had sent four or five tons of gunpowder and many weapons to Utah, and that, when the order to "gather" at the Mormon metropolis came, they sacrificed everything to obey it, selling real estate at a reduction of from 20 to 50 per cent, and furniture for any price that it would bring. The same sacrifices were made in Carson Valley, where 150 wagons were required to accommodate the movers. In Salt Lake City the people were kept wrought up to the highest pitch by the teachings of their leaders. Thus, Amasa W. Lyman told them, on October 8, that they would not be driven away, because "the time has come when the Kingdom of God should be built up." Young told them the same day, "If we will stand up as men and women of God, the yoke shall never be placed upon our necks again, and all hell cannot overthrow us, even with the United States troops to help them."2 Kimball told the people in the Tabernacle, on October 18: "They [the United States] will have to make peace with us, and we never again shall make peace with them. If they come here, they have got to give up their arms." Describing his plan of campaign, at the same service, after the reading of the correspondence between Young and Colonel Alexander, Young said: "Do you want to know what is going to be done with the enemies now on our border? As soon as they start to come into our settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes and slumber from their eyelids until they sleep in death. Men shall be secreted here and there, and shall waste away our enemies in the name of Israel's God."3 Young was equally explicit in telling members of his own flock what they might expect if they tried to depart at that time. In a discourse in the Tabernacle, on October 25, he said: "If any man or woman in Utah wants to leave this community, come to me and I will treat you kindly, as I always have, and will assist you to leave; but after you have left our settlements you must not then depend upon me any longer, nor upon the God I serve. You must meet the doom you have labored for. . . After this season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never again say to a man, 'Stay your rifle ball,' when our enemies assail us, but shall say, 'Slay them where you find them.""4 Kimball, on November 8, spoke with equal plainness on this subject: 1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. V, p. 319. 2 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332. 8 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 338. 4 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 352. "When it is necessary that blood should be shed, we should be as ready to do that as to eat an apple. That is my religion, and I feel that our platter is pretty near clean of some things, and we calculate to keep it clean from this time henceforth and forever. . . And if men and women will not live their religion. but take a course to pervert the hearts of the righteous, we will lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet,' and we will let you know that the earth can swallow you up as did Koran with his hosts; and, as Brother Taylor says, you may dig your graves, and we will slay you and you may crawl into them." 19 1 The Mormon songs of the day breathed the same spirit of defiance to the United States authorities. A popular one at the Tabernacle services began: "Old Uncle Sam has sent, I understand, Du dah, A Missouri ass to rule our land, Du dah! Du dah day. But if he comes we'll have some fun, Du dah, To see him and his juries run, Du dah! Du dah day. Chorus: Then let us be on hand, By Brigham Young to stand, And if our enemies do appear, We'll sweep them from the land." Another still more popular song, called "Zion," contained these words: "Here our voices we'll raise, and will sing to thy praise, Thy deliverance is nigh, thy oppressors shall die, And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod." When the Mormons found that the federal forces had gone into winter quarters, the Nauvoo Legion was massed in a camp called Camp Weber, at the mouth of Echo Cañon. This cañon they fortified with ditches and breastworks, and some dams intended to flood the roadway; but they succeeded in erecting no defences which could not have been easily overcome by a disciplined force. A watch was set day and night, so that no movement of "the invaders" could escape them, and the officer in charge was particularly forbidden to allow any civil officer appointed by 1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, p. 34. the President to pass. This careful arrangement was kept up all winter, but Tullidge says that no spies were necessary, as deserting soldiers and teamsters from the federal camp kept coming into the valley with information. The territorial legislature met in December, and approved Governor Young's course, every member signing a pledge to maintain "the rights and liberties" of the territory. The legislators sent a memorial to Congress, dated January 6, 1858, demanding to be informed why "a hostile course is pursued toward an unoffending people," calling the officers who had fled from the territory liars, declaring that "we shall not again hold still while fetters are being forged to bind us," etc. This offensive document reached Washington in March, and was referred in each House to the Committee on Territories, where it remained. When the federal forces reached Fort Bridger, they found that the Mormons had burned the buildings, and it was decided to locate the winter camp-named Camp Scott-on Black's Fork, two miles above the fort. The governor and other civil officers spent the winter in another camp near by, named "Ecklesville," occupying dugouts, which they covered with an upper story of plastered logs. There was a careful apportionment of rations, but no suffering for lack of food. An incident of the winter was the expedition of Captain Randolph B. Marcy across the Uinta Mountains to New Mexico, with two guides and thirty-five volunteer companions, to secure needed animals. The story of his march is one of the most remarkable on record, the company pressing on, even after Indian guides refused to accompany them to what they said was certain death, living for days only on the meat supplied by half-starved mules, and beating a path through deep snow. This march continued from November 27 to January 10, when, with the loss of only one man, they reached the valley of the Rio del Norte, where supplies were obtained from Fort Massachusetts. Captain Marcy started back on March 17, selecting a course which took him past Long's and Pike's Peaks. He reached Camp Scott on June 8, with about fifteen hundred horses and mules, escorted by five companies of infantry and mounted riflemen. During the winter Governor Cumming sent to Brigham Young a proclamation notifying him of the arrival of the new territorial officers, and assuring the people that he would resort to the mili tary posse only in case of necessity. Judge Eckles held a session of the United States District Court at Camp Scott on December 30, and the grand jury of that court found indictments for treason, resting on Young's proclamation and Wells's instructions, against Young, Kimball, Wells, Taylor, Grant, Locksmith, Rockwell, Hickman, and many others, but of course no arrests were made. Meanwhile, at Washington, preparations were making to sustain the federal authority in Utah as soon as spring opened.1 Congress made an appropriation, and authorized the enlistment of two regiments of volunteers; three thousand regular troops and two batteries were ordered to the territory, and General Scott was directed to sail for the Pacific coast with large powers. But General Scott did not sail, the army contracts created a scandal,2 and out of all this preparation for active hostilities came peace without the firing of a shot; out of all this open defiance and vilification of the federal administration by the Mormon church came abject surrender by the administration itself. 1 For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of 1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II. 2 Colonel Albert G. Brown, Jr., in his account of the Utah Expedition in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1859, said: "To the shame of the administration these gigantic contracts, involving an amount of more than $6,000,000, were distributed with a view to influence votes in the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the lesser ones, such as those for furnishing mules, dragoon horses, and forage, were granted arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were wavering upon that question. The principal contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies, involving for the year 1858 the amount of $4,500,000, was granted, without advertisement or subdivision, to a firm in Western Missouri, whose members had distinguished themselves in the effort to make Kansas a slave state, and now contributed liberally to defray the election expenses of the Democratic party." CHAPTER XIV COLONEL KANE'S MISSION WHEN Major Van Vliet returned from Utah to Washington with Young's defiant ultimatum, he was accompanied by J. M. Bernhisel, the territorial Delegate to Congress, who was allowed to retain his seat during the entire "war," a motion for his expulsion, introduced soon after Congress met, being referred to a committee which never reported on it, the debate that arose only giving further proof of the ignorance of the lawmakers about Mormon history, Mormon government, and Mormon ambition. In Washington Bernhisel was soon in conference with Colonel T. L. Kane, that efficient ally of the Mormons, who had succeeded so well in deceiving President Fillmore. In his characteristically wily manner, Kane proposed himself to the President as a mediator between the federal authorities and the Mormon leaders.1 At that early date Buchanan was not so ready for a compromise as he soon became, and the Cabinet did not entertain Kane's proposition with any enthusiasm. But Kane secured from the President two letters, dated December 3.2 The first stated, in regard to Kane, "You furnish the strongest evidence of your desire to serve the Mormons by undertaking so laborious a trip," and that "nothing but pure philanthropy, and a strong desire to serve the Mormon people, could have dictated a course so much at war with your 1 H. H. Bancroft ("History of Utah,” p. 529) accepts the ridiculous Mormon assertion that Buchanan was compelled to change his policy toward the Mormons by unfavorable comments "throughout the United States and throughout Europe." Stenhouse says ("Rocky Mountain Saints,” p. 386): “That the initiatory steps for the settlement of the Utah difficulties were made by the government, as is so constantly repeated by the Saints, is not true. The author, at the time of Colonel Kane's departure from New York for Utah, was on the staff of the New York Herald, and was conversant with the facts, and confidentially communicated them to Frederick Hudson, Esq., the distinguished manager of that great journal." 2 Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II, PP. 162-163. |