15. James, Joseph, John, and Fletcher Harper, founders and editors of Harper’s Weekly, were committed Methodists who were active in political efforts against Irish immigrants (sometimes known as “Know Nothing” efforts). See Cyclopedia of Methodism: Embracing Sketches of Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition, Matthew Simpson, ed. (Philadelphia: Everts and Stewart, 1878), 428–430.
16. Harper’s Weekly billed itself as the “journal of civilization.”
17. Harper’s Weekly reported that the Mormons would continue to be a menace even if they left Utah for another region, such as Sonora. Eventually, the United States government would
“regret that the polygamy trouble had not been settled by the sword.” See “The End of the Mormon War,” Harper’s Weekly, May 29, 1858, 386.
18. Bernhisel sent Young a similar message: “Unless the imprudence and want of self control of our people furnish them with a fresh set of excuses, they will never be able to send another army to Utah, or pay for sustaining an army another winter there.” Bernhisel to Young, July 2, 1858, BYOF.
47
Kane to Young, July 18, 1858
On July 18, Kane wrote the following letter to Young, which was carried west by
Howard Egan, who had traveled with Kane to Pennsylvania to take dispatches to
Young. Kane informed Young that news of the agreement between the Mormons
and the peace commissioners had reached the east. On April 6, Buchanan had
issued a proclamation that offered the Saints two promises if they would submit
to federal authority: first, the government would not interfere with the Mormon
religion; and second, the Mormons would receive a pardon. To carry the proc-
lamation and conduct negotiations with Mormon leaders, Buchanan selected
Lazarus W. Powell, a senator-elect and former governor from Kentucky, and Ben
McCulloch, the Texas politician who Buchanan had considered appointing as
Utah governor a year earlier.1 Powell and McCulloch arrived at Camp Scott in late
May, where they counseled with Johnston and Cumming. They then traveled to
Utah, where they presented Buchanan’s conditions to Mormon leaders. Powell
and McCulloch threatened the Saints that “the President would employ if neces-
sary the entire military power of the nation to enforce unconditional submission
and obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The Mormons
proclaimed their support for the Constitution and admitted to “burning of the
army trains & driving off the cattle from the army”; for these actions, the Saints accepted the president’s pardon. However, the Saints insisted that the charges
made by the former territorial officials that had provoked the Utah Expedition
were false. With the Mormons’ willingness to submit to federal power, the com-
missioners declared that peace had been achieved.2
1. On the selection of the commissioners, see “C
ommissioners to Utah,” San Joaquin
Republican, May 8, 1858, 1; Cutrer, Ben McCulloch, 152; “The Settlement of the Mormon Affair,” Harper’s Weekly, April 10, 1858, 226.
2. See Commissioners’ minutes, June 11–12, 1858, BYOF.
272
the prOphet And the refOrmer
The letter also demonstrates the central issue that concerned Kane and
Young immediately following the end of the Utah War: whether the army
would be able to pursue its hopes for subjugation of the Mormons or whether
Cumming would be successful in his course of conciliation. In addition,
Kane advised Young to begin another push for Utah statehood. As early as
March 1858, Young had directed Bernhisel to present a petition for statehood,
likely knowing that it would be rejected: “The cars will start when the time is
right.”3 To bolster these efforts, in October 1858, Young instructed missionar-
ies George Q. Cannon, T. B. H. Stenhouse, and Horace Eldredge to “let the
pen flow freely” in support of Utah statehood.4
Besides delivering the July 18, 1858 letter to Utah, Egan may have also deliv-
ered an undated document that bears the scribal notation “Memorandum,
Col. Kane, 1858.” The document was not written by Kane, but seems to cap-
ture Kane’s thoughts in third-person format. Like the July 18 letter, this docu-
ment discusses a possible statehood application for Utah and reflects on
the Buchanan administration (announcing himself an “avowed supporter”
though it was “corrupt”). The memorandum advised the Saints to support a
“commission of enquiry” into the supposed causes of the Utah Expedition and
instructed them to be “quiet and orderly” so that their opponents could not
find fault with their current actions in newspapers.5
Two days before Kane wrote the featured letter, Thomas and Elizabeth Kane
hosted T. B. H. Stenhouse and Egan for dinner in their Philadelphia home.
Elizabeth noted that Egan “said Grace for us, as simply and Christianly as it
could have been done.” Elizabeth, an amateur photographer, had a few weeks
earlier “attempted to take his likeness,” and described Egan as “an exceedingly
striking, distinguished-looking fellow.”6 Egan arrived in Utah with this letter
on August 25, 1858.
Source
Kane to Young, July 18, 1858, box 40, fd 12, BYOF.
3. Y
oung to Bernhisel, March 5, 1858, BYOF.
4. Young to Horace Eldredge, October 20, 1858; Young to George Q. Cannon, October 20, 1858, BYOF.
5. Thomas L. Kane, memorandum, ca. July 18, 1858, BYOF.
6. Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, June 26, 1858, July 16, 1858, BYU.
Kane to Young, July 18, 1858
273
Letter
(Dictated)
July 18th 1858
“Fern Rock” near Philada
My dear Sir,
We have news from Utah of the reception of the Commissioners and
Army and the temperate conduct of your people.7 There is no longer
need therefore to detain Mr Egan8 to be the bearer of despatches calcu-
lated to meet an emergency. I have already called off my thoughts from
the past, and commenced directing them upon the future.—Cumming
is to be the sustained: part at least of the road to hell is paved with good
intentions of enforcing a peace policy: the horse leeches have begun
to nasty the beds they have been crawling over: the temporary influ-
ence of the army—(always odious to the nation in healthy times when it
interferes with politics) this factitious influence, based almost entirely
upon the distribution of jobs, will quite fade away before winter:—in a
word, from present prospects, I see no reason why you also should not
being now to look to the great matter of the future, and devote all your
energies to the task [p. 2] of securing the recognition of Utah as a State.9
I remember that we fully talked over the measures to be taken with
this view, and I will therefore only advert to two of them—to which
I think, immediate attention should be given:
1. A general Investigation should be demanded by the people of
Utah, that the country may be authoritatively informed of the falsity
of the charges and the iniquity of the proceedings against them &c.10
This you may afterwards press or not, as circumstances indicate. But
meantime Gov. Cumming should be led to examine into as many mat-
ters as possible and send home a favorable report upon them. It
may
7 . Lazarus W. Powell and Ben McCulloch, the peace commissioners, reported that the Mormon people were willing to “cheerfully consent” to federal authority and would offer “no resistance . . . to the officers, civil or military of the United States.” See “Utah: The Mormons Pacified,” New York Herald-Tribune, July 16, 1858, 6.
8. On Egan, see Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, vol. 4, 699–700.
9. Kane had urged Buchanan to make this a top priority. See Brief for the President, draft, undated [circa June 1858], BYOF.
10. Kane reiterated this recommendation to Buchanan, though he added the possibility that the investigation could be for “appearance sake only.” See Brief for the President.
274
the prOphet And the refOrmer
be worth while to get what contradictions &c. you can out of the other
civil officers.
2d. Consummate the arrangements with the press.11
I close by offering you my sincere congratulations on the wisdom of
the course you have pursued. It is additionally apparent to me since my
return.—The unanimity with which our people were prepared to carry
on the Mormon War was frightful—not, you will understand, that they
particularly desired to wage a “war of extermination”12—but they were
prepared to vote supplies to any amount while the miscreants in Utah
carried on the work: and thus like the frantic crowd rushing for a narrow
passage, driving the foremost before it, and declaring itself innocent
of the trampling done by them—we should have [p. 3] been respon-
sible for any amount of outrage and violence committed in our name.
It appears that your enemies themselves supported the President’s
proposal to send the Commissioners and proclamation, so certain were
they that these would be too late, and that the Administration would be
thus set right, and the Country united on extreme measures, without a
chance of their losing their Holy War.
But I see that the reaction has set in. I wish no better proof of it
than this latest figure, which is a contest who shall have the credit
(mark the change of strain) of the pacification of Utah—Johnston or the
Peace Commissioners. Of course the Army, having the greatest number
of hired liars at command, will win <(until the truth itself is told, at
least)>.13 The reaction has commenced however, I say. You must not
11. F
or more on the public relations strategy pursued by Young and Kane, see Young to Kane, September 1, 1858.
12. For the Latter-day Saints, this phrase evoked the “extermination” order issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs in late 1838 demanding that the Mormons leave his state or face
“extermination.” Mormons feared that the Utah Expedition might result in a similar process. The Saints had used this terminology in their first newspaper report of the coming troops in July 1857 and they also used it in an October 1857 memorial to President Buchanan.
A California newspaper also used this language: “If the United States prom[p] ted by bigotry, and influenced by passion, should undertake a war of extermination, against the Mormon community, it would be an act as infamous as the treacherous as the butchery of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, among the Highlands of Scotland.” See Deseret News, July 29, 1857, 165; “The Expedition Against Utah,” Deseret News, October 7, 1857; Daily Alta California, November 29, 1857.
13. Kane told his wife Elizabeth, Egan, and T. B. H. Stenhouse, “when the true history of the Peace came to be written, B. Young would receive due credit as the peace-maker.” Egan responded, “I have a strong faith in Bro. Brigham as any one, but I can’t allow Mrs K. and Mr S., who don’t know the truth as I do, to believe that Gov. Cumming would ever have
Kane to Young, July 18, 1858
275
take Dr Bernhisel or Gov. Cumming’s authority on this, until they have
opened as many other so styled Hopeless fights as I have.14 It will be a
work of Time, as I told you, to obtain your State Sovereignty—but Time
will do the work. Let us save the Territorial Organization this winter for
the future basis—and I am confident I see my way to daylight
—I am an ill man, I regret to say—quite an ill one.15 But you have
known me worse, and I intend to live, and what is more intend to give
you months of my time between this and Christmas to lay the guns, and
order on the assault.16
As for the last
of the present forces, from the Basin.
—Get them out quietly—let me have a few sound facts and argu-
ments spread before the nation, and, [p. 4] my word for it, you have seen
your last soldier marched across the plains—have heard your last forever
of all such wickedness and folly.
How much I would like to write to you all, my friends, I know you
must be aware, I know you are aware also how affectionately I remain
Your friend to serve you
Thomas L. Kane
felt to enter the city without J
ohnston to back him up, or been allowed to enter if he did,
without another man.” Kane stated that he declined to make a full account of what had happened in Utah to precipitate the conflict and the army’s later behavior at Camp Scott on the grounds that the truth might harm Buchanan and the public’s faith in its government. See Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, July 16 and July 29, 1858, and Elizabeth W. Kane, “Mother of the Regiment,” 86–87, BYU.
14. Kane might be referring to Bernhisel’s July 7, 1858 letter to the New York Weekly Herald, which condemned the continuing reports of Mormon rebellion in the press and asked if the Americans “still hope to bring on a war.” New York Weekly Herald, July 7, 1858, 3.
15. Kane fell ill in late June and remained sick through much of July. On July 15, Elizabeth Kane noted in her journal, “Tom is better, though not well”; the next day, he was “pretty well, but more cheerful.” See Kane to Young, July 5, 1858; Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, July 15, 1858, BYU.
16. Kane’s plan to engage the press at this time were apparently not carried out.
48
Young to Kane, August 6, 1858
in the fOllOwing letter, Young, who had not yet received any of Kane’s letters
since his return east, reported to Kane on his negotiations with the peace com-
missioners, the march of the federal army through the nearly deserted streets
of Salt Lake City, the end to the Move South, and tensions between American
Indians and the Saints that Young believed had been provoked by soldiers.
After meeting with the commissioners sent by Buchanan, Young agreed to
allow the army in Utah but insisted that it not be stationed in Salt Lake City.
On June 26, Albert Sidney Johnston marched the federal troops through an
evacuated Salt Lake City and the army constructed Camp Floyd, about 40 miles
southwest. The relatively close proximity of the troops to some of the Mormons’
settlements and to grazing lands would provoke tensions between the communi-
ties. Nevertheless, Young was at least outwardly optimistic about the settlement.
On the same day that he wrote this letter to Kane, Young told another correspon-
dent that the Saints did not face any threat from the soldiers as they were “not . .
. permitted to leave their camp.” The soldiers were so inconspicuous that “were
it not for the occasional visits to the city,” the Saints “would scarcely know they were here.”1
The end of the war did not bring peace with American Indians. I
n his letter,
Young complained about the rising tensions and the unwillingness of the new
territorial officials to investigate incidents between the Indians and the Mormons.
Indeed, several Utah settlements reported Indian depredations. “Elder Dimick
B. Huntington reports that the Indians are very much disappointed because peace
1. S
ee Young to J. M. Coward, August 6, 1858, BYOF. To another correspondent, he wrote,
“Indeed, were it not for the presence and extra imprudence of certain characters who delight in disseminating corruption, it would scarcely be known that troops are quartered in Utah.”
See Young to Dwight Eveleth, August 13, 1858, BYOF.
Young to Kane, August 6, 1858
277
was restored,” said Young’s official history.2 Huntington was Young’s brother-in-
law and one of his chief Indian scouts. One trouble spot was Utah County, where
the Mormons had displaced the Timpanogos people and left bad feelings. In one
incident the Indians seized a little girl, who later reportedly escaped.3 In late June, Indians killed three head of cattle that were a part of the Spanish Fork herd.4
About 40 miles to the southeast, 5 Mormon settlers—all unarmed Danish
immigrants—were traveling through Salt Creek Canyon, with the hope of estab-
lishing themselves in Sanpete County. An Indian attack killed Jens Turkelson,
Christian Kjurlf, 19-year-old Hedevig Ericksen, and “Father” Turkeson, a lame
man who was riding in a wagon. The white men each received a half-dozen
balls, and the pregnant Hedevig was left on the ground “uncovered.” She had
“the appearance of being ravished after she was shot,” said a report sent to
Young.5 John Ericksen escaped by running to Ephriam, the closest Mormon
settlement, about 30 miles away. His run “broke his wind and [he] suffered
nearly a thousand deaths before he died a few years later.”6
The Prophet and the Reformer Page 40