furious attacks of a venal and corrupt press. I do know that they are merely the mouthpiece, the tools, the barking dogs of a corrupt administration. I do know that Mr. Buchanan was well apprised of the nature of the testimony adduced against us by ex-Judge Drummond and others ; for he was informed of it, to my knowledge, by a member of his own cabinet, and 1 further know, from personal intercourse with members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, that there have been various plans concerted at headquarters for some time past, for the overthrow of this people.
Captain, Mr. Fuller informs me that you are a politician ; if so, you must know that in the last presidential campaign the Republican party had opposition to slavery and
42-VOL. 1.
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polygamy as two of the principal planks in their platform. You may know, sir, that Utah was picked out, and the only Territory excluded from a participation in pre-emption rights to land. You may also be aware that bills were introduced into Congress for the persecution of the Mormons; but other business was too pressing at that time for them to receive attention. You may be aware that measures were also set on foot, and bills prepared to divide up Utah among the Territories of Nebraska, Kansas, Oregon and New Mexico (giving a slice to California), for the purpose of bringing us into collision with the people of those Territories, not to say anything about thousands of our letters detained at the post-office at Independence. I might enumerate injuries by the score, and if these things are not so, why is it that Utah is so "knotty a question?" If people were no more ready to interfere with us and our institutions than we are with them and theirs, these difficulties would vanish into thin air. Why, again I ask, could Drummond and a host of others, mean scribblers, palm their barefaced lies with such impunity, and have their infamous slanders swallowed with so much gusto? Was it not that the administration and their satellites, having planned our destruction, were eager to catch at anything to render specious their contemplated acts of blood ? Or, in plain terms, the Democrats advocated strongly popular sovereignty. The Republicans tell them that, if they join in maintaining inviolable the domestic institutions of the South, they must also swallow polygamy. The Democrats thought this would not do, as it would interfere with the religious scruples of many of their supporters, and they looked about for some means to dispose of the knotty question. Buchanan, with Douglas, Cass, Thompson and others of his advisers, after failing to devise legal measures, hit upon the expedient of an armed force against Utah; and thus thought, by the sacrifice of the Mormons, to untie the knotty question; do a thousand times worse than the Republicans ever meant; fairly out-Herod Herod, and by religiously extirpating, destroying, or killing a hundred thousand innocent American citizens, satisfy a pious, humane, patriotic feeling of their constituents ; take the wind out of the sails of the Republicans, and gain to themselves immortal laurels. Captain, I have heard of a pious Presbyterian doctrine that would incul- cate thankfulness to the all-wise Creator for the privilege of being damned. Now, as we are not Presbyterians, nor believe in this kind of self-abnegation, you will, I am sure, ex- cuse us for finding fault at being thus summarily dealt with, no matter how agreeable the excision or expatriation might be to our political, patriotic or very pious friends. We have lived long enough in this world to know that we are a portion of the body politic, have some rights as well as other people, and that if others do not respect us, we, at least, have manhood enough to respect ourselves.
In regard to our religion, it is perhaps unnecessary to say much ; yet whatever others' feelings may be about it, with us it is honestly a matter of conscience. This is a right guaranteed to us by the Constitution of our country ; yet it is on this ground, and this alone, that we have suffered a continued series of persecutions, and that this present cru- sade is set on foot against us. In regard to this people, I have traveled extensively in the United States, and through Europe, yet have never found so moral, chaste and virtuous a people, nor do 1 expect to find them. And, if let alone, they are the most patriotic, and appreciate more fully the blessings of religious, civil and political freedom than any other portion of the United States. They have, however, discovered the difference between a
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blind submission to the caprices of political demagogues and obedience to the Constitution, laws, and institutions of the United States ; nor can they, in the present instance. be hood- winked by the cry of " treason." If it be treason to stand up for our constitutional rights ; if it be treason to resist the unconstitutional acts of a vitiated and corrupt administration, who, by a mercenary armed force, would seek to rob us of the rights of franchise, cut our throats to subserve their party, and seek to force upon us its corrupt tools, and violently invade the rights of American citizens ; if it be treason to maintain inviolate our homes, our firesides, our wives and our honor from the corrupting and withering blight of a debauched soldiery ; if it be treason to keep inviolate the Constitution and institutions of the United States, when nearly all the States are seeking to trample them under their feet, then, indeed, we are guilty of treason. We have carefully considered all these matters, and are prepared to meet the "terrible vengeance" we have been very politely informed will be the result of our acts. It is in vain to hide it from you that this people have suffered so much from every kind of official that they will endure it no longer. It is not with them an idle phantom, but a stern reality. It is not, as some suppose, the voice of Brigham only, but the universal, deep-settled feeling of the whole community. Their cry is, " Give us our Constitutional rights ; give us liberty or death !" A strange cry in our boasted model republic, but a truth deeply and indelibly engraven on the hearts of 100,000 American citizens by a series of twenty-seven years' unmitigated and unprovoked, yet unrequited wrongs. Having told you of this, you will not be surprised that when fifty have been called to assist in repelling our aggressors, a hundred have volunteered, and, when a hundred have been called, the number has been more than doubled ; the only feeling is " don't let us be overlooked or forgotten." And here let me inform you that I have seen thousands of hands raised simultaneously, voting to burn our property rather than let it fall into the hands of our enemies. They have been so frequently robbed and despoiled without redress, that they have solemnly decreed that, if they cannot enjoy their own property, nobody else shall. You will see by this that it would be literally madness for your small force to attempt to come into the settlements. It would only be courting destruction. But, say you, have you counted the cost ? have you considered the wealth and power of the United States and the fearful odds against you ? Yes; and here let me inform you that, if necessitated, we would as soon meet 100,000 as 1,000, and, if driven to the necessity, will burn every house, tree, shrub, rail, every patch of grass and stack of straw and hay, and flee to the mountains. You will then obtain a barren, desolate wilder- ness, but will not have conquered the people, and the same principle in regard to other property will be carried out. If this people have to burn their property to save it from the hands of legalized mobs, they will see to it that their enemies shall be without fuel ; they will haunt them by day and by night. Such is, in part, our .plan. The three hundred thousand dollars' worth of our property destroyed already in Green River County is only a faint sample of what will be done throughout the Territory. We have been twice driven, by tamely submitting to the authority of corrupt officials, and left our houses and homes for others to inhabit, but are now determined that, if we are again robbed of our possessions. our enemies shall also feel how pleasant it is to be houseless at least for once, and be permitted, as they have sought to do to us, "to dig their own dark graves, creep into them, and die."
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You may have learned already that it is anything but pleasant for a small army to contend with the chilling blasts of this inhospitable climate. How a large army would fare without resources you can picture to yourself. We have weighed those matters; it is for the administration to post their own accounts. It may not be amiss, however, here to state that, if they continue to prosecute this inhuman fratricidal war, and our Nero would light the fires and, sitting in his chair of state, laugh at burning Rome, there is a day of reckoning even for Neros. There are generally two sides to a question. As I before said, we wish for peace, but that we are determined on having it if we have to fight for it. We will not have officers forced upon us who are so degraded as to submit to be sustained by the bayonet's point. We cannot be dragooned into servile obedience to any man.
These things settled, Captain, and all the like preliminaries of etiquette are easily arranged ; and permit me here to state that no man will be more courteous and civil than Governor Young, and nowhere could you find in your capacity of an officer of the United States a more generous and hearty welcome than at the hands of his excellency. But when, instead of battling with the enemies of our country, you come (though probably reluctantly) to make war upon my family and friends, our civilities are naturally cooled, and we instinctively grasp the sword.
I need not bere assure you that personally there can be no feelings of enmity between us and your officers. We regard you as the agents of the administration in the discharge of a probably unpleasant duty, and very likely ignorant of the ultimate designs of the administration. As I left the East this summer, you will excuse me when I say I am probably better posted in some of these matters than you are, having been one of a delegation from the citizens of this Territory to apply for admission into the Union. I can only regret that it is not our real enemies that are here instead of you. We do not wish to harm you or any of the command to which you belong, and I can assure you that in any other capacity than the one you now occupy, you would be received as civilly and treated as courteously as in any other portion of our Union.
On my departure from the States, the fluctuating tide of popular opinion against us seemed to be on the wane. By this time there may be quite a reaction in the public mind. If so, it may probably affect materially the position of the administration, and tend to more constitutional, pacific and humane measures. In such an event our relative positions would be materially changed, and instead of meeting as enemies, we could meet, as all Americans should, friends to each other, and united against our legitimate enemies only.
It was not until the first week of November that General Johnston, commander of the Utah Expedition, joined Colonel Alexander on Black's Fork. To that point Johnston, by dispatch from South Pass, had previously directed the army to proceed. He was accompanied by Colonel Smith and the supply trains. Colonel Cooke was still in the rear. Johnston was a great general, and
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under the magic of his master hand the baffled and dispirited troops were suddenly inspired with new life and energy. He at once ordered a forward movement to Fort Bridger, repudiating Alexander's project of a detour to the northward, and haughtily spurning the idea of departing a single point from the direct route through Echo Canyon to the Mormon metropolis. Later, however, his ardor somewhat cooled-the climate and surroundings were extremely favorable to such a change-and he even contemplated, it is said, acting upon the idea previously abandoned by his subordinate and which he himself had severely criticised.
If Alexander's advance up Ham's Fork had been a march of suspense and discouragement, what shall be said of Johnston's procession of misery from Black's Fork to Fort Bridger? The distance was but thirty-five miles, fully one-sixth of which was covered by the long though closely packed trains of this column of misfortune. But the country they crossed was a frozen, snow- covered desert swept by November's bitter blasts, with little or no forage for the famishing cattle, and no fuel but sage-brush and willows. The Mormons took care of many of the cattle, running off five hundred head on the very evening before the march began, but many of the poor beasts dropped dead in their tracks as they wearily trudged along, or were frozen stiff during the awful nights succeeding the days of dreary toil. Some mornings the camp was almost surrounded by dead carcasses of animals that had succumbed to the icy breath of approaching winter. Even some of the men were severely frost-bitten. Snow, alternating with sleet and hail, fell almost continuously upon the retreating troops, the thermometer sinking at times to 16° below zero. Fifteen days were consumed in reaching the point-thirty-five miles distant -where until recently had stood Fort Bridger. But the fort was now no more. It had been burned, together with Fort Supply, ten miles away, by the Mormons, who were now slowly retiring before Johnston's advance, and concentrating their forces behind the icy and rocky ramparts of Echo Canyon.
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Just before reaching Bridger, Johnston was joined on November 19th by Colonel Cooke's cavalry, five hundred strong. The dragoons had almost perished in the storms at Devil's Gate and South Pass. With Colonel Cooke came Governor Cumming and other civil officials. In Cooke's report to Colonel Johnston, the following graphic passages, descriptive of his terrible experience, occur :
On the 6th of November, we found the ground once more white and the snow falling; but then very moderately ; I marched as usual. On a four-mile hill, the north wind and drifting snow became severe; the air seemed turned to frozen fog ; nothing could be seen ; we were struggling in a freezing cloud. The lofty wall at " Three Cross- ings," was a happy relief; but the guide, who had lately passed there, was relentless in pronouncing there was no grass. The idea of finding and feeding upon grass, in that wintry storm, under the deep snow, was hard to entertain ; but as he promised grass and other shelter, two miles further, we marched on, crossing twice more the rocky stream, half-choked with snow and ice ; finally he led us behind a great granite rock, but all too small for the promised shelter. Only a part of the regiment could huddle there in the deep snow ; whilst the long night through, the storm continued and in fearful eddies from above, before, behind, drove the falling and drifting snow.
The morning light had nothing cheering to reveal, the air still filled with driven snow; the animals soon came driven in, and, mingled in confusion with men, went crunching the snow in the confined and wretched camp, tramping all things in their way. It was not a time to dwell on the fact that from that mountain desert there was no retreat, nor any shelter near ; but a time for action.
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