Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 by Various

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All this while, a movement of a most extraordinary character was being
carried on, which had commenced before the Governor entered the Valley.
The people of the northern settlements, along the base of the Wahsatch
Mountains, including Salt Lake City, were deserting their homes,
abandoning houses, crops, and their heavier furniture, and migrating
southward. Long wagon-trains were sweeping through the city every day,
accompanied by hundreds of families, and droves of horses and cattle.
A fair estimate of the entire Mormon population of Utah is about
forty-five thousand. Of this number, ten thousand is the proportion of
the towns north of Salt Lake City, and upward of fifteen thousand that
of the city itself and the settlements in its immediate neighborhood.
Considerably more than half the people of the Territory, therefore,
shared in this emigration. What was its object and what its destination
are still mysteries; but it was probably directed toward the
mountain-ranges in the southwestern portion of the Great Basin, of the
topography of which region--hitherto unvisited by Federal explorers--the
Mormons undoubtedly possess accurate information. At any rate, it was
initiated and conducted under the direction of the Church, and Young and
Kimball were among the first to lead the way. Commencing late in March,
it continued until June, and before the beginning of May more than
thirty-five thousand people were concentrated on the western shore of
Lake Utah, chiefly in the neighborhood of Provo, fifty miles south of
Salt Lake City. Such a scene of squalid misery, such a spectacle of want
and distress, was never before witnessed in America. More than half
this multitude could not be accommodated in the towns, and lodged in
board-shanties, wigwams, mud-huts, log-cabins, bowers of willow-branches
covered with wagon-sheets, and even in holes dug into the hill-sides.
The most common quarters, however, were made by removing a wagon-body
from its wheels, placing it upon the ground, and erecting in front of
it a bower of cedars. It is needless to dwell on the exasperation which
animated all who submitted to these sacrifices. In the history of the
Albigenses hunted through Languedoc, or of the Jews writhing under the
Spanish Inquisition, a record of similar bitterness of feeling may be
found, but its parallel does not exist outside the annals of religious
persecution.

Governor Cumming returned to Fort Bridger during the second week in
May, still accompanied by Mr. Kane, and also by a party of Mormons
who intended to escort the latter to Missouri. Upon his arrival, he
addressed a letter to General Johnston, stating, officially, that the
people of Utah had acknowledged his authority, and that the roads
between the camp and Salt Lake City were free for the transit of mails
and passengers, the Mormon forces having withdrawn from the canons, and
none of the Territorial militia remaining under arms except with his
consent and approbation. A day or two later, Mr. Kane bade him farewell
and started toward the States, his mission having been completed.

It may be well to pause here and estimate its precise results. It had
secured delay. The herds on Henry's Fork had thriven better than was
expected, and toward the close of April the number of mules in working
condition was sufficient to have dragged a train of two hundred wagons.
The dragoon-horses which survived could have been assigned to the
artillery-batteries, and the regiment have served as infantry. With this
equipment, slight though it may appear, a rapid movement upon the Valley
was possible; and whatever may have been the opinion during the previous
autumn, it was the universal opinion in the spring that the force at
Camp Scott could have routed any body of militia that might have opposed
its advance, although, perhaps, it was not sufficient to subjugate the
Territory, in case the Mormons should flee to the mountains. Provisions,
also, were running low in the camp. The ration of flour had been further
reduced. All the cattle had been slaughtered, and there was every
prospect of recourse to mule-meat before the first of June. Everything,
therefore, favored the plan of an early march toward the city; and it
is certain that it would have been commenced without awaiting
reinforcements from the States, had not the Governor's scheme for
pacification intervened. Distrustful of its expediency or propriety
though General Johnston might have been, he deemed it his duty to await
its result. Neither he nor the Governor being supreme in the direction
of affairs, it was the duty of each to defer so far as might be to the
action of the other.

In the next place, Mr. Kane's interposition had produced an
irreconcilable difference of opinion between the civil and the military
authority. This is evident from what has already been stated, and there
is no need to confirm the fact by argument. The Governor returned to
Fort Bridger in May, believing the Mormons to be an injured people,
whose cause was in the main just. But his position was full of
difficulties. He had been recognized in his official character, it is
true; but he was conscious that every Mormon acknowledged a political
influence superior to his own, which was directing the emigration
southward, and leaving him Governor of empty villages and deserted
fields. The only hope he entertained of checking this exodus was by
quashing the indictments for treason which had been found against the
Mormon leaders, and by insuring them against contact with the troops.
The first he was powerless to effect; it was a matter beyond his
control,--solely within the cognizance of the courts. The second he
had assumed to be within his power, and had so assured the Mormons; but
there he was at variance with General Johnston, who denied his claim to
absolute authority over the movements of the army.

Unknown, however, to the parties who were agitating these perplexing
questions, a superior power had already intervened and solved
the difficulty. On the 6th of April, the President had signed a
Proclamation, at Washington, rehearsing to the people of Utah Territory,
at considerable length, their past offences, and particularly those
which immediately preceded and followed the outbreak of the rebellion,
and declaring them traitors; but, "in order to save the effusion of
blood, and to avoid the indiscriminate punishment of a whole people
for crimes of which it is not probable that all are equally guilty,"
offering "a free and full pardon to all who will submit themselves to
the authority of the Federal Government." This document was intrusted
to two Commissioners for conveyance to the Territory;--one of them, Mr.
L.W. Powell, lately Governor, and at the time Senator-elect, of the
State of Kentucky; the other, Major Ben M'Culloch, of Texas, who had
served with distinction in Mexico. In their appointment, Mr. Buchanan
imitated the example of President Washington, who designated a similar
commission to convey his proclamation to the whiskey-insurgents in
Pennsylvania.

The reinforcements and supply-trains for the army were at this time
concentrating at Fort Leavenworth, Major-General Persifer F. Smith was
assigned to the command-in-chief, and it was intended that the whole
force, after concentration in Utah, should be divided into two brigades,
one to be commanded by General Harney, the other by General Johnston.
Leaving the columns preparing to advance over the Plains, the
Commissioners started from the Fort on the 25th of April. On the same
day, Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann advanced from Fort Laramie with several
companies of infantry and cavalry, escorting the supply-trains which
were parked there through the winter, and on the speedy arrival of which
at Camp Scott the subsistence of General Johnston's command depended,
unless it should force its way into the Valley. On the 1st of May, he
had reached La Bonte, a tributary of the North Platte, fifty miles from
the Fort. There he encountered the severest storm that had occurred in
that region for many years. The snow fell breast-deep, and was followed
by a pelting rain which killed his mules by scores. He was forced to
remain stationary more than a week, and when he renewed the march the
trains were clogged by mud foot-deep.

The Commissioners reached Camp Scott on the 29th of May. The President's
Proclamation had been received the day before. With the exception of a
few persons who were prepared for such a document by reflection on Mr.
Kane's mission, everybody was astonished at its purport. It seemed
incredible that a lenity should have been extended to the Mormon rebels
which was refused to the Free-State men in Kansas, who were once
indicted for treason and sedition,--and equally incredible that all the
advantages for the solution of the Utah problem which had been gained by
the rising of the Mormons in arms should be thrown away. There was none
of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was reported in the
States to have prevailed there, but there was a feeling of infinite
chagrin, a consciousness that the expedition was only a pawn on Mr.
Buchanan's political chess-board; and reproaches against his folly were
as frequent as they were vehement. Had he excepted from the amnesty the
Mormon leaders, who alone had been indicted, the Proclamation might have
been considered an act of judicious clemency; for that exception would
have accomplished every object that could be desired. As it was, it
annihilated all that had been gained by the enormous expenditures and
the toils and sufferings of the past year, and it sentenced the army to
an indefinite term of imprisonment in an American Siberia. For the sake
of ridding the Administration of immediate trouble, it turned the Church
leaders loose again upon the community, purged of all offence, and
postponed to a future day a terrible issue, the ultimate avoidance of
which is impossible. "After us the deluge," was still the motto of the
President and his Cabinet.

At the camp the Commissioners remained only three days, which they
employed in obtaining accurate information concerning the transactions
of the last three months; for when they started from Missouri, no news
of the result of Mr. Kane's mission had reached the frontier.

On the 2d of June, they started for the Valley, intending to summon the
leading Mormons to an interview, and receive their formal acceptance of
the terms of the Proclamation,--of which, of course, there could be no
doubt. They were accompanied by the postmaster of Salt Lake City, with
the mails for the Mormons, which had been detained at the camp since the
commencement of the rebellion. The Governor and the Superintendent of
Indian Affairs followed them the next day. The rest of the Federal
officers refused to join the party, or to make any movement based on a
supposed capitulation of the Mormons, until their submission should be
perfected. There were many circumstances attending the departure of
the Governor which showed that he was doubtful of the stability of the
positions he had been led by Mr. Kane to assume. He expressed himself
distrustful of the cooperation of the Commissioners in his plan for
pacifying the Territory; and he protested vehemently against allowing
persons to accompany the party in order to report for the press the
proceedings at the expected conferences. Every day made it more and more
evident that he had committed himself to the Mormons farther than he
cared to acknowledge.

Before the Commissioners left the camp, they urged General Johnston not
to delay the advance of the army one moment beyond the time when he
should be ready and desire to march. On the 8th of June, Captain Marcy
arrived at the Fort with a herd of nearly fifteen hundred mules and
horses, and an escort of five companies of infantry and mounted
riflemen. He left the village of Rayado, on the Canadian River, in
New Mexico, on the 17th of March, and, instead of retracing the route
pursued on his winter journey, which had led him near the sources of
Grand River, one of the great forks of the Colorado, he returned along
the eastern base of the Rocky Mountain range past Long's and Pike's
Peaks. When he had reached Fontaine-qui-bouille Creek, an express
overtook him from General Garland, who commanded the Department of New
Mexico, enjoining him to halt and await reinforcements. There he camped
more than three weeks. Renewing his progress, he was overtaken, on
the 29th of April, by the same snowstorm which was so disastrous to
Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann on La Bonte. It was accompanied by a furious
wind, the force of which there was nothing to break. Snow fell to the
depth of three feet, and, at the very height of the storm, a part of the
mule herd stampeded and ran fifty miles before the wind, for shelter.
When the march was resumed, after an interval of several days, hundreds
of antelopes were found frozen and buried in the drifts,--a circumstance
almost unparalleled among the mountains. With this exception, nothing
occurred to obstruct the march. Captain Marcy brought with him specimens
of sand from many of the tributaries of the South Platte, which were
found, on analysis, to contain particles of gold; and within two months
after he gathered them, the same discovery, confirmed by others,
originated the emigration to that region, the progress of which now
promises the speedy birth of another Free State in the very heart of the
continent. On the 9th and 10th, Colonel Hoffmann reached the camp with
all his supply-trains; and on the following day, General Johnston issued
the welcome order to prepare for the march to Salt Lake City. A strong
detachment of infantry and artillery was detailed to garrison Fort
Bridger.

On the 13th of June, the long camp was broken up, and the army moved
forward in three columns on the route through the canons. Although the
season was so far advanced, snow had fallen at the Fort only three days
before. The streams were swollen and turbulent with spring floods,
and difficulty was anticipated in crossing the Bear and Weber Rivers.
Material for bridging had, therefore, been prepared, and accompanied the
first column. Southwest of the Fort, at the distance of four or five
miles, a singular _butte_, the top of which is as level as the floor of
a ball-room, rises to the height of eight hundred feet above the valley
of Black's Fork, and commands a view of the entire broad plateau between
the Wind River and the Uinta and Wahsatch Ranges. Little parties of
horsemen could be seen spurring up the gullies on its almost precipitous
sides, to witness from its summit the departure of the army. The scene
was in the highest degree picturesque. Almost at their feet lay the
camp, the few tents which remained unstruck glittering like bright dots
on the wing of an insect, the whitewashed wall of the Fort reflecting
the sunshine, while stacks of turf chimneys, lodge-poles, and rubbish
marked the spots where the encampment had been abandoned. The whole
valley was in commotion. Along the strips of road were winding clumsy
baggage-trains; the regiment of dragoons was trailing in advance; the
gleam of the musket-barrels of the infantry was visible on all sides;
and every puff of the breeze that blew over the bluff was freighted with
the rumble of artillery-carriages and caissons. Here and there were
groups of half-naked Indians galloping to and fro, with fluttering
blankets, gazing at the show with the curiosity and delight of children.

The traveller who terminates his westward journey at Fort Bridger has
entered only the portal of the Rocky Mountains. Along the interval
between there and the Valley of the Great Lake, there is a panorama of
mountain-scenery that cannot be surpassed in the Tyrol. For miles and
miles in the gorges, at the season of the year when they were traversed
by the army, the road winds through thickets of alders and willows and
hawthorn-bushes, whose branches interlace and hang so low, under their
load of leaves and blossoms, as to sweep the backs of horsemen. Through
the interstices of the foliage, the sandstone cliffs that bound the
canons are seen surrounded by flocks of twittering birds which build
their nests in the crevices of the rock. The ridges which the road
surmounts between canon and canon are covered with fields of luxuriant
grass and flowers, in the midst of which patches of snow still linger.
From them, in the clear noon sunshine, the broken line of the Wahsatch
and Uinta Ranges is visible along the horizon; but through the morning
and evening haze, only the tracery of their white crests can be
discerned. The valleys of the Bear and Weber Rivers are peculiarly
beautiful, the latter almost realizing the dream of the Valley of
Rasselas. Corrugated and snow-capped ridges slope backward from the
spectator, on whichever side he turns, until he wonders how and where
the swift river, rushing under its canopy of rustling cotton-woods,
finds a pathway through them.

It was into scenery like this that the troops advanced, speculating,
along each day's march, upon what obstacles they would have encountered,
had they attempted to reach the Valley during the winter. On the 14th,
an express from the Commissioners arrived at the camp on Bear River,
announcing that no resistance would be made by the Mormons, who pledged
themselves to submit to Federal authority. It was suggested, at the same
time, to General Johnston, that they apprehended ill-treatment from the
army, which might feel an exasperation natural after the privations to
which it had been subjected during the winter. To reassure them,
the General immediately issued and forwarded to Salt Lake City a
proclamation, informing them that no one should be "molested in his
person or rights, or in the peaceful pursuit of his avocations." On
the same day, Governor Cumming issued a proclamation announcing the
"restoration of peace to the Territory."

The Commissioners had reached the city on the 7th. They were received
there by the Mormon officers who commanded the few companies of militia
which constituted the garrison, and were conducted to a restaurant,
where meals were provided for them, but no lodgings; and accordingly
they slept in their ambulances. The place was deserted by everybody
except the garrison and a few individuals who were busily removing their
property. Besides these, the only beings visible in the streets were
here and there groups of half-naked Indian boys paddling in the gutters.
Almost the only sound audible was the gurgling of the City Creek.
Through the chinks of the heavy wooden portal of the Temple square,
workmen were to be seen engaged in demolishing the roofs of the
buildings within the inclosure. Over the windows of all the houses
boards were nailed; the doors were locked; the gates closed; and in many
of the gardens, crops of weeds were beginning to choke the flower-beds.
From some of the houses of the more enthusiastic Saints all the
wood-work was removed, leaving nothing standing except the bare _adobe_
walls, while a few had been burned to the ground. In front of the
tithing-office, a train of wagons was loading with grain for removal to
Provo.

The Governor arrived on the 8th, and was conducted at once to the
quarters he had occupied on his previous visit. The next day, he,
together with the Commissioners, held an interview with the two
messengers who had been sent up from Provo by Brigham Young. They
returned to Lake Utah that same night, and on the 10th, about noon,
Young, Kimball, and Wells, together with the Twelve Apostles, and twenty
or thirty Bishops, High Priests, and Elders, embracing almost all the
influential characters in the Church, rode into the city. Brigham's
mansion was thrown open and the party dined there. They called
afterwards in a body upon the Governor and the Commissioners, and made
arrangements for a conference on the following day.

The President's pardon had reached the Mormon settlements along Lake
Utah on the 6th, and the manner in which it was received by the populace
showed that they were not satisfied with the position of their
leaders. It was read from the steps of the tithing-offices, and at the
street-corners, to crowds who denounced in the fiercest language the
recital of facts set forth in its preamble. The excitement, which had
been steadily fostered by Young and Kimball ever since the commencement
of the rebellion, had amounted to a frenzy which no authority less
potent than such a hierarchy as theirs could possibly have controlled.
Nevertheless, the morning Brigham rode into Salt Lake City, the
capitulation had been preordained.

The conferences lasted through the 11th and 12th, the inflexibility of
the Commissioners securing decency of language from the Mormons, if not
decency of demeanor. All the participants, including Young himself,
expressed their sentiments in turn. The opening speech was made by one
of the Apostles, named Erastus Snow, who forgot for the moment that he
was not addressing a congregation of his brethren on a Sunday morning,
and indulged in a strain of obscene and profane remark which was checked
at once by Senator Powell. Some of the speakers broke into savage
tirades like those with which Governor Cumming was once greeted in the
Tabernacle; but these were checked by Young. There were two subjects on
which the Mormon leaders were particularly anxious, all fear of their
own trial for treason being removed. They dreaded that the army should
be quartered upon their settlements, and that the policy inaugurated
by Judge Eckels in his recent charge to the grand jury at Fort Bridger
should be pursued against polygamy. No assurances were given by the
Commissioners upon either of these subjects. They limited their action
to tendering the President's pardon, and exhorting the Mormons to accept
it. Outside the conferences, however, without the knowledge of the
Commissioners, assurances were given on both these subjects by the
Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which proved
satisfactory to Brigham Young. The exact nature of their pledges will,
perhaps, never be disclosed; but from subsequent confessions volunteered
by the Superintendent, who appears to have acted as a tool of the
Governor through the whole affair, it seems probable that they promised
explicitly to exert their influence to quarter the army in Cache Valley,
nearly a hundred miles north of Salt Lake City, and also to procure the
removal of Judge Eckels. The news of the issue of the order for the
advance of the army reached the city on the 12th, and accelerated the
result of the conferences, which concluded that evening with a pledge on
the part of Young and his associates to submit unconditionally to
the Federal authority. During the next few days, the Commissioners,
accompanied by the Governor, travelled southward, and addressed large
audiences at Provo and Lehi, specially exhorting the people to return to
their homes in the northern settlements, assuring them that the troubles
were ended, and that they need fear no molestation of person or
property.

Whether all these proceedings--which were legitimate results of Mr.
Buchanan's policy--were consistent with the honor of the country, the
public can judge for themselves. The Commissioners certainly conducted
themselves with dignity and credit; but it is doubtful whether they ever
would have accepted their appointment, had they anticipated the nature
of the duties they would be required to perform.

The army moved slowly forward during the progress of these negotiations.
In Echo Canon, it had an opportunity to inspect the bugbear of the
previous autumn,--the Mormon fortifications. As the canon--which is more
than twenty miles long--approaches the Weber River, it dwindles in
width from five or six hundred yards to as many feet. Its northern side
becomes a perfect wall of rock, which rises perpendicularly to the
height of several hundred feet above the road. The southern side retains
the character of a steep mountain-slope covered with grass and stunted
bushes. Echo Creek, a narrow streamlet, with its dense fringe of
willows, fills the whole bottom between the road and the bluffs. The
first indication of approach to the fortifications was the sight of
piles of stones heaped into walls four or five feet high, pierced with
loopholes, and visible on every projecting point of the cliffs along the
northern side, from most of which a pebble could be snapped down upon
the road. Just beyond, after turning a bend in the canon, all the
willows along the creek had been cut away, and through the cleared space
a ditch five or six feet wide and ten feet deep was dug across the
bottom. The dirt thrown from it was packed so as to form an embankment,
on which logs were so arranged that it would answer for a breastwork,
behind which riflemen could be posted under cover. At intervals of about
a hundred yards were two similar lines of ditch and breastwork, by the
first of which the road was forced to skirt the very base of a cliff
which had probably been mined. The other line was constructed just above
the mouths of two narrow gorges which enter the canon, nearly opposite
one another, from the north and south. By the aid of these dams the
canon might possibly have been overflowed for half a mile to the depth
of several feet, but the water would have accumulated slowly on account
of the insignificant size of the creek. Several dirt walls stretched
also across the gorges, commanding the whole of the fortifications
below. This whole system of defences possessed as little strength as
merit. It served only to confirm the impression, which by this time had
become general, that the capacity of the Mormons to resist the army had
been greatly overrated, and that a vigorous effort to penetrate to the
Valley early in the spring would inevitably have succeeded.

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