Page:History of Utah.djvu/294



Hist. Utah. 1G

promising to look after the wants of the families of those enlisting.

Though in reality a great benefit to the brethren, there were some hardships connected with the meas- ure.^" As Brigham and others were on their way from Council Bluffs to Pisgah to aid in obtaining these recruits, they passed 800 west-bound wagons. At their encampments on each side the river there was much serious illness, and as many of the teamsters had been withdrawn for this campaign, much heavy work fell upon the women and children, and the aged and infirm."

After a ball on the afternoon of the 19th, the vol- unteers next day bade farewell to their families and friends, and accompanied by eighty women and chil- dren,^^ set forth on their march/^ on the 1st of August arriving at Fort Leavenworth. Here the men re-

^° So ingrafted in their minds was the idea of persecution, and so accus- tomed were they now to complaining, that when the government acceded to their request, there were many who believed, and so expressed themselves, that this was but an act of tyranny on the part of the United States, whose people, after driving them from their borders, had now come upon them to make a draft on their healthiest and hardiest men, forcing them to separate from their wives and children now in the time of their extremest need, under penalty of extermination in case of refusal. And this idea, which was wholly at variance with the facts, is present in the minds of some even to this day. In order to facilitate enlisting, or for some other cause best known to himself, Brigham deemed it best to preserve this idea rather than wholly disabuse their minds of it; for in his address to tlie brethren on the 15th of July he said: ' If we want the privilege of going where we can worship God accord- ing to the dictates of our consciences, we must raise the battalion,' In his address at the gathering of the pioneers on the 24th of July, 1880, Wilfoi'd Woodruff said: ' Our government called upon us to raise a Ijattalion of 500 men to go to Mexico to fight the battles of our country. This draft was ten times greater, according to the population of the Mormon camp, than was made upon any other portion of our nation. . . Whether our government ex- pected we would comply with the request or not, is not for me to say. But I think I am safe in saying that plan was laid by certain parties for our de- struction if we did not comply.' Utah Pioneers, 33d Ann., 20.

" ' Most of our people were sick; in fact, the call for 500 able-bodied men from Council Bluffs for Mexico, by the government, deprived us of about all our strength.' Richards' Rem., MS., 25.

^^ Compare official report in U. S. House Ex. Doc, no. 24, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., and Tyler'' ■•< Hist. Mormon Battalion, and note discrepancies in regard to numbers enlisted and discharged. The names of those M'ho reached Cali- fornia \Fill be found in my pioneer register, Hist. Cal., this series.

^^ 'The members started upon their pilgrimage cheerfully, 'says Woodruff, ' understanding that they occupied the place of a ram caught in a thicket, and were making a sacrifice for the salvation of Israel. ' Utah Pioneers, 20.