to fight if they come, as is threatened. There has been no disturbance here,
all is peace and quietness, the best prospect for bountiful crops that we
have ever had in these vallies. Are progressing rapidly with the Temple,
and general health and prosperity attending all our efforts.
Made an excursion this spring to the east branch of Salmon River
near 400 miles north of this city, had a pleasant time but tedious travel-
ling with wagons over rough roads through an Indian country, camping
out, so long a distance, country barren and desolate, quite a contrast
with your present facilities of travelling.10
9. Kane to Y
oung, May 21, 1857.
10.David L. Bigler, Fort Limhi: The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory, 1855–1858
(Logan: Utah State University Press, 2003).
226
the prOphet And the refOrmer
When shall we have a rail road or are the people too busy about nig-
ger and mormon affairs to think about such a noble enterprize.
I am ever grateful to have a line from you it gives me great satisfac-
tion [p. 3] to know of your health good feelings and strict integrity, your
letter coming when it did with such a vast pile of rubbish was like a
oasis in a barren waste. I feel to bless you for it, and for all your kindness
to me and to this people in the name of Israel’s God whom we serve,
and I trust that you and I will yet live to see righteousness prevail and
wickedness come to naught yet be permitted to live together to enjoy
each others society in peace. I truly regret to learn the loss of your noble
hearted brother, although not favored with his personal acquaintance,
still I know of his worth. His was a liberal and generous soul full of high
and noble purpose. I deeply sympathize with you all, may the Almighty
crown his peaceful rest, with a glorious immortality and comfort the
hearts of his friends. O Colonel will it not be a happy existence when
friends can grasp each others hands in a happy immortality beyond the
reach of the power of Satan & of wicked and designing men, but we will
triumph, God is with us and he is more powerful than all his foes.
I like your policy of staving off until a little reason shall have an
opportunity to resume its sway. [p. 4]
If the Editors, Priests, Preachers, Deacons, and mobocrats who howl
so much and feel so horrified about us would come out against
themselves and not send others, we would ask no odds, but they urge
on the government to destroy us. I would not suppose they need envy
us the profession of this poor piece of earth. We mind our own business
and would to God that the world would mind theirs and let us alone, We
are fearful that the government is not willing to extend their favorite
doctrine of popular sovereignty to Utah, but are desirious of availing
themselves of the present furor to operate against us upon the charges
of rebellion, insubordination &c all of which, I need not tell you are foul
and malignant falsehoods, but I trust in the Lord of hosts to rule and
overrule all for the good of his Saints.
I wish to have you consider that you and yours have a standing invi-
tation to make us a visit when circumstances shall permit, be assured
that you would meet with a warm welcome.
May the peace of heaven and the blessings of the Almighty rest
upon and abide with you forever
Brigham Young
37
Young to Kane, September 12, 1857
cOnfirmAtiOn Of BuchAnAn’s decision to send a new governor to Utah
with a military escort arrived in Salt Lake City on July 22 with the arrival of
Porter Rockwell, Salt Lake City Mayor Abraham O. Smoot, Judson Stoddard,
and Eleanor Pratt (widow of Parley P. Pratt). Besides news of the military expe-
dition against Utah, the group brought word that the government mail con-
tract between Independence and Salt Lake City of the Mormons’ Y. X. Carrying
Company—in which Young and the Mormons had sunk tremendous resources
over the past year—had been canceled. By the time of their arrival, Young had
left for nearby Big Cottonwood Canyon to celebrate the tenth arrival of the Saints into the Salt Lake Valley. On July 24, Smoot, Stoddard, and Rockwell arrived
at the festivities and informed Young “that a new Govornor and entire set of
officers had been appointed, 2500 troops with 15 months provision.” Young dic-
tated to a scribe writing his diary, “The feeling of Mobocracy is rife in the ‘States’
the constant cry is kill the Mormons. Let them try it. The Utah mail contract
had been taken from us—on the pretext of the unsettled state of things in this
Territory.” The people refused to let the news put a damper on their celebration.1
Deeply disturbed that the government had settled upon its policy without
notifying the Latter-day Saints, and fearing the worst, Young began issuing
directions to Saints both in Utah and throughout the world to prepare for the
defense of Utah. His explosive sermons in late July and August 1857—often
published in somewhat sanitized form in the Deseret News and republished
in newspapers throughout the nation—revealed the Saints’ bitterness,
1. E
verett L. Cooley, ed., Diary of Brigham Young, 1857 (Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund, University of Utah Library, 1980), 49; Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glen M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 33–40.
228
the prOphet And the refOrmer
expectations of future persecutions, and resolve to resist the military expedi-
tion.2 Young mobilized the territorial militia, the Nauvoo Legion; instructed
emissaries to covertly obtain arms and ammunition throughout the United
States; and directed Mormons in outlying settlements in Nevada, California,
and Hawaii to immigrate to Utah. Furthermore, he pressed American Indian
leaders in the region to align themselves with the Mormons, told Latter-day
Saints to conserve grain by not selling it to non-Mormon emigrants pass-
ing through Utah, and sent George A. Smith to warn Mormons in isolated
southern Utah of the threats. These last actions exacerbated tensions between
Mormons in southern Utah and the Baker–Fancher wagon party, en route to
California from Arkansas: a unit of the territorial militia, with support from
local church leaders, slaughtered over 120 emigrants at Mountain Meadows on
September 11, 1857, sparing only small children.3 Furthermore, the territorial
culture of violence, inspired in part by Young’s rhetoric and ambiguous direc-
tions to subordinates, led to several murders committed by Mormons against
traders, teamsters, civilians, and possibly an army deserter during 1857.4
By mid-July, the Utah Expedition had left Fort Leavenworth. After Ben
McCulloch and others turned down the position of Utah governor, Buchanan
settled on Alfred Cumming of Georgia, who had previously been mayor of
Atlanta, a sutler in the Mexican–American War, and superintendent of Indian
Affairs in St. Louis. Cumming was told not to interfere with the practice of the
Mormons’ religion but to insist that the local people recognize federal author-
ity. The army
initially intended to reach Salt Lake City before winter, a plan
which was premised on the Mormons not resisting the troops. To gauge the
Mormons’ reactions, army quartermaster Stewart Van Vliet, who had known
the Saints for a decade and had experienced positive interactions with them,
traveled ahead to Utah to inquire about the possibility of purchasing supplies.
Van Vliet reached Salt Lake City in September; Young received him cordially
but told him there would be nothing sold to the army from the Mormons. On
his return trip, Van Vliet was accompanied by John M. Bernhisel, returning to
his post in Washington.5
2. M
acKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 230.
3. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 231–232; Walker, Turley, and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows.
4. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 77–82, 295–328; Ardis E. Parshall, “ ‘Pursue, Retake & Punish’: The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush,” Utah Historical Quarterly 73 (Winter 2005): 64–86; and Polly Aird, “ ‘You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out:’ Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s,” Journal of Mormon History vol. 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207.
5. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 159; MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 192–193, 280–282.
Young to Kane, September 12, 1857
229
On September 12, as they prepared to leave, Young wrote letters to church leaders
in the east and in Britain and to Kane, all to be carried east by Bernhisel.6 Although Van Vliet had given Young a statement of the government’s official, pacific intentions, Young was unmoved. He feared the actions of the army, the possible hostile
judicial writs of the newly appointed federal judges, and unintended events. Past persecutions weighed heavy on Young’s mind. To Kane, Young portrayed the Mormons
as aggrieved victims and argued that Buchanan’s administration had trampled the
Constitution in its campaign to subjugate the Saints. Finally, in a statement of his millennial views, Young warned of the coming calamities which would afflict the
nation and invited Kane to ride out the coming storm with the Saints.
Source
Young to Kane, September 12, 1857, Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 3,
fd 30, 849–853.
Letter
Great Salt Lake City Sep 12. 1857
Dear Coll
In turning my thoughts upon you, reminiscences of the past crowd
thickly upon me. We have for ten long years enjoyed with very slight
interruptions the blessings of peace, quiet gentle peace. We have tasted
its sweets and rejoiced beneath its gentle sway It brings to my mind my
own words uttered in an address delivered to the Pioneers 24th July
1847 upon our arrival in this valley “That if our enemies would let us
alone ten years we would ask no odds of them’7 Well while celebrating
July 24th 1857 at the head waters of Big Cottonwood with my brethren
the news came to us That the Crusade was again commenced against us,
mail stopped and a strong force about starting out coming to Utah, a full
set of officers going to be enforced upon us at the point of the bayonet8
6. Y
oung to Jeter Clinton; Young to William Appleby; Young to Orson Pratt; all dated
September 12, 1857, BYOF.
7. The day following his letter to Kane, Young made a similar statement in a public discourse.
See Young, discourse, September 13, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 5:226.
8. Secretary of State Lewis Cass instructed the newly appointed territorial governor Alfred Cumming that if he and the other federal officials had “just reason to expect opposition,” they had the “right to call such portions of the Posse Comitations to their aid as they may deem
230
the prOphet And the refOrmer
These tidings reached us while in the quiet enjoyment of the festivities
incident to the occassion of the anniversary of our happy deliverance
from our enemies, and arrival in these peaceful vales9 It seemed that the
time was up, the ten years had expired and we were taken at our word.
The same feeling pervaded every bosom that we would ask no odds,
that we were able to take care of ourselves, we feel so yet, we know that
the movement is based upon the base foul malignant and false [p. 2]
representations of our enemies. We know that we have infringed upon
the rights of none, that we have only struggled to live and preserve
our lives and existence upon the earth. We have encroached upon the
rights of no one. Why then in the name of High Heavens, can we not
be let alone? We came here far from our enemies that we might live in
peace. Why follow us to destroy our peace, interrupt the “pursuits of
happiness, our Liberty and our Lives.” Why seek to enforce
us at the point of the bayonet, officers which had never been refused?
Is this republican government such as the Constitution guarantees to
the states and the people. Is such a course authorized by that sacred
instrument, and if it is not is it not an act of usurpation, tyranny and
oppression? Are not the rights of government which are not yielded in
the Constitution expressly reserved to the people? And are we not a
portion of the people? How is it that a great and magnanimous govern-
ment can be moved upon by falsehood and lying misrepresentation
to commence such a crusade against an innocent people? Does it not
disclose a weak pusillanimous and corrupt administration of the affairs
of Government? Our enemies have accused us falsely, but the present
authorities at Washington affect to believe their accusations, at least
they act upon it without making any investigation. The papers were
clamorous to have an army sent out to Utah.10 Some of for “wiping us
out” [p. 3] others for “applying the knife and cutting out the loathsome
necessary
.” The instructions were similar to those given to the army in Kansas Territory,
but General William Harney ominously informed Young that Utah would be a “Military Department” where troops would be stationed to “to protect the interests with which they have been charged.” See Cass to Cumming, June 29, 1857 and July 30, 1857, BYOF; Harney to Young, July 28, 1857, BYOF.
9. While notification of the federal government’s actions temporarily prompted discussion among the Saints, “most of the night was spent in song and dance.” See Peter Sinclair journal, July 24, 1857, CHL.
10. Newspapers throughout the nation had called for military action against the Mormons.
On June 17, 1857, the New York Times questioned whether 2,500 troops were sufficient to suppress them: “When a blow must be struck, it should be struck emphatically, and once for
Young to Kane, September 12, 1857
231
ulcer”11 while others are for overrunning us with the unbridled license
of a corrupt and debased soldiery with all the train of hell that follows
after. Hang up the leaders, and what you cant corrupt, destroy. This is
their language and the Government has thus been moved upon to send
the troops. How shall we do is the question? Submit to injustice like
this, or use the freedom and power which God has given us, to main-
tain them? Shall we tamely and cringingly lie down and let them bind
upon us as the fetters, the iron chain of bondage, and then helplessly
be compelled to see them hang, shoot, burn, debauch, lay waste, drive
and destroy us as in times past, or shall we arise like Men of God and<
br />
assert and maintain that Freedom which nature and nature’s God and
the fundamental principles of our Government have invested in us?
This is what we will do, God being our helper. Yes. Col, we are resolved
to resist such unheard of oppression to the last extremity.
The government, Constitution and laws are good enough, we could
live, prosper and enjoy all the blessings of peace, rights of Conscience
and everything that we desire beneath its amble protection if they
were administered in righteousness. This is all we contend for but
we contend in vain, our enemies seem determined to not let us rest
until they succeed in depriving [p. 4] us of all our rights, and that our
Government should lend its helping hand is the “unkindest cut of all”12
but it makes no odds where it comes from, we have long since ceased
to fear Governments, potentates and powers when they prostitute the
authority with which they are invested, to subserve the howling vile,
lying and corrupt purposes of Demagogues, Priests and Editors of what-
ever creed or party.
Well, say you, I find you again in trouble. true we may be, but it
seems to be rather breaking away just at present, and a reaction taking
all.” “
A collision with [Brigham Young’s] dictatorial power is unavoidable,” the Hartford Daily Courant argued; “the course which Mr. Buchanan takes on the Mormon question will show how much energy there is in his composition.” See New York Daily Times, June 17, 1857, 4; Hartford Daily Courant, April 17, 1857, 2 and May 4, 1857, 2.
11. In a speech in Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 1857, Senator Stephen A. Douglas reversed his previous support for the Mormons and called for Congress, if conditions in Utah were accurately reported in the East, “to apply the knife and cut out this loathsome, disgusting ulcer.” Douglas, who was eyeing a presidential bid, did not want to seem sympathetic toward the Saints. Four years later, Douglas, then on his deathbed, received a letter from Young, which asked, “Why have you barked with the dogs, except to prove that you were a dog with them?” MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 136.
12. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2, 183.
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The Prophet and the Reformer Page 34