Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/289

 MORMON SETTLEMENTS IN MISSOURI VALLEY. 281 ceived a bounty of $40.00, most of which was taken back to the families left behind at the Missouri River camps. While the withdrawal of five hundred able-bodied men left few but the sick in the camps, the bounty received was considerable and much needed, and the enlistment of the battalion induced Captain Allen to promise, for the government, to allow the Mormons to pass through the Pottawattamie and Omaha lands, and to remain while necessary. Subsequent letters from Washington showed that the Federal authorities ex- pected the Mormons to leave in the spring of 1847. Some six hundred fifty Saints had been left in Nauvoo after the emigration ceased in June, consisting of the sick, the poor, and those unable to sell their property. The Gentile Whigs renewed the old quarrel, fearing the vote of the Mormon element would control the August congressional elec- tion. The Saints finally agreed to not attempt to vote. But in fact, says Governor Ford, all voted the Democratic ticket, some three and four times, being induced by the considerations of the President allowing their settlement on the Indian res- ervations on the Missouri, and the enlistment of the Mormon battalion. Nauvoo fell, and the last of the Mormons fled from the city in extreme distress. By the close of the summer of 1846, some twelve or thirteen thousand Mormons were in camp in the Missouri Valley, at Rushville, Council Point, Traders' Point, Mynster Springs, Indiantown, in the groves along the creeks, and in the glens in the hills ; and on the west side of the river, at Cutler Park, on the Elkhorn and Papillion crossings, and as far as the Pawnee villages. During the summer and autumn of 1846, particularly in August and September, the various camps were siezed with a plague of scrofulous nature, which the Mormons called, the black canker. The Indians had lost one-ninth of their num- ber from this strange disease, the year before, and the mortal- ity among the whites was fully as great in 1846. In one camp 37 per cent were down with the fever at one time. The pes- tilence was attributed to the rank vegetation and the decaying