History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

242
AT THE MISSOURI.
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 measure.
10 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had been withdrawn for this campaign, much heavy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. 11
After a ball on the afternoon of the 19th, the volunteers
next day bade farewell to their families and
friends, and accompanied by eighty women and children,
12 set forth on their march/ 3 on the 1st of August
arriving at Fort Leavenworth. Here the men re-
10 So ingrafted in their minds was the idea of persecution, and so accustomed
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 the brethren on the 15th of July he
said: ' If we want the privilege of going where we can worship God according
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, 1S80, Wilford
Woodruff said: ' Our government called upon us to raise a battalion 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
.Whether our government ex-
made upon any other portion of our nation. .
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 destruction
if we did not comply.' Utah Pioneers, 33d Ann., 20.
11 ' 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.
12 Compare official report in U. S. House Ex. Doc, no. 24, 31st Cong.,
1st Sess., and Tyler's Hist. Mormon Battalion, and note discrepancies in regard
to numbers enlisted aud discharged. The names of those who reached California
will be found in my pioneer register, Hist. Cal., this series.
13 '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.