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."*
* 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."* 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."** 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."***
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. V, p. 319.
** Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332
*** 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."'*
* 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."*
* 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,
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,
Sacred home of the Prophets of God;
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 canyon. This canyon 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.* 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,** 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.
* For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of
1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II.
** 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."