Page:History of Utah.djvu/336

. no. 3, 36.

three thousand,^® and including the pioneers, the bat- talion men, and the companies that arrived under Parley, at least five thousand of the saints assembled in the valley.

Thus about one fourth of the exiles from Nauvoo were for the present beyond reach of molestation. That five thousand persons, including a very large proportion of women and children, almost without money, almost without provisions, excepting the milk of their kine and the grain which they had raised near their own camps, should, almost without the loss of a life, have accomplished this journey of more than twelve hundred miles, crossing range after range of mountains, bridging rivers, and traversing deserts, while liable at any moment to be attacked by roam- ing bands of savages, is one of the marvels that this century has witnessed. To those who met them on the route, the strict order of their march, their coolness and rapidity in closing ranks to repel assault, their method in posting sentries around camp and corral, suggested rather the movements of a well-organized army than the migration of a people; and in truth, few armies have been better organized or more ably led than was this army of the Lord.^^ To the skill of their leaders, and their own concert of purpose and action, was due their preservation. And now, at length, they had made good their escape from the land of their bondage to the promised land of their freedom, in which, though a wilderness, they rejoiced to dwell.

In a private letter written in September 1848, Parle}'- writes: ''How quiet, how still, how free from excitement we livel The legislation of our high council, the decision of some judge or court of

'^^ White persons 2,393, and 24 negroes, with 792 wagons, 2,527 oxen, about 1,700 cows, 181 horses, 1,023 sheep, and other live-stock. Utah Early Rec- ords, MS., 41.

^' ' So well recognized were the results of this organiaation, that bands of hostile Indians have passed by comparatively small parties of Mormons to attack much larger but less compact bodies of other emigrants. ' Kane's The Morinona, 34.