The armies of the United States were to enter the valleys of Utah.
President Buchanan had said they must, the Peace Commission and
Governor Cumming said they ought, and Brigham Young said they might.
On the twenty-sixth day of June, 1858, at daybreak, the advance column
of the army began its march through the streets of Great Salt Lake City.
The soldiers, whose eyes had for so many months rested on desolation,
looked down from the mouth of Emigration Canyon with a pleased surprise
on all the goodly evidences of civilization about them. Houses, with
blinking windows and comfortable porches; wide streets, flanked on
either side with running streams of clear, cold, canyon water, over
whose rippling surface drooped in graceful lines the native cottonwood,
which had been dug from the neighboring canyon streams and planted
along every water-course to furnish shade and rest for man and beast;
commodious homes, barns, fences and outbuildings gave this unique
city a look of mingled rural simplicity and urban attractiveness.
The huge blocks were laid out in large lots, whereon sat with sturdy
independence each snug house, its surrounding fruit and vegetable
plantations fenced in with poles or cobbles, thus forming a generous
combination of orchard and kitchen garden.
The soldiers were not more curious nor more deeply impressed with the
queer appearance of this well-built yet deserted city than were the
officers, who rode here and there inspecting their various divisions.
Colonel St. George Cooke, who had been in service with the "Mormon"
Battalion in Lower California, rode through the city with bared head
and gloomy eye, as a silent evidence of a respect and sympathy which
did his head no less honor than his heart.
One handsome, dark-eyed young officer looked about and rode from side
to side of the silent streets, at last opening a gaping gate wide and
riding within the yard, as if unable to restrain his curiosity. As he
rode around to the back of the house, a door opened, and a man stood
silently watching his approach.
"Well, my good fellow," patronizingly said the young blue-coated
horseman, "can you tell me the meaning of the extraordinary appearance
of this extraordinary city?"
"What's extraordinary?" asked the bearded man, leaning against the
doorpost.
"Do you mean, what's the meaning of the word? or what's extraordinary
about the town? You must know, my man, that it seems very strange--to
use the simple terms suited to your capacity--to find all these good
houses, barns and gardens empty and to find no living soul moving
about. Not a woman or girl, not even a child or dog, to give active
life to your rural scene. Where are your women and children? I have
seen one or two men, but not a woman."
"Don't see a woman, hey?" and John Stevens looked about him with
indifferent insolence; "well, I don't either."
"Can't you answer a civil question, my surly fellow? Where are your
families?"
"They are out of your reach, scoundrel, as well as out of your sight!
What are you going to do about it?"
"Oh, I'm not afraid; the women will find us out. They have a particular
fondness for brass buttons, you know. I have no doubt that we shall
find all the women we want, provided that you big strapping fellows
have a few dozen over and above your own needs."
The sneering yet airy tones of this speech made John Stevens clinch his
hands in silent yet mighty anger. But, under orders to maintain peace,
he merely turned around and sauntered towards the barn, leaving his
questioner to go or stay as he pleased.
"What in the name of mischief does this deadly quiet and desertion
mean?" asked the same officer, as he rode out into the street and found
his companions still streaming down the silent road.
"I have just heard the Colonel say that these people have followed
their leader, old Brigham, down to the southern part of the Territory,
and that they intend to emigrate to Mexico, or--who knows--to Brazil,
maybe. They were determined to give us no excuse to kill them or to
even administer the punishment they so richly deserve."
"Run away, have they? Well, that's cool. Here we've come out over
the most forsaken country in all the United States; have passed the
beastliest winter ever seen by soldiers, since Moscow, and yet when we
are here ready to get in our work, behold the sacrifice has picked up
his heels and fled ingloriously."
"Not even having the grace to leave us a scrubby ram caught in the
thicket. Too bad, old fellow. What about all your plans for a modern
seraglio? No doubt the women are kept under the closest surveillance,
wherever they are."
"Oh, well, as I told a raw-boned fellow in the dooryard back there, if
the women get a sight of us, they will follow us without our even going
to the trouble to whistle for them. I have known the dear creatures all
my life, don't you know?"
All day, the tramp, tramp of armed men, the rattle of heavy
field-pieces, the jingle of swords and guns, the rumble of baggage
wagons, with occasional bursts of music from the regimental
bands--these were the only sounds heard through the tomb-like and
deserted streets. So profound was the silence that, at intervals,
between the passage of the columns, the slight monotonous gurgle of
City Creek struck on every ear. The only living creatures to be seen
was the group of men who stood around Governor Cumming on the Council
House corner and waved a cheerful yet subdued salute to the troops,
as they filed lustily by. Inside of many of these houses, no sign of
inhabiting life remained; the furniture was piled in great heaps,
with under portions of shavings and kindlings and straw, ready to be
burned at a moment's notice; while in a few houses there were eager
watching, silent men inside, who held flint and steel ready to apply
to these crisp piles of shavings if ever the marching feet outside had
stopped and attempted any desecration. Outside, everywhere, great piles
of straw lay upon grass, garden and outbuildings; all ready for the
instant torch of destruction.
All day, all day, the marching feet and wondering eyes passed through
the desolate streets. There were no stops, no breaking of ranks,
save here and there, where some daring soldier's hand would seize
and pluck a fragrant bloom from a flaunting rose-bush, or a thirsty,
dust-stained soldier would stoop, and making a cup of his hands, drink
of the running, sparkling streams along the road. The divisions clanged
heavily along with no rest to the steady, onward, measured march. The
fragrant grass-grown streets were not more eloquent of a whole people's
sorrowing desertion than were the sun-rotting barrels and buckets near
the unused wells of water.
Forty miles to the south there awaited in the silent desert the spot
where these journeying troops would halt in their march, and striking
permanent camp, sojourn for a season. But the army would camp for the
night on the dry plain across the river Jordan to the west of the City.
As the last company of soldiers filed past the western streets in the
late summer evening, John Stevens warily closed his own and other doors
in the neighborhood, and together with a party of scouts, he rode
stealthily down to the army camp, made temporarily a couple of miles
beyond the river Jordan. He watched in silent suspicion the whole night
through, and when morning light found men and camp-followers astir,
he, too, was on the alert, and at a safe distance he followed the long
moving column for two days as it stretched from the banks of the river
Jordan down through the narrow pass beside the treacherous stream's
banks. On and on the marching lines flowed heavily down the southern
road, past the northern edge of the lovely sheet of blue, clear water
called Utah Lake; around and around this lake the road ran, past the
northern shores of its clear blue glory; past the chain of canyon
defiles which opened at last into the Cedar Valley, and down into the
heart of that desert vale, where only the cricket and sage-brush gave
evidence of animal or vegetable life. Here on the valley's one water
course the army halted. They made their permanent quarters there and
called their first Utah camp "Floyd," in honor of the Secretary of War.
Here, then, the army of the United States was quartered, with the
approval of the great and distant heads of the Government, and the
disapproval of the surrounding bands of half-hungry and half-frightened
Ute and Pauvan Indians; with the grudged consent of General Albert
Sidney Johnston, and the silent acquiescence, that armed truce, of the
intrepid "Mormon" leader, Brigham Young.
As the last tent was set, and the whole machinery of camp life once
more set in motion, Captain John Stevens found himself at liberty
to ride, with his companions, into the southern rendezvous of his
people, at Provo, and to make due report to his commanding officers.
As he turned his face eastward and rode at the head of his company
his relieved thoughts flew from those larger affairs of state to his
personal affairs; and he wondered silently whether it were whim or
affection which kept Charlie Rose's ring on the finger of Diantha
Winthrop. If it were whim--well, eternity was very long; if it were
affection--
"Corporal Rose," he said, somewhat sharply, "we shall take no rest for
dinner, but press on at once for Provo."
And Corporal Rose, albeit full of wonder as to the sharpness and the
haste, was very glad to ride straight on to Provo.