for possible admission of Utah to the Union. In December 1860, Hooper told
Cannon,
I think three-quarters of the Republicans of the House would vote for
our admission; but I may be mistaken. Many say they would gladly
“swap” the Gulf States for Utah. I tell them that we show our loyalty
by trying to get in, while others are trying to get out, notwithstanding
our grievances, which are far greater than those of any of the Seceding
States.1
Reacting to Hooper’s optimism, Young and other Mormon leaders engi-
neered a constitutional convention in January 1860, which drafted a consti-
tution and a memorial for a state called Deseret. A legislature met in April
1861, with Young elected governor of the hypothetical state and Hooper
1.
William H. Hooper, “Extract of a Letter From Hon. W. H. Hooper,” Latter-day Saints’
Millennial Star, vol. 23 (January 12, 1861): 29–30.
370
the prophet and the reformer
and Cannon elected as U.S. Senators. Kane was peripherally involved in
this attempt for statehood, though his status as a Democrat likely ham-
pered his efficacy in Congress, which had grown increasingly Republican
as a result of the withdrawal of southern Democrats. Hooper told Young
that Kane “gave me much good advice, and information” in January 1861.2
The statehood effort, however, went nowhere.
On April 13, 1861, immediately upon learning of the Confederate firing
upon Fort Sumter, Kane telegraphed the governor of Pennsylvania and offered
to raise troops for the Union. He soon recruited four companies of men from
the mountainous regions of northwestern Pennsylvania; they combined with
six other companies to form the Bucktail Regiment, known because each sol-
dier hung a deer’s tail from his cap. The Bucktails became one of the North’s
most renowned army units. In June 1861, Young’s counselor Daniel Wells
read to Young from an eastern paper that “Kane had formed a regiment of
Volunteers called the ‘Wild Cats’ . . . . made up of the best marksmen in the
States” and that Kane was “enthusiastic in the preservation of the Union.”3
Kane, acting as a lieutenant colonel, participated in skirmishes between the
Bucktails and Confederate soldiers in western Virginia during the summer
of 1861.4
The coming of the Civil War also had immediate consequences for the
Mormons, as Governor Cumming and Colonel Johnston both left their Utah
positions to return to their native Confederacy. While the Saints cheered
Johnston’s departure, they had found Cumming a useful ally. In addition, in
July 1861, Camp Floyd (now known as Camp Crittenden) was abandoned and
the surplus property sold.5 Though Young lamented that the army ordered
weaponry to be destroyed, he otherwise had little cause for complaint, as
the army auctioned $4 million worth of goods for $100,000, 40 percent of
which were purchased in Young’s name.6 William Clayton wrote the obituary
of the Utah War: “thus end the great Buchanan Utah Expedition, costing the
Government millions, and accomplishing nothing, except making many of
2. H
ooper to Young, January 21, 1861, January 30, 1861, BYOF.
3. Young, journal, June 12, 1861, CHL.
4. On Kane’s Civil War service, see Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, chapter 11.
5. By February 6, 1861, due to the southern sympathies of former Secretary of War John Floyd, the federal government changed the name to Camp Crittenden. See “Fort Crittenden,”
Deseret News, February 20, 1861, 408; Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City, 248.
6. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 199.
Young to Kane, September 21, 1861
371
the Saints comparatively rich, and improving the circumstances of most of the
people of Utah.”7
Though most Saints sympathized with the north, Young and the Mormons
primarily interpreted the Civil War as divine punishment on the country that
had persecuted them. In September 1861, Young sent the following letter to
Kane, commenting on the Civil War and reporting on the improvement of con-
ditions in Utah. The letter reached Kane, as he referenced its request that he
help John Bernhisel (who by then had replaced Hooper as territorial delegate to
Congress) in his November 23, 1861 letter to Young. Curiously, the sent copy of
the letter currently resides in the Biddle Family Papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. By September 1861, Lieutenant Colonel Kane and his immediate
commanding officer, Colonel Charles J. Biddle, were clashing over a variety of
personal and military issues; Kane challenged Biddle to a duel, which was never
held. Kane suspected that Biddle was withholding his mail.8
In December 1861, Kane led his unit into a battle at Dranesville, a Virginia
town about twenty miles from Washington, D.C. Dranesville proved a rare Union
victory in 1861 and Kane’s actions earned him positive national press coverage,
though he was seriously wounded during the battle. Bernhisel, who visited him
at a Washington hotel on December 27, reported that Kane “was wounded in the
early part of the engagement—the buckshot passing through the cheek, and frac-
turing a tooth, and what became of it is unknown. There is another small open-
ing through the cheek near the angle of the mouth.” At first, Kane was believed
dead, “but he soon rose and bandaging the wound with his handkerchief, accom-
panied his regiment. He received four bullets through his clothes. He had a most
Providential escape.” Of Young’s September letter, Kane
expressed himself greatly delighted, and remarked that it was a won-
derful letter, and several times in the course of the interview, speaking
of the letter he repeated, wonderful, wonderful, and stated that he had
never received a communication that had made such an impression
upon him. He expressed a great deal of love for you personally, and
observed that instead of abating it was increasing, and desired me to
write his love to all.9
7 . William Clayton to George Q. Cannon, July 16, 1861, “America. (Extract of a Letter from Elder Clayton),” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, vol. 23 (August 31, 1861): 566.
8. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 214–219.
9. Bernhisel to Young, December 27, 1861, BYOF. Elizabeth Kane, who was in Washington to nurse her husband, noted that “Old Bernhisel” showed them a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants containing Joseph Smith’s revelation “foretelling a Rebellion of the South against
372
the prophet and the reformer
Source
Young to Kane, September 21, 1861, box 37, fd 12, Charles J. Biddle Papers,
Biddle Family Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Retained copy
in Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 5, vol. 5, 887–890.
Letter
G. S. L. City, Sep. 21, 1861.
Col. Thomas L. Kane,
Philadelphia, Pa.,
Dear Colonel:—
Our mutually esteemed friend, Dr J. M. Bernhisel, our Delegate,
leaves for Washington on the 23d inst., and, in
ing the transmission of mail matter, I improve the opportunity afforded
by his courtesy to forward these lines.10
; In the short interval elapsed since we enjoyed your society in our
peaceful retreat, to the surprise of many of the leading men in the nation,
the seat of war has been transferred from Utah to the immediate vicinity of
the Capital of our government. Is it not very singular that the wise men of
our nation have so managed that secession artillery is now trained within
less than six miles of the white House?11 Under existing circumstances
will it not be better to annex Mexico to the United States, and then go
on and annex the Central States of America, Cuba—all the West India
Islands—and Canada? What can we do to help you in this matter?12
the N
orth beginning in S. Carolina, followed by an appeal to Great Britain, arming of the Indians against both, North & South, and rebellion of the negroes armed and trained against their masters, followed by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.” Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, December 27, 1861, BYU.
10. Young directed Bernhisel to deliver this letter to Kane “personally, at your earliest convenience.” Bernhisel attempted to do so, but then gave the letter to Kane’s brother Robert Patterson Kane to deliver. Young, Memorandum for Bernhisel, undated [September 1861], BYOF; Young to Bernhisel, December 21, 1861, BYOF.
11. Young is referencing the Confederate occupation of Munson’s Hill—approximately six miles from the White House—following the southern victory at Manassas in early September 1861. See General Joseph J. Johnston to Jefferson Davis, September 3, 1861, in Lynda L. Crist and Mary S. Dix, eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis: 1861 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), 322.
12. Even before the Civil War, which spurred talk of the annexation of Mexico and other nations, Young wondered to William Hooper: “What shall we do when we annex all of
Young to Kane, September 21, 1861
373
Camp Floyd has been vacated, Bridger left with a Corporal’s guard, and
the relics of the army marched beyond our borders on the route toward
Leavenworth. Will not the reappearance of the remnant contrast singularly
with the boastful bearing of their full [p. 2] feathered departure from the
frontiers? The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”13
In disposing of surplus property in Utah, by express order from the
Government, all arms and ammunition, except what could be taken
away, were destroyed.14 Was this course conciliatory and wise? Such
destruction appears the more singular when contrasted with the fact
that the Government is indebted a large amount of arms to Utah, as
her quota;15 and when further contrasted with the possibility that the
Government may wish our armed assistance in some shape, at some
time, for which those arms and munitions would be very requisite, and
the destruction of which has placed a call for aid in such an awkward
position to be made, should they at any time desire to make it.16 Where
is the counsel of the prudent?” Hath
ished, and is not the understanding of the prudent hid?17
M
exico?” Young to Hooper, December 1, 1859, BYOF. During the Civil War, some Canadians believed that Union armies would attempt to take new territory to compensate for their southern losses. See Robin Winks, Canada and the United States: The Civil War Years (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960), 16–17.
13. Ecclesiastes 9:11.
14. In May 1861, the new commander, Phillip St. George Cooke, detonated the remaining ammunition; one colonel told Young that they had destroyed over 160 tons of armaments.
Young wrote that the ammunition’s destruction was evidence “of the feeling still existing towards [them], and in keeping with the spirit . . . of 57–58.” While the munitions were destroyed, other goods, such as flour and military apparel, were sold at rock-bottom prices.
T. B. H. Stenhouse quipped that for years after, “ ‘regulation blue pants’ were more familiar to the eye, in the Mormon settlements, than the Valley Tan Quaker gray.” See Young to Dwight Eveleth, BYOF; Young to Hiram Clawson, July 26, 1861, BYOF; “The Sale at Fort Crittenden,” Deseret News, March 27, 1861, 4; Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 422.
15. The Ordinance Department of the federal government was charged in an 1855 statute with annually distributing arms to U.S. territories “in such quantities, and under such regulations, as the President may prescribe.” See Annual Report of the Chief of Ordinance to the Secretary of War for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1880,” U.S. Ordinance Department (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880), 377–380.
16. Young told Kane in this passage of his willingness to respond to a future request by the government for military action during the Civil War. Such an instance occurred at the end of April 1862, when the Mormons were asked to guard the transcontinental mail route near Independence Rock. Young to Robert T. Burton, April 29, 1862, BYOF.
17. Isaiah 29:14; 2 Nephi 27:26; Doctrine and Covenants 76:9.
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the prophet and the reformer
During your patriotic enlistment of sharpshooters in the mountains
of Pennsylvania and your military operations since, many reflections
upon points of our conversation while you was here have doubtless
passed through your mind. Friend Van Vliets “overflowing treasury”
has shrunken to treasury notes peddled off to hirelings, and of doubtful
ultimate value, and his thirty millions of people” are bitterly divided in
hostile array.18 Where is the stability of the nation? And where the Union
that a person was not so much as to think [p. 3] of the possibility of its
being broken?
In the Fall of 1857 could Cap. Van Vliet have believed, had it been
ever so plainly portrayed, that so extensively disastrous results would
so soon have followed political corruption? Yet all this is but the begin-
ning of still greater events, events which it may not be wise to too freely
express one’s views upon.
It is lamentable to observe the reckless disregard of so excellent a
form of government as is ours, and the rapid steps so great a nation is
taking to its own destruction; but now, as anciently, “when the wicked
rule, the people mourn.[”]19 The late United States are practically dem-
onstrating that the purest form of republican government is but a cob-
web in the path of the governed, when they have become regardless
of the rights guaranteed there under. Were not this the case, and were
there any probability that, could the people be soon delivered from
their present ordeal, they would deal more justly, their condition might
be viewed in a different light; as it is, it is necessary that they, like oth-
ers, work out their plans the best they are able to suit themselves, for
they will not listen to wiser counsels.
18.
In September 1857, U.S. Army Captain Stewart Van Vliet arrived in Utah as an assistant quartermaster to arrange for supplies for the Utah Expedition, then marching to the territory. Earlier, he had visited the Mormons at Winter Quarters and Young commented that he had “invariably treated them kindly” and had “always been found to be free and frank.”
When Van Vliet found the Mormons determined to resist the Utah Expedition, he warned Young, “The United States, with an overflowing treasury, can send out ten, twenty, or fifty thousand troops.” Young countered that he had “counted the cost” for the Mormons, “but I cannot estimate it for the United States.” Van Vliet responded that if the
U.S. government “pushed forward this thing & made war upon [the Mormons] He should withdraw from the Army for he would not have a hand in sheding the blood of American citizens.”
In 1860, Young commented that “Van Vliet was favorable to Mormonism; and no doubt
calculated to be united with us when a home with the gentiles was no longer desirable.” See Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, September 13, 1857, 5:97; Young, discourse, October 7, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 5:331; Young, journal, August 18, 1860, CHL.
19. Proverbs 29:2; Doctrine and Covenants 98:9.
Young to Kane, September 21, 1861
375
Could my voice be as effectually heard in the strife now surround-
ing you, as was yours in the troubles that seemed to overshadow us
in 1857–8, I would most cheerfully endeavor to reciprocate the noble
deeds of yourself. But [p. 4] the roar of canon and the clash of arms
drown the still, small voice of prudent counsel.
Our facilities for keeping a comparatively reasonable pace in knowl-
edge of the world’s movements are rapidly increasing, and if not inter-
rupted, promise to be very beneficial. The telegraph Agents are very
busily occupied in erecting poles and stretching the wire across the
Continent, and expect to form connection in this City on or before the
1st of December next.20 Our latest eastern dispatch by pony was dated
at Sweetwater bridge,21 and the operators expect soon to telegraph to
us from the Rocky Ridge, everything being nearly completed between
those points, which will bring us very near to Washington, so far as news
of the doings there is concerned.
During this season I have visited nearly all our settlements from the
extreme southern to almost the farthest north, and every where have
found the people peaceful, industrious, prosperous, and happy. Cereals,
fruits, and vegetables have flourished luxuriantly, and yielded abundant
returns, producing plenty to crown the joy of peace.
Besides the prosecution of the customary industrial pursuits in fields
and gardens, many creditable improvements are being made in various
localities. Our paper mill is in successful operation, and the material,
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