The Prophet and the Reformer
Page 38
you strive to hide your game—but no use—it is seen through.
Porter even suspected that “Col Kane is a Mormon and is working for the
Mormons—and if he can he will work trouble.”4
On April 5, Kane and Cumming left Camp Scott. The next morning, they
encountered a group of Mormons including William Kimball, Porter Rockwell,
and Howard Egan; Cumming called them “a band of most splendid look-
ing horsemen who received me as Governor of Utah—and treated me with
marked consideration.”5 As they passed through Echo Canyon, the Mormons
gave Cumming an exaggerated sense of their military strength as “the works
were brilliantly lighted by Bon-fires & Much parade.”6 Cumming thought that
the illumination of Echo Canyon “outstripped any thing he had ever expected
to see.”7 When Kane and Cumming arrived in Salt Lake City, Cumming was
received politely and civilly. He soon reported to Johnston that he had been
treated well and recognized as governor.8
As Young mentioned in the featured letter, Kane and Cumming imme-
diately investigated some of the charges against the Saints that had pre-
cipitated the Utah Expedition, including the purported destruction of the
papers of the district court. Finding these intact, Cumming felt confirmed
in his conciliatory approach. Kane and Cumming also subsequently visited
3. Kane, diary
, Kane Papers, Stanford; Kane to John K. Kane, ca. April 4, 1858, Kane Collection, BYU; Kane to Robert Patterson Kane, April 4, 1858, Kane Collection, BYU.
4. Fitz-John Porter, diary, April 6 and April 9, 1858, LOC.
5. Elizabeth Cumming to Anne, April 22, 1858, in Ray R. Canning and Beverly Beeton, eds., The Genteel Gentile: Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857–1858 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, 1977), 46–50.
6. David Candland, journal, April 6–7, 1858, in Canning and Betton, eds., Genteel Gentile, 49.
7. Historian’s Office Journal, April 13, 1858, CHL.
8. Cumming to Johnston, April 15, 1858, Cumming Papers, Duke.
256
the prOphet And the refOrmer
Spanish Fork and may have made some inquiries into the Mountain
Meadows Massacre.9 Unbeknownst to Cumming, Kane met privately with
Young soon after his arrival and “told him that he had caught the fish, now
you can cook it as you have a mind to.” While Young praised Cumming in
this letter, his private commentary was harsher; Young suggested, after ini-
tially meeting with Cumming, that the new governor “desired the destruc-
tion of the Saints.”10 At least officially, Cumming had a more positive initial
view of Young; he reported to Johnston that Young “has evinced a willing-
ness to afford me every facility which I may require for the efficient perfor-
mance of my administrative duties.”11
It is unclear whether Young completed this letter and sent it to Kane.
(During the afternoon that Young dictated this draft, he met with Kane in
his office.)12 If he did send it, the letter—which gives Young’s view on the
Utah War crisis and praises the actions of Kane and Cumming—may have
been meant for Kane to show to Cumming, as Kane served as the media-
tor between Cumming and Young. He continued, for example, to gather
evidence to rebut allegations made by the former federal officials, carefully
noting statements from various Mormons related to the disputed federal
survey.13 For his part, Cumming proclaimed his willingness to make con-
cessions to the Saints. Two days following this letter draft, Cumming told a
Mormon that he was “dissatisfied” with the federal troops and he pledged to
“make favorable reports to government for us and do all he could to prevent
a colission between us and the U.S.”14 A critical meeting between Young,
Cumming, and Kane occurred on April 24; Kane called it a “final & decisive”
conference, suggesting that an official truce between Cumming and Young
was brokered.15 The Mormons signaled their willingness to submit to federal
authority, allow the army to enter Utah, and end hostilities; in exchange,
Cumming promised to not interfere with their religion and to protect them
from the federal troops.
9. Kane, diary
, April 1858, Kane Papers, Stanford.
10.“History of Brigham Young,” April 13, 1858, 357, CHL.
11. Cumming to Johnston, April 15, 1858, Cumming Papers, Duke.
12. Historian’s Office Journal, April 17, 1858.
13. Kane, diary, April 1858, Kane Papers, Stanford.
14. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, April 19, 1858, 2:657.
15. Kane, diary, Kane Papers, Stanford.
Young to Kane, April 17, 1858
257
Source
Young to Kane, April 17, 1858, box 18, fd 11, BYOF.
Letter
G. S. L. City April 17 1858
Col Thomas L Kane—
Sir Having under consideration Feeling desirous of promoting the
cause
view to promote the peacable adjustment of those differences which
at present so unhappily Existing in our national affairs, I feel con-
strained and for which most desirable and worthy object [you] Col as
I am bound to be are so deeply
your
you a few considerations which I trust may be taken as they are given
with a sincere and
and amity surely such objects worthy of
Men. Let us therefore go into Committee of the whole on the state of
the nation and fairly and freely discuss those points which bear upon
the Administration of the Government as well as the position
weal or woe
Confederacy known as Utah
Since the smoke <& fog> of vile vituperation scandal and abuse
which so completely enshrouded all parties has partially cleared and
so completely obscured the vision of the public mind has measurably
passed away and dispelled by a few glimmerings of truth sense of right
and desire of justice which will once and
dant and for
unnecessary to mention or to endeavor to refute those causeless fab-
rications they having already so completely refuted themselves [p. 2]
but upon which nevertheless was founded tho to say the least strange
and unwarrantable not say hostile section of the Administration against
this Territory. Suffice to say that those charges upon which caused
such [illegible] uproar and which were so sedulously sung by the press
throughout the union during the winter <& spring> of 56 & 57 and upon which the action of the Government was based time and truth in its
slow progress have proven to disclosed to be false. This being the fact it
follows of course that the acts of the Administration being based upon a
258
the prOphet And the refOrmer
false foundation
the President founded his action upon the supposition that Utah was in
rebellion
states> which since is proven was not and he has admitted was not so!
of American citizens?> do you not see that it would be high minded to
reconsider honorable and just that the Administration should retrace its
steps and endeavor
and respect which such
would be the frank strait forward way of redeeming themselves from
the dilemma into which they have fallen and which might have been
avoided
such Extremities. But if this course is derived through grave consider-
ation not necessary to mention cannot be acceded to, there is one and
only one other which furnishes a channel wide and deep and in which
the Administration can safely <& consistently> navigat it being in
accordance with these principles of republican rights & Constitutional
rights and liberty upon which the government was based and which
have often formed the platform of Demo the Democratic plat party of
and especially of the [p. 3] present Administration. I allude of course to
the rights of conscience the rights of representation of the Government
and of franchise or in other words to
in the selection of their officers of the admission of Utah into the union
upon an equal footing with the other states16
The people of this Territory have resolved that they will receive
others, that they will not subject could
people of this Territory to have officers be they ever so good men, or
come they with ever so good motives thrust upon them at the point
of the bayonet,
cers selected from among their Enemies who have thrust them out to
seek from the abodes of civilization from their homes and hard earned
possessions to live or die as best they might in the unbroken and des-
ert wilderness neithe neither officers nor army can
exercise th any such jurisdiction. This Col. is fixed
fact and with this people—neither do they wish to come in colision
with the Federal Government, hence as you are daily witnessing they
16. One week later
, Young spoke publicly on the subject of representation, complaining that
the federal government had not given the Mormons a voice in choosing the appointed territorial officers. Young, remarks, April 25, 1858, BYOF.
Young to Kane, April 17, 1858
259
are moving away from their homes17
tant vales in order preferring to sacrifice their possessions rather than to
liberties and constitutional rights than submitting to outbreaks and go
to still less
worshipping God according to the dictates of this in accordance with
the
It is with in view that this in view that the people are now stepping
aside to let the stream of corruption intolerance and usurpation which
overflowed and surged up against our Mountain [p. 4] retreats last fall
expend itself, trusting that the Public mind being corrected upon upon
those false issues will soon be prepared to
people of this territory those common inestimable rights of free and
constitutional government which it is their wish and I they hold in com-
mon with all American citizens.
This course is the one appears to me to be the only
consistent courses which can be pursued by the Administration honor-
able to itself to the Government and to the People of this Territory In this
work we call can
lar clamor so much so as to and interpose if possible in favor
human freedom> and to prevent the shedding of
see the path of honour through such a course
satisfaction of solacing
of the
their and eventually so in “a green old age” enjoy the happy reflection
of having wrought for liberty and established justice where anarchy and
tyranny threatened to overwhelm and destroy
17
. When Cumming witnessed the continuing Move South soon after his arrival in Salt Lake City, he pleaded “dont move you shall not be hurt I will not be Governor if you dont want me.” Wilford Woodruff wrote in his diary that the “poor Devil should have thought of this principle before he started from home and not come with an armed force to force himself as governor upon a people who did not want him.” Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, April 12, 1858, 5:181.
44
Young to Kane, May 8, 1858
trAgedy AgAin strucK the Kane family in Philadelphia a year after Elisha
Kane’s death when Thomas’s father, John Kane, died from pneumonia on
February 21, 1858. Elizabeth Kane cried to her journal, “Oh Tom, my poor Tom,
how can you bear it! There is no way of breaking the shock to you, my darling.”
However, if Thomas had remained in Philadelphia, she thought that the shock
of his father’s death, given his “enfeebled” health, would have killed him. “So
I must try to be grateful,” she wrote, “that you are away gathering strength for
the battle.” Elizabeth also recognized that Thomas had lost his employment
as well with his father’s death, as he had worked as a clerk in his father’s
courtroom.1
Rumors apparently reached Salt Lake City around April 24 that Judge Kane
was dead.2 The confirmation came around May 4. Kane reported in his diary
that as he and Cumming traveled to visit the Indian farm in Spanish Fork,
Utah, on the evening of May 5, “two [men] came riding up to meet me who
brought word that my Father was indeed Dead.”3 That same day, Young wrote
to a correspondent that the news of his father’s death “sorely afflicts” Thomas.4
In the following letter, written three days later, Young invited Kane to
investigate Mormonism’s spiritual claims. The day before the letter, Heber
1. Elizabeth W
. Kane, journal, February 17 and February 19, 1858, Kane Collection, BYU.
2. Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, April 24, 1858, 5:183.
3. Thomas L. Kane, diary, May 5, 1858, Kane Papers, Stanford.
4. Brigham Young to Nathan Davis, May 5, 1858, BYOF. According to Elizabeth Kane,
Brigham Young “tenderly” broke the news of John Kane’s death to Thomas in early May, prompting his decision to return to Philadelphia. Elizabeth W. Kane, manuscript on the settling of Kane, Pennsylvania, November 26, 1868, Kane Collection, BYU; Church Historian’s Offi
ce Journal, May 4–5, 1858, CHL.
Young to Kane, May 8, 1858
261
C. Kimball had likewise “preached Mormonism” to Kane.5 That Kane accepted
Young’s invitation. Kane left Salt Lake City, along with Governor Cumming
and an escort of Mormons, on May 13.6
Elizabeth Kane’s worries about her husband receiving news of the death
of his father far from the comfort of home continued to vex her. On June 5,
she worried that Thomas had delayed writing because “he has broken down
under the shock.” A few days later, however, she received a letter and recorded,
“He had heard the news, and wrote like a Christian should. My darling, my
darling!”7
Source
Young to Kane, May 8, 1858, box 14, fd 17, Kane Collection, BYU.
Retained copy is in Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 4, vol. 4, 151–152.
Letter
G. S. L. City, May 8th 1858.
For your own eye.
My Dear and Tried Friend:—
Though our acquaintance from its commencement, which now dates
from many years past, has ever been marked by that frank interchange
of views and feelings which should ever characterize the communica-
tions of those who have the welfare of mankind at heart, irrespective of
sect or party, as I am well assured by a long and intimate acquaintance, is
a feeling signally shared by yourself, in common with your best friends;
yet, so far as I can call to mind, I do not remember to have ever, either in
correspondence, or in familiar conversation, except, perhaps, by a casual
and unpursued remark, alluded to matters of religious belief, as enter-
tained by myself and others who are commonly called “Mormons”;
nor do I remember that you have ever overstepped the most guarded
reserve on this subject in all your communications with me. So invari-
ably and persistently had this peculiarity marked our friendly and free
interchange of views upon policy and general topics, that I have at times
5. Church H
istorian’s Office Journal, May 7, 1858, CHL.
6. Daniel H. Wells to Young, May 12, 1858, BYOF; Young to Wells, May 14, 1858, BYOF.
7. Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, June 5 and June 11, 1858, Kane Collection, BYU.