DESTINATION OF THE SAINTS--THE CALL FOR THE MORMON BATTALION--HEROIC
RESPONSE OF THE EXILES--BRIGHAM, HEBER AND WILLARD AS RECRUITING
SERGEANTS--DEPARTURE OF THE BATTALION--THE CAMP OF ISRAEL GOES INTO
WINTER QUARTERS--THE FALL OF NAUVOO.
Where now shall fancy's roving pinion rest?
'Mid barren regions of the boundless West,
Where silvery streams through silent valleys flow
From mountains crested with eternal snow;
Where reigns no creed its rival creed to bind,
Where exiled faith a resting-place shall find,
Where builds the eagle on the beetling height
And wings o'er freedom's hills unfearing flight.
The point in view of the leaders of Israel was the Valley of the Great
Salt Lake, a portion of Mexican territory located in the tops of the
mountains, in the very heart of the American desert. Discouraging as
were all reports relating to this barren and inhospitable region, a
thousand miles farther on over trackless plains and bleak mountains
swarming with wild beasts and savages, these intrepid men resolved to
go forward, trusting in God and braving every peril. At least it was a
land of liberty, uninfested by mobs and heartless priests and
politicians, and with the wintry sky above, and the frozen earth
beneath, or in summer the burning rocks and waterless wastes around
them, they felt safer far in the society of wild Indians and savage
wolves, than in the midst of the Christian civilization they had left
behind.
Far from the realms where civilization reigns,
Where Freedom's bastards bind her sons in chains,
They sought a home within the western wild,
And fraternized the forest's dusky child;
No fiercer found, less savage in the test,
Than priestly tyrants trampling the oppressed.
Journeying towards the Missouri river they founded temporary
settlements, or "traveling stakes of Zion," recruiting their strength
with needed rest along the way, and putting in crops for their own use
or for their brethren to reap who came after them. Two of these
settlements were named Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah, the latter over a
hundred miles in the rear of the vanguard now resting on the Missouri
river.
It was the design of the leaders to leave the main body of the people
in these places, while they, with a picked band of pioneers, hastened
on to the Rocky Mountains that season. But an incident now occurred
which changed their plans and delayed the departure of the pioneers
until the following spring.
Word was brought to head-quarters on the Missouri, that a United
States army officer with a squad of soldiers had arrived at Mt.
Pisgah, with a requisition for five hundred men, to be furnished by
the Mormons, to enter the army and march to California to take part in
the war against Mexico.
Imagination can alone picture the surprise, almost dismay, with which
this startling news was received. What! the nation whose people had
thrust them from its borders, robbed them of their homes and driven
them into the wilderness, where it was hoped they might perish, now
calling upon them for aid? And this in full face of the fact that
their own oft reiterated appeals for help had been denied?
It was even so; five hundred able-bodied men, the flower of the camp,
were wanted. And this in the heart of an Indian country, in the midst
of an exodus unparalleled for its dangers and hardships, when every
active man was needed as a bulwark of defense and a staff for the aged
and feeble. For even delicate women, thus far, had in some instances
been driving teams and tending stock, owing to the limited number of
men available.
On the other hand, it was their country calling, and these sons and
daughters of the pilgrims and patriots loved their country, loved its
institutions and its laws, though the government of that country, in
the hands of self-seeking demagogues and politicians, had been as a
cruel step-mother rather than a tender parent to them.
What was to be done? What would the leaders decide to do? Such were
the questions that flew like lightning through the camp, as these
thoughts came rushing to mind. They were not left long unanswered.
On the 1st of July, Capt. James Allen, the recruiting officer, acting
under orders of Col. S. F. Kearney at Fort Leavenworth, having arrived
at "The Bluffs," went into council with Brigham Young, Heber C.
Kimball, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, George A. Smith,
John Taylor, John Smith and Levi Richards. Wilford Woodruff was at
Mount Pisgah, where he had received Captain Allen and his party a few
days before. The brethren were assured that the offer to accept the
services of a battalion of Mormon soldiers in the Mexican war, was
made by the government in kindness, and meant as a means of assistance
to the community, whose young and intelligent men might thus proceed,
at the government's expense, to the ultimate destination of their
whole people, and look out the land and prepare the way for their
brethren who came after them. This was the object, it was said, quite
as much as to enlist their services in their country's cause.
Whether convinced or not that such was the case, the result of the
council's deliberations was a resolve to raise the troops. Brigham
Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, in the role of
recruiting sergeants, at once set out for Mt. Pisgah, a distance of
one hundred and thirty miles, to execute the order for the Battalion.
Colonel Thomas L. Kane, that noble friend of the Mormon people, who
had arrived at the Bluffs, thus summarizes the result: "A central mass
meeting for council, some harangues at the more remotely scattered
camps, an American flag brought out from the storehouse of things
rescued, and hoisted to the top of a tree-mast, and, in three days,
the force was reported, mustered, organized and ready to march."
The Mormon Battalion set out for the west about the middle of July.
The project of the Pioneers, of going to the mountains that season,
was now of course abandoned, and the Camp of Israel prepared to go
into "Winter Quarters." This was the name given to their settlement on
the Missouri, the principal part of which was on the west side of the
river, five miles above Omaha of to-day. It is now known as Florence.
Seven hundred houses of log, turf and other primitive materials,
neatly arranged and laid out with streets and byways; well supplied
with workshops, mills and factories, and with a tabernacle of worship
in the midst; the whole arising from a pretty plateau overlooking the
river, and well fortified with breast-work, stockade and block-houses,
after the fashion of the frontier;--such was Winter Quarters, the
principal one of these so-called "traveling stakes of Zion." Here, in
these humble, prairie settlements, surrounded by Indians, whose savage
hearts God had wondrously softened into sympathy and friendship for
His exiled people, the Camp of Israel, the residue of twenty thousand
souls, which the Saints had numbered in Illinois, passed the winter of
1846.
Meanwhile, in September of that year, the remnant left in Nauvoo,
between six and seven hundred souls, after a gallant defense of their
city against the mob, which, in violation of every treaty, came upon
them in overwhelming numbers, were driven from their homes at the
point of the bayonet, and thrown, men, women and children, sick, dying
and shelterless, upon the western shores of the Mississippi. And
this--shades of the patriots!--while their brethren, the heroes of the
Mormon Battalion, were marching to fight their country's battles on
the plains of Mexico!