THE EXODUS--TO YOUR TENTS, O ISRAEL--SETTING OUT FROM THE BORDERS OF
CIVILIZATION--MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMP OF ISRAEL--FIRST NIGHT AT SUGAR
CREEK--PRAISING GOD IN THE SONG AND DANCE--DEATH BY THE WAYSIDE.
The heroism of the Mormon women rose to more than tragic splendor in
the exodus. Only two circumstances after the martyrdom connect them
strongly with their beloved city. These attach to their consecrations
in, and adieus to, the temple, and the defence of Nauvoo by the remnant
of the saints in a three days' battle with the enemy. Then came the
evacuation of the city several months after the majority of the twelve,
with the body of the Church, had taken up their march towards the Rocky
Mountains.
Early in February, 1846, the saints began to cross the Mississippi
in flat-boats, old lighters, and a number of skiffs, forming quite
a fleet, which was at work night and day under the direction of the
police.
On the 15th of the same month, Brigham Young, with his family, and
others, crossed the Mississippi from Nauvoo, and proceeded to the
"Camps of Israel," as they were styled by the saints, which waited on
the west side of the river, a few miles on the way, for the coming of
their leader. These were to form the vanguard of the migrating saints,
who were to follow from the various States where they were located, or
had organized themselves into flourishing branches and conferences; and
soon after this period also began to pour across the Atlantic that tide
of emigration from Europe, which has since swelled to the number of
about one hundred thousand souls.
In Nauvoo the saints had heard the magic cry, "To your tents, O
Israel!" And in sublime faith and trust, such as history scarcely
gives an example of, they had obeyed, ready to follow their leader
whithersoever he might direct their pilgrim feet.
The Mormons were setting out, under their leader, from the borders of
civilization, with their wives and their children, in broad daylight,
before the eyes of ten thousand of their enemies, who would have
preferred their utter destruction to their "flight," notwithstanding
they had enforced it by treaties outrageous beyond description,
inasmuch as the exiles were nearly all American born, many of them
tracing their ancestors to the very founders of the nation. They had to
make a journey of fifteen hundred miles over trackless prairies, sandy
deserts and rocky mountains, through bands of war-like Indians, who had
been driven, exasperated, towards the West; and at last to seek out and
build up their Zion in valleys then unfruitful, in a solitary region
where the foot of the white man had scarcely trod. These, too, were to
be followed by the aged, the halt, the sick and the blind, the poor,
who were to be helped by their little less destitute brethren, and the
delicate young mother with her new-born babe at her breast, and still
worse, for they were not only threatened with the extermination of the
poor remnant at Nauvoo, but news had arrived that the parent government
designed to pursue their pioneers with troops, take from them their
arms, and scatter them, that they might perish by the way, and leave
their bones bleaching in the wilderness.
At about noon, on the 1st of March, 1846, the "Camp of Israel" began to
move, and at four o'clock nearly four hundred wagons were on the way,
traveling in a north-westerly direction. At night they camped again on
Sugar Creek, having advanced five miles. Scraping away the snow they
pitched their tents upon the frozen ground; and, after building large
fires in front, they made themselves as comfortable as possible under
the circumstances. Indeed, it is questionable whether any other people
in the world could have cozened themselves into a happy state of mind
amid such surroundings, with such a past fresh and bleeding in their
memories, and with such a prospect as was before both themselves and
the remnant of their brethren left in Nauvoo to the tender mercies
of the mob. In his diary, Apostle Orson Pratt wrote that night:
"Notwithstanding our sufferings, hardships and privations, we are
cheerful, and rejoice that we have the privilege of passing through
tribulation for the truth's sake."
These Mormon pilgrims, who took much consolation on their journey in
likening themselves to the Pilgrim fathers and mothers of this nation,
whose descendants many of them, as we have seen, actually were, that
night made their beds upon the frozen earth. "After bowing before
our great Creator," wrote Apostle Pratt, "and offering up praise
and thanksgiving to him, and imploring his protection, we resigned
ourselves to the slumbers of the night."
But the weather was more moderate that night than it had been for
several weeks previous. At their first encampment the thermometer
at one time fell twenty degrees below zero, freezing over the great
Mississippi. The survivors of that journey will tell you they never
suffered so much from the cold in their lives as they did on Sugar
Creek.
And what of the Mormon women? Around them circles almost a tragic
romance. Fancy may find abundant subject for graphic story of the
devotion, the suffering, the matchless heroism of the sisters, in the
telling incident that nine children were born to them the first night
they camped out on Sugar Creek, February 5th, 1846. That day they
wept their farewells over their beloved city, or in the sanctuary of
the temple, in which they had hoped to worship till the end of life,
but which they left never to see again; that night suffering nature
administered to them the mixed cup of woman's supremest joy and pain.
But it was not prayer alone that sustained these pilgrims. The
practical philosophy of their great leader, daily and hourly applied
to the exigencies of their case, did almost as much as their own
matchless faith to sustain them from the commencement to the end of
their journey. With that leader had very properly come to the "Camp
of Israel" several of the twelve and the chief bishops of the Church,
but he also brought with him a quorum, humble in pretensions, yet
useful as high priests to the saints in those spirit-saddening days.
It was Captain Pitt's brass band. That night the president had the
brethren and sisters out in the dance, and the music was as glad as
at a merry-making. Several gentlemen from Iowa gathered to witness
the strange, interesting scene. They could scarcely believe their own
senses when they were told that these were Mormons in their "flight
from civilization," bound they knew not whither, except where God
should lead them "by the hand of his servant."
Thus in the song and the dance the saints praised the Lord. When the
night was fine, and supper, which consisted of the most primitive fare,
was over, some of the men would clear away the snow, while others bore
large logs to the camp-fires in anticipation of the jubilee of the
evening. Soon, in a sheltered place, the blazing fires would roar, and
fifty couples, old and young, would join, in the merriest spirit, to
the music of the band, or the rival revelry of the solitary fiddle. As
they journeyed along, too, strangers constantly visited their camps,
and great was their wonderment to see the order, unity and good feeling
that prevailed in the midst of the people. By the camp-fires they would
linger, listening to the music and song; and they fain had taken part
in the merriment had not those scenes been as sacred worship in the
exodus of a God-fearing people. To fully understand the incidents here
narrated, the reader must couple in his mind the idea of an exodus with
the idea of an Israelitish jubilee; for it was a jubilee to the Mormons
to be delivered from their enemies at any price.
At one point on their journey the citizens of a town near by came over
to camp to invite the "Nauvoo Band," under Captain Pitt, to come to
their village for a concert. There was some music left in the brethren.
They had not forgotten how to sing the "songs of Zion," so they made
the good folks of the village merry, and for a time forgot their own
sorrows.
These incidents of travel were varied by an occasional birth in camp.
There was also the death of a lamented lady early on the journey. She
was a gentle wife of a famous Mormon missionary, Orson Spencer, once a
Baptist minister of excellent standing. She had requested the brethren
to take her with them. She would not be left behind. Life was too far
exhausted by the persecutions to survive the exodus, but she could yet
have the honor of dying in that immortal circumstance of her people.
Several others of the sisters also died at the very starting. Ah, who
shall fitly picture the lofty heroism of the Mormon women!