EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS.
363
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE EXODUS -- THE DESERT AND WILDERNESS.
Brigham's Evil Choice -- En Route Westward -- Kanesville -- "Winter Quarters" -- Colonel Kane's Description -- Missouri Republican Correspondent -- The Mormon Battalion -- Brigham Assumes Supreme Power -- Pushes on to Salt Lake and Returns -- Main Body Reaches the Valley -- Stake Planted -- "State of Deseret."
THEN was Brigham Young's grand opportunity for good. Had he, when forced to leave Nauvoo with his followers, been honest and magnanimous enough to have said to them: "Go your ways, brethren; disperse among the people, wherever you can find homes for your families; lead honest lives; obey the laws. Carry with you all your veneration for the new Gospel and preach it to the world -- God wills it!" -- he would have shown himself worthy to lead. Such was their faith in him that he would have been obeyed. Instead, he chose to have them follow him into an unknown wilderness; poor, sick, and distressed; famished and hungry; through rain and storm and trackless snows; over mountains and sandy desert plains -- all for what? That he and a few chosen associates might lead pampered lives. No higher motive
364 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
governed him. On the part of the many it was a sublime heroism; for the few there is no apology; it was infamy.
In a previous chapter, the beginnings of this unprecedented journey have been recorded. In January, 1846, a council of the chiefs was held in the city, at which it was decided to start out toward the setting sun, but with no objective point fully determined on. Oregon and California were known to exist on the peaceful shores of the broad Pacific; but all that intermediate region included now in the States of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Nevada, and the half-dozen territories beyond, was one vast terra incognita. SOMEWHERE, in this unknown region they would find resting-places -- or graves. Alas! many of them found the latter, scattered far thicker than milestones along the dreary route.
A pioneer band was early sent forward. It was provided with means for opening roads, preparing shelter, and planting crops for those who were to follow. During the summer and fall (1846) the main body, numbering several thousand souls, had reached the Missouri river, across the then territory of Iowa, and almost due west from Nauvoo. A portion of them located on the east side of the river, and the colony there planted was called Kanesville -- now the little city of Council Bluffs. A still larger
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 365
body crossed the Missouri and established "winter quarters," and other settlements in the vicinity of what is now the city of Omaha, in the State of Nebraska. Kanesville was named in honor of Colonel Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, a brother to the renowned Arctic explorer; a gentleman who took great interest in behalf of these suffering people. He afterwards delivered lectures in the East on this Mormon exodus, and before the Historical Society of Philadelphia, which -- although some of his facts are much distorted and exaggerated -- in glowing and eloquent terms depicted the sufferings of the fugitives. Portions of it are reproduced here. That lecture ought to be read and studied by every body of people who contemplate the banishment of whole communities, as punishment for the crimes of their leaders. His visit to Nauvoo just after the surrender, is thus described in part:
"...It was a natural impulse to visit this inviting region. I procured a skiff (at Montrose opposite) and rowing across the river, landed at the chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked, and saw no one. I could hear no one move; though the quiet everywhere was such that I heard the flies buzz, and the water-ripples break against the shallow of the beach. I walked through the solitary streets. The town lay as in a dream, under some deadening spell of loneliness, from which I almost feared to wake it; for plainly it had not slept long. There was no grass growing up in the paved ways; the rains had not entirely washed away the prints of dusty footsteps.
366 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
"Yet I went about unchecked. I went into empty workshops, rope-walks and smithies. The spinner's wheel was idle; the carpenter had gone from his work-bench and shavings, his unfinished sash and casings. Fresh bark was in the tanner's vat, and the fresh-chopped light-wood stood piled against the baker's oven. The blacksmith's shop was cold; but his coal-heap and ladling pool, and crooked water-horn, were all there, as if he had just gone off for a holiday. No work-people anywhere looked to know my errand. If I went into the gardens, clinking the wicket-latch loudly after me, to pull the marigolds, heart's-ease and lady-slippers, and draw a drink from the water-sodden well-bucket and its noisy chain; or, knocking off with my stick the tall, heavy-headed dahlias and sunflowers; hunted over the beds for cucumbers or love-apples, -- no one called out to me from an open window, or dog sprang forward to bark an alarm. I could have supposed the people hid in their houses, but the doors were unfastened, and I had to tread tip-toe, as if walking down the aisle of a country church, to avoid rousing irreverent echoes from the naked floors.
"Only two portions of the city seemed to suggest the import of this mysterious solitude. On the southern suburb, the houses looking out upon the country showed by their splintered wood-work and walls battered to the foundation, that they had lately been the mark of a destructive cannonade. And in and around the splendid Temple, which had been the chief object of my admiration, armed men were barracked, surrounded by their stacks of musketry and pieces of heavy ordnance. They challenged me to render an account of myself, and why I had the temerity to cross the water without a written permit from a leader of their band.
"Though these men were generally more or less
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 367
under the influence of ardent spirits, after I had explained myself as a passing stranger, they seemed anxious to gain my good opinion. They told the story of the Dead City; that it had been a notable manufacturing and commercial mart, sheltering over 20,000 persons; * that they had waged war with its inhabitants for several years, and had been finally successful only a few days before my visit, in an action fought in front of the ruined suburb; after which they had driven them forth at the point of the sword, etc.
"They permitted me also to ascend into the steeple (of the Temple) to see where it had been lightning-struck on the Sabbath before, † and to look out east and south on wasted farms, like those I had seen near the city, extending till they were lost in the distance. Here, in the face of the pure day, close to the scar of the Divine wrath left by the thunderbolt, were fragments of food, cruses of liquor, and broken drinking vessels, with a brass drum and a steamboat signal bell, of which I afterwards learned the use with pain.
"It was after night-fall when I was ready to cross the river on my return. The wind had freshened since the sunset, and the water beating roughly into my little boat, I hedged higher up the stream than the point I had left in the morning, and landed where a faint glimmering light invited me to steer.
"Here among the dock and rushes, sheltered only by the darkness, without roof between them and the sky, I came upon a crowd of several hundred
__________
* If they told him this they greatly exaggerated. The city of Nauvoo never contained a resident population of much over half that number.
† A fact, the Temple was struck by lightning in a storm on a Sunday while in possession of the rioters; but little damage done.
368 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
human creatures, whom my movements moved from uneasy slumber upon the ground.
"Passing these on my way to the light, I found it came from a tallow candle in a paper funnel shade, such as is used by street venders of apples and pea-nuts, and which, flaming and guttering away in the bleak air off the water, shone flickeringly on the emaciated features of a man in the last stages of a bilious remittent fever. They had done their best for him. Over his head was something like a tent, made of a sheet or two, and he rested on a but partially ripped open old straw mattress, with a hair sofa-cushion for a pillow. His gaping jaw and glazing eye told how short a time he would monopolize these luxuries; though a seemingly bewildered and excited person, who might have been his wife, seemed to find hope in occasionally forcing him to swallow awkwardly sips of the tepid river water, from a burned and battered bitter-smelling tin coffee-pot. Those who knew better, had furnished the apothecary he needed -- a toothless old bald head, whose manner had the repulsive dullness of a man familiar with death scenes. He, so long as I remained, mumbled in his patient's ear a monotonous and melancholy prayer, between the pauses of which I heard the hiccup, and the sobbing of two little girls who were sitting upon a piece of drift-wood outside.
"Dreadful, indeed, was the suffering of these forsaken beings; bowed and cramped by cold and sunburn, as each dreary day and night dragged on, they were, almost all of them, the crippled victims of disease. They were there because they had no homes, nor hospital, nor poor-house to offer them any. They could not satisfy the cravings of their sick; they had not bread to quiet the fractious hunger-cries of their children. Mothers and babes, daughters and grand-parents alike, were bivouacked
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 369
in tatters, wanting even covering to comfort those whom the sick shiver of fever was searching to the marrow.
"These were Mormons in Lee County, Iowa, in the fourth week of the month of September, in the year of Our Lord, 1846. The city -- it was Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormons were the owners of that city, and the smiling country around. And those who had stopped their plows; who had silenced their hammers, their axes, their shuttles, and their work-shop wheels; those who had put out their fires, who had eaten their food, spoiled their orchards, and trampled under foot their thousands of acres of unharvested bread, -- these were the keepers of their dwellings, the carousers in their Temple, and whose drunken riot insulted the ears of their dying.
"...They were, all told, not more than six hundred and forty persons who were thus lying on the river flats. But the Mormons in Nauvoo and its dependencies had been numbered the year before at over twenty thousand. Where were they? They had last been seen, carrying in mournful train, their sick and wounded, halt and blind, to disappear behind the western horizon, pursuing the phantom of another home."
Another account of the appearance of the city, is thus given by a correspondent of the Missouri Republican:
A WEEK IN NAUVOO -- VIEW FROM THE TEMPLE -- DESOLATE
APPEARANCE OF THE CITY -- PROGRESS OF EVENTS, ETC., ETC.
WARSAW, ILLINOIS, Sept. 29th, 1846.
"Since my last letter I have spent a week in Nauvoo, and can attest the truth of the remarks of
370 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
another of your correspondents, in regard to the desolate appearance of the city.
"I arrived there on Monday evening of last week. On Tuesday morning I took a stroll through a portion of the now deserted streets, and for miles, I may safely say, I passed nothing but tenantless houses; some of them closed and barred, and others with doors wide open, as if left in haste. All along the city, for miles, wherever I went, might be seen on the doors, or on the walls, some notice that the tenement was for sale, or for rent. Every thing indicates that Mormonism is for ever extinct in Illinois. As a people they are completely subdued. Not one, in my opinion, will ever try to regain a foothold in Hancock. They are selling their little property at very low rates, indeed, almost giving it away -- for the sake of raising means to take them away. Horses, cows, oxen, and wagons, are in great demand. Many design to join the expedition, which has gone in advance, to the wilderness of the Far West, while many others have already left for points up and down the river.
"There are many instances of individual distress and suffering, and how could it be otherwise in a case like this? Many, doubtless, have left the city with nothing to live upon a day in advance. Many have crossed the river, who were entirely destitute of the means of sustaining their families before, and who now have added to their former miseries the want of a house to live in, or a roof to shelter them from the 'peltings of the pitiless storm.' Many have nothing left them in the wide world but the little hut which they tenanted in the city, and the small patch of ground upon which it stands, and for which, probably, they will not he able to realize the sum of twenty dollars. I was present myself at the sale of two lots of ground, with a log house and a few fruit trees on each, for one of which the
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 371
purchaser paid a horse, and for the other a cow, and the holders seemed glad to get away with so much. Low as this, doubtless, seemed to them, who had probably paid $200 or $300 each; yet the purchaser had better kept his horse and cow. If all the lots in Nauvoo could be bought at the same rate, I would consider them dearly paid for.
"During my stay I took several occasions to look at the city and surrounding country from the top of the Temple. It is, indeed, a grand and imposing scene, and presents the most magnificent view to be found any where on the banks of the Mississippi. There is but one point on the river that exceeds it in beauty, in my opinion, and that is Rock Island. Ten years .ago, when all that part of the city which lies east of the Temple was covered with forest trees, and little patches of oak and other timber dotted the flat part of the city nearest the river bank, and the little town of Commerce, with its five or six houses huddled together on the bank, it presented a very different aspect from what it does at present. Then it presented nature in all her loveliness: the placid and broad current of the Mississippi, its islands and sand bars -- the far-reaching prairies of Iowa -- the bold bluff which runs in semi-circular form around the town of Montrose (then Fort Des Moines), with here and there a wreath of ascending smoke, to tell the habitation of some settler -- that is the picture it presented ten or twelve years ago. But now how changed is the scene! What a mutation it has undergone! And yet, it is now a thousand times more desolate. The only thing I noticed which had undergone no change since I was familiar with it in 1836 and '7, was Cutler's Grave. It was enclosed with a stone wall, and stood about half a mile from the river near the road which descended the hill from where the Temple now stands -- and there it is yet, standing in the
372 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
midst of all this desolation, looking the same as it did ere the hand of man had wrought all this change around it. George Y. Cutler was one of the earliest settlers in Hancock County, and one of its first county commissioners -- dying, he was buried at this spot.
"I took occasion to ascertain as near as possible the number of houses in the city. From my position on the Temple, I could count a large portion of the city; and from actual count, and estimate based upon count, I think there are at least two thousand houses in the city proper, and in the suburbs five hundred more -- making in all two thousand five hundred houses. About one-half of these are mere shanties, built some of logs, some of poles plastered over, and some framed. Of the remaining portion -- say twelve hundred houses -- all are tolerably fit residences, and one-half are good brick or frame houses. There are probably five hundred brick houses in the city, most of which are good buildings, and some are elegant and handsomely finished residences, such as would adorn any city.
"Of these two thousand five hundred houses, I think about one-twelfth are tenanted -- some by Mormons who have not yet got away, the remainder by Anti-Mormons, new or old settlers, who have been permitted to stay.
"Col. Geddes, of Fountain Green, in this county, was left in command of a small force, when the army was disbanded, and has been in command during the past week. He has now returned to his home, leaving twenty or thirty men at the Temple, under command of Major McAuley and Mr. Brattle. A small force will probably remain in the city as long as the Mormons remain on the other side of the river.
"No event of importance has transpired during
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 373
the week. A certain Dr. Oliver Dresser, who hails from Maine, and who was somewhat conspicuous in the late difficulties, as a friend and companion of Pickett's, ventured over on Wednesday from the other side. He was taken into custody and kept in the Temple till morning, and then marched to the river in double quick time, between two files of men, while he took passage for Iowa. A few other scenes of similar character, to some of which the ceremony of dipping was added, is all that occurred during the week, of an exciting character.
"Several cases of deep distress, mostly lone widows and orphans, came to my knowledge during my stay. In all of these aid was freely given. One of these cases is a peculiar one. During the preparations previous to the fight, one of the horsemen of the city, while riding through the street, was thrown from his horse, and his gun discharged, the ball from which entered the body of a Mrs. Haywood, who was in the door at the time. The lady was badly wounded, but not killed; and was unable to be removed from the city, at the time the posse entered.
"Her husband being a rabid Mormon, ran over the river, leaving her and a young child on this side, where she fell under the notice of the Anti-Mormons. Provision was immediately made for her support -- medical aid procured, and every care and attention bestowed which was in the power of the commander or his men. She is now doing well, and will, in a few days, be removed to some place in the interior until she will be able to go to her friends in Vermont -- as she has decided not to follow her husband into the wilderness. What renders her case more pitiable is, that he has possession of her three children, all under ten years old, and is making use of them to induce her to
374 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
alter her determination. She never was a Mormons but in that confidence which woman only repose, in the object of her regard, she followed him to Nauvoo. Since that time, her confidence has been shaken, and she has now determined never to cross the Mississippi, to swell the tide of war which Mormonism is destined to carry in its train. This accident, which she doubtless regarded as a most unfortunate one, I regard as one of the most fortunate circumstances of her life. It has been the means of separating an interesting woman from a brutal and fanatical husband who would else have dragged her into the far wilderness to suffer unutterable woes.
"Yours, etc.,
"T. G."
The enormity and folly of that last raid upon Nauvoo, and the unnecessary severity employed in the treatment of the fugitives, has never been fully estimated by those engaged in or who sanctioned it. Heaven grant that henceforth and forever, no county, or nine counties, or State, may adopt this method of dealing with its offenders!
The war against Mexico was about to begin. Our government proposed to make the conquest of California, then a Mexican province. While encamped near the Missouri river, an agent of the government appeared at headquarters, with orders to enlist, if possible, a battalion of Mormon volunteers for one year, to be employed in the service against California. They were accordingly enlisted,
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 375
armed, and equipped, and performed valuable service in that memorable campaign; and at the end of their enlisted time, were honorably discharged on the Pacific Coast. Large installments of pay were made in advance, which materially aided not only the battalion, but their families on the journey. This enlistment of so many of their able-bodied men, of course increased the hardships and dangers to be encountered by those left behind. Although the purpose was one of pure sympathy on the part of the administration, intended to aid the refugees in reaching the other side of the continent -- and was so understood and accepted by the Mormons themselves -- yet, in later years, Brigham Young has made it the occasion of great complaint, and by his misrepresentations created much of the disloyal feeling existing in Utah against the government of the United States.
In January, 1847, Brigham Young, in the wilderness, issued a command to his followers, which he claimed to be a revelation from the Lord. It had reference mainly to the "ways and means" to be employed in organizing companies, providing teams and supplies, and preparing the way for the perilous expedition across the plains.
The 6th of April, the day for the annual conference, found most of the leaders at "Winter Quarters
376 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
Soon after the conference, Brigham started west at the head of a picked company; and after a journey of three months and a half, on July 24th, came in sight of the Great Basin in which Salt Lake is situated. Its beauty, its grandeur, and its apparent fertility and advantages, and more than a]l, its isolation from the rest of the world, decided him at once to make this the resting-place of his Saints; to build in this valley, so invitingly spread out before them, a new Zion, a thousand miles away from civilization, where the heavy hand of oppression could not reach them.
They descended into the valley; encampments were made, the city located, the soil upturned, and seed sown, and active preparation made for planting a colony early the next season. This done, the most of them returned to the Missouri river, where their families and other large numbers had been left, which they reached about the 1st of November.
In the spring of 1848, a vital change was effected in the organization of the church. It will be remembered that after the death of the prophet, and during the struggle for the succession at Nauvoo, in order to circumvent Rigdon and Patriarch William Smith, it was decided that the office of President of the Church should be abolished, and that henceforward the Twelve should be the supreme authority.
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 377
Young now aimed to usurp the whole power. He had, by his superior ability and energy, led them thus far into the desert in safety; he had also led a pioneer band over the mountains, and shown them the beautiful Land of Promise they were about to occupy; and he aspired to undivided authority. He cautiously felt his way among his associates of the quorum, and one by one gained them over. A majority of the Twelve gained, the people voted freely for the change; and there in the wilderness of Nebraska, the order of government so solemnly established in the Temple at Nauvoo three years before, was reversed, and Brigham invested with the supreme power, in name as in fact. Here, too, the work of proselyting was renewed; missionaries ordered to Europe, and instructions given them to collect as much of "tithing" and other material aid as possible, for the erection of a new Temple in the Great Salt Lake valley. And, as on former occasions, such was the enthusiasm among his poor, suffering, and shelterless followers, that all wanted to go to the New Jerusalem that was being prepared for them. All were willing to undertake the journey to that Promised Land, which so many of them were doomed to never reach; to pursue a phantom which was leading them down into the Valley of
378 THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA.
the Shadow of Death, instead of the Zion of their hopes.
By the end of the season, four or five thousand souls had entered the valley, and had industriously set at work to make themselves homes.
When first occupied, the Salt Lake valley, as well as all the contiguous territory, belonged still to Mexico nominally; but at the treaty of peace which soon followed, was ceded to the United States. Brigham Young aimed at independent empire; and as the United States' authority was now to be extended over it, his next and best step toward independence he conceived to be the organization of a STATE. So a convention was held on March 5, 1849, and the Constitution of the State of Deseret formed. It declared that "We, the people, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on him for a continuation of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent Government by the name of the STATE OF DESERET," etc., etc. Subsequently, Brigham Young was elected Governor of the State. Though this constitution was rejected by Congress, and the Territorial Government of Utah established, with Young for its Governor, -- this "State of Deseret " is to this day the great desideratum with the leaders in Salt Lake valley. They anxiously await the day
EXODUS, DESERT, AND WILDERNESS. 379
when it can be re-established. That day should never be permitted to come to them, until it can bring another "Wilmot Proviso" against the "twin relic of barbarism" harbored there.
|
