CHAPTER XIII.
The Mormon Purpose
Correspondence between Colonel Alexander and Brigham Young--Illustration of Young's Vituperative Powers--John Taylor's Threat--Incendiary Teachings in Salt Lake City--A Warning to Saints who would Desert--The Army's Winter Camp --Proclamation by Governor Cumming--Judge Eckles's Court--Futile Preparations at Washington
WHEN Colonel Johnston arrived at the
Black's Fork camp the information he received from Colonel Alexander, and
certain correspondence with the Mormon authorities, gave him a comprehensive
view of the situation; and on November 5 he forwarded a report to army
headquarters in the East, declaring that it was the matured design of the
Mormons "to hold and occupy this territory independent of and irrespective
of the authority of the United States," entertaining "the insane
design of establishing a form of government thoroughly despotic, and utterly
repugnant to our institutions."
The correspondence referred to began with a letter from
Brigham Young to Colonel Alexander, dated October 14. Opening with a
declaration of Young's patriotism, and the brazen assertion that the people of
Utah "had 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 authority, "he went on to say: --
"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 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."
He then appealed to Colonel Alexander, as probably
"the unwilling agent" of the administration, to return East with his
force, saying, "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."
On October 18 Colonel Alexander, acknowledging the
receipt of Young's letter, said in his reply that no one connected with his
force had any wish to interfere in any way with the religion of the people of
Utah, adding: "I repeat my earnest desire to avoid violence and bloodshed,
and it will require positive resistance to force me to it. But my troops have
the same right of self-defence that you claim, and it rests entirely with you
whether they are driven to the exercise of it."
Finding that he could not cajole the federal officer,
Young threw off all disguise, and in reply to an earlier letter of Colonel
Alexander, he gave free play to his vituperative powers. After going over the
old Mormon complaints, and declaring that "both we and the Kingdom of God
will be free from all hellish oppressors, the Lord being our helper," he
wrote at great length in the following tone: --
"If you persist in your attempt to
permanently locate an army in this Territory, 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 scoundrels, whoremasters,
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....
"If George Washington was 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....
"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.... Were you and your
fellow officers as well acquainted with your soldiers as I am with mine, and
did they understand the work they were 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 commanders. With us it is the Kingdom of God or nothing."
To this Colonel Alexander replied, on the 19th, that no
citizen of Utah would be harmed through the instrumentality of the army in the
performance of its duties without molestation, and that, as Young's order to
leave the territory was illegal and beyond his authority, it would not be
obeyed.
John Taylor, on October 21, added to this
correspondence a letter to Captain Marcy, in which he ascribed to party
necessity the necessity of something with which to meet the declaration of the
Republicans against polygamy -- the order of the President that troops should
accompany the new governor to Utah; declared that the religion of the Mormons
was "a right guaranteed to us by the constitution"; and reiterated
their purpose, if driven to it, "to burn every house, tree, shrub, rail,
every patch of grass and stack of straw and hay, and flee to the
mountains." "How a large army would fare without resources," he
added, "you can picture to yourself."1
1 Text of this letter in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th Congress, and Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City."
The Mormon authorities meant just what they said
from the start. Young was as determined to be the head of the civil government
of the territory as he was to be the head of the church. He had founded a
practical dictatorship, with power over life and property, and had discovered
that such a dictatorship was necessary to the regulation of the flock that he
had gathered around him and to the schemes that he had in mind. To permit a
federal governor to take charge of the territory, backed up by troops who would
sustain him in his authority, meant an end to Young's absolute rule. Rather
than submit to this, he stood ready to make the experiment of fighting the
government force, separated as that force was from its Eastern base of
supplies; to lay waste the Mormon settlements, if it became necessary to use
this method of causing a federal retreat by starvation; and, if this failed, to
withdraw his flock to some new Zion farther south.
In accordance with this view, as soon as news of the
approach of the troops reached Salt Lake Valley, all the church industries
stopped; war supplies weapons and clothing were manufactured and accumulated;
all the elders in Europe were ordered home, and the outlying colonies in Carson
Valley and in southern California were directed to hasten to Salt Lake City. A
correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin at San Bernardino,
California, reported that in the last six months the Mormons there 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."2 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."3 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."4
2 Journal of Discourses,
Vol. V, p. 319.
3 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332.
4 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 338.
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."'5
5 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 352.
Kimball, on November 8, spoke with equal plainness on this subject: --
"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."6
6 Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, p. 34.
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, |
Another still more popular song, called "Zion," contained these words:
"Here our voices we'll raise, and will sing to thy praise,
|
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 Canon. This canon 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 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 military 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.7
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,8 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.
7 For the correspondence
concerning the camp during the winter of 1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th
Congress, Vol. II.
8 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."