Meanwhile, the men on the frontier in Weber Canyon were uneasy and as
full of vague forebodings of the future as were the women and children
left in the safer shelter of the lower valleys. To be sure, the army
had been kept out of the Valley for the whole winter; and spring had
come, and they were still outside the confines of the Territory.
On the morning of May 28th, Colonel Lot Smith was ordered to the
headquarters of the Utah militia. He was closeted with the General for
an hour. When he emerged, he went at once to the tent of John Stevens.
"Captain Stevens, get Corporal Rose and a squad of six men and meet me
outside of the lines in half an hour; you have an important duty ahead."
The order was instantly obeyed, and soon the little squad was riding
out towards Camp Scott.
Arrived there, after hours of hard riding, they showed their passports
to the pickets, and were at last allowed to enter the lines. As the
little squad rode rapidly up towards the camp of the army, in the near
distance, the mountaineers noted with interest the picture of tented
life, now grown so familiar to Stevens, but so novel to the eyes of
the other young Utahns. The white Sibley tents, now brown and rusty
with the winter's use, were planted about the log and wooden structures
in regular form in the center of the encampment, while blue-coated
soldiers could be seen through the outer motley fringe of the camp's
usual followers, pacing in sentry duty, or moving to and fro on other
duty. The great white city rested on the brown and pale green landscape
of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains like pinioned birdwings,
brooding over the nest of mighty enterprises.
John turned to his companions and said:
"Corporal Rose, I shall leave you and the men here to rest quietly
until my return. Remain in your saddles and prepare for quick action."
"Do you anticipate any trouble, Captain Stevens?"
"Soldiers do not anticipate. They prepare. I may not go armed into the
presence of civil and military authorities on a message of peace. Hold
my weapons and my horse until my return."
Handing his musket to his companion, and striding steadily forward,
Captain Stevens was soon within the outskirts of the great camp at Fort
Scott. In the rough camp life of the hordes of camp followers were
mingled shouts of drunken laughter, oaths of anger, and the shrill
cries of ribald women. He entered the narrow streets of rude houses in
the edge of the camp, which consisted of half shacks, half wigwams,
and all of them altogether abandoned in their reckless atmosphere of
rude frontier conviviality. The look on the face of the mountaineer as
he walked hastily through this outer fringe of corruption to reach the
inner city of white orderliness was grim and foreboding.
Passing one of the larger tents in the motley village, a drunken man
suddenly emerged therefrom with his pistol swinging in his reckless
grasp.
"Who are you?" he demanded of John, reeling up and cocking the pistol
directly in the face of the mountaineer. The drunken eyes of the
soldier noted the rude garb of the stranger and with drunken quickness
of malicious wit, he shouted noisily:
"Are you a damned Mormon?"
With a terrible look in the flashing eyes which passed along the gun
barrel and pierced the very marrow of his assailant, John Stevens
answered, through his clenched teeth:
"Yes siree! I am a 'Mormon!' Dyed in the wool!"
With a shaking hand the pistol was lowered, and the soldier said
unsteadily:
"Well, you're a damned good feller."
John Stevens turned away in disgust and yet with a quick gratitude for
the speedy deliverance.
And now he reached the entrance to the real Camp Scott.
He showed his passports to the sentry, and passed quickly into the
tented enclosure, where he was soon ushered into the presence of
Governor Cumming and a group of officers, among whom were the Peace
Commissioners, no doubt, whom John Stevens had come to seek.
Governor Cumming's countenance lighted as he met the flashing gaze of
John Stevens.
"So, Captain Stevens, you are to be my escort into Great Salt Lake City
this second time also?"
"If that is my duty, I shall perform it even more cheerfully than I did
before, Governor Cumming."
"Spoken like a soldier. But, friend Stevens, I want you to enlighten
these gentlemen. Excuse me, gentlemen, I desire Captain Stevens, who
has so recently come from the Valley, to tell you officers how cordial
and friendly his President is."
Stevens' smile was very grim as he answered:
"President Brigham Young is always cordial to his friends."
"And always generous, even to his enemies, hey, Stevens?"
"He is just to every one."
The Governor hastened to cover the slight confusion he felt at his
failure to draw happy assurances of peace from the mountaineer. At that
moment a slim, dark, handsome young officer, whom Stevens recognized
with a flash of his keen eye and quick memory, stepped jauntily out of
the group beside the Governor and said lightly:
"My good man, why does your rebel leader court death and extinction in
this defiant fashion?"
John strode towards the insulting speaker, and at that moment the
Governor of the new Territory realized that he had more than a war of
two belligerent forces; he had a religious as well as a sociological
problem on his hands. He felt his own powerlessness, even to prevent
sudden conflict between these two rash youths.
Suddenly an orderly entered and after saluting he announced:
"Governor Powell and Major McCulloch."
The entrance of these two men made a diversion. But neither the soldier
nor the mountaineer forgot his personal grievance.
"Major McCulloch, here is the leader of the escort which Governor Young
has sent to convey the Peace Commissioners into the Valley. I trust you
will be mutually benefited by your acquaintance. Stevens is a fearless
soldier and a just man. Captain Stevens, Major McCulloch and Governor
Powell of Kentucky are the two Peace Commissioners sent out here by our
gracious executive, President Buchanan."
"Captain Stevens, were you one of that gallant band of boys who went to
San Bernardino in the 'Mormon' Battalion?" asked Major McCulloch.
John signified that he was, and the bluff old soldier grasped his hand
and shook it heartily.
"Well, sir, I may think your leaders a damned set of hypocrites, but
you men, and the women too, as to that, sir, who undertook that most
damnable and difficult march in the way you did, and carried it through
so gloriously, sir, you have all my hearty admiration. I am glad to see
you, sir."
John responded to this genuine outburst with mingled feelings; he could
but acknowledge the genuineness of the man, but the strictures upon
the leaders of his people stung John almost to the quick reply. Again
Governor Cumming was to the rescue.
"Gentlemen, we have no time for reminiscence. We must to business!
There is no time to lose."
"Damn me, sir, I am not wasting time when I tell a man he is one
of a body of heroes. Damn it, man, do you know anything about that
tremendous march of half-clad, half-starved troops through a howling
barren waste, over deserts and mountains, burying their dead, and
nursing their sick, without one day's rest or pause? Damn it, man, you
seem to be pretty ignorant of the greatest march undertaken by American
or other soldiers. Do you know, sir, that that company of rough,
untrained soldiers planted the first American flag on the soil of Lower
California? Stevens, I am proud to take your hand. I saw your name on
the muster roll and am glad to meet you."
Governor Cumming was nervously aware of the stare of contempt indulged
in by more than one of the officers in the tent at this outburst of the
peppery but generous major; but he was fain to wait till the soldier's
tongue was tired, and then he hastily proceeded to outline the plan of
action.
As the council proceeded, John Stevens perceived that, inadvertently
perhaps, the Governor held out as a sort of peace-sop the picture of
the comfortable homes down in the Valley below: the smiling farms,
the young orchards and the fruitful gardens; these he hinted to the
assembled officers would make life very endurable to all who might find
shelter beneath the snowy peaks of the mountains towering above the
lakes and valleys of that inhabited desert.
John was forced to listen in silence to the seeming bait which was held
out to the weary soldiers who had wintered almost where Gen. Harney
said they would--in "hell"--and "hell" it had been to those restless
men in the frozen passes of the desert mountains.
"How can all this be true, Governor?" asked ex-Governor and
Senator-elect Powell, the other member of the Peace Commission, "when
it is hardly ten years since these people came into these barren
wastes?"
"My dear sir, these 'Mormons' have done more marvelous things than ever
did Moses. And they have even put the Pilgrim Fathers to the blush with
their gigantic toil and its marvelous results. They call it the special
providence of God; hey, Stevens?" to the young man whom he was anxious
to placate and who was listening savagely to this somewhat indiscreet
parley; "but the blossoming desert below may be called, in all reason,
the result of energy and grit. Yankee grit! Why, sir, you will find
that those people down there are mostly of pure New England descent. A
very few English, and fewer Europeans. Yankees they are, most of them.
And a very courageous lot of Yankees they all are. They are the peers
of any in the matter of sobriety, courage and industry."
John could but feel that Governor Cumming was trying to be fair in his
explanation, and that helped him the better to bear the insolent airs
of some of the blue-coated officers, who gazed at him loftily. His
manhood could hardly be insulted by such personalities.
As he waited without, after the conference had been broken up, and the
Governor and Commissioners had withdrawn, he noted one of the officers,
whom he had heard called Col. Saxey, trying to still the wild boasts
of some of the younger men, who could not quite rid themselves of the
prospective triumph over the "damned Mormons."
"This whole business," asserted Saxey, "is nothing but a scheme on
the part of King Buchanan to get the flower of the Union troops out
here just to further his own wily political ends. He is the king of
blunderers, say I!"
John moved hastily away; he was aware of the few wise heads in that
vast army of ten thousand, but he also knew that time and time again,
the demons of mobocracy had broken over all civil and military control
and had plundered and driven his poor and unhappy people. And now,
behold, he was to escort the Peace Commissioners into the Valley! Well,
he would do his full duty.
"I have sent a message to General Albert Sidney Johnston," said
the Governor, after they rode out of camp under the protection of
the "Mormon" squad, "charging him to remain here quietly until you
gentlemen of the Peace Commission have done your work, and until it is
quite safe and proper to debouch our army into the valleys below."
"And do you expect General Johnston to obey your orders?" asked Major
McCulloch. "If he remains in camp one day after we leave it, it will be
because he wishes to do so, not because you command it."
"What do you mean Major. Am I not the head of the government in this
Territory? Who shall command, if not the representative of the United
States government?" and the gentleman proudly swept his glance over the
generous form of his companion.
"My dear fellow, that is a question that lies too deep for a soldier to
answer. Which shall rule in this Territory? The civil or the military?
Can you unriddle me the riddle, Governor Powell?"
That gentleman merely raised his eyebrows, as he sought to keep a
steady seat on his fiercely trotting cayuse pony and said:
"Quien sabe?"
"There must be no mistake," said Governor Cumming, anxiously; "if there
is any measure of peace to come into this unhappy Territory--and you
gentlemen have been commissioned for that purpose and no other--I must
be allowed full control as the civil head of this part of our Nation.
There has been no rebellion, gentlemen; I beg you to remember that;"
and John, who had heard all, loved the kindly, determined gentleman who
maintained that fact in the face of all opponents. "You may patch up
a peace as best you may. But it will never, can never, be done at the
point of the sword."
"Quien sabe?" again asked the political Powell, who was open to
conviction on either side.
And so the cavalcade rode swiftly on its way. They reached the entrance
to the canyon at dusk; after a brief rest Capt. Stevens insisted that
they should continue on their line of travel, because of the possible
danger of attack from Indians or other stragglers in the mountains.
And so it was that the party traversed the whole of the canyon
fortifications under cover of darkness. And whatever John's motive in
so doing might be, it was not communicated to the others. But when they
passed peak after peak, all brilliantly illuminated by camp fires,
around which men stood silent and grim, Governor Cumming felt some
doubt as to whether this glowing tribute was a token of respect for
themselves, or a skilful multiplication of resources on the part of the
mountaineers.