History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

244
AT THE MISSOURI.
Fe rations were reduced, 17 and soon afterward further
reduced to one half and finally to one quarter allow-
ance, the meat issued to the troops being the flesh of
such animals as were unable to proceed further, though
their hides and entrails were eagerly devoured, being
gulped down with draughts of water, when water
could be had. 18 While suffering these hardships the
men were compelled to carry their own knapsacks,
muskets, and extra ammunition, and sometimes to
push the wagons through heavy sand, or help to drag
them over mountain ranges.
Passing through a New Mexican pueblo on the
24th of October, some of the men were almost as
naked as on the day of their birth, except for a breech-
clout, or as their colonel termed it, a 'centre-clothing,'
tied around the loins. In this plight, near the middle
of December, the battalion reached the San Pedro
Piver, some three hundred and forty strong, and here
occurred the only battle which the saints militant
fought during their campaign—an encounter with a
wild beasts are found; or deserts where, for the want of water, there is no
living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor, we have dug deep wells,
which the future traveller will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed
them, we have ventured into trackless prairies, where water was not found
for several marches. With crowbar and pickaxe in hand, we have worked
our way over mountains which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat, and
hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock, more narrow than our wagons.
Smith's Rise, Progress, and Travels, 10.
17 'Until further orders, three fourths pound of flour, also three fourths
rations sugar and coffee will be issued. Beef, one and a half pounds will be
issued for a day's ration.' Order iVb. 11, Headquarters Mormon Battalion,
Santa Fe\ A copy of it will be found in Tyler's Hist. Mor. Battalion, 175-6.
18 During the march from Santa Fe to San Diego a song was composed by
Levi W. Hancock, a musician belonging to company E. It was entitled the
'Desert Route,' and commences:
While here beneath a sultry sky.
Our famished mules and cattle die;
Scarce aught but skin and bones remain,
To feed poor soldiers on the plain.
Id., 181-2.
Chorus: How hard to starve and wear us out
Upon this sandy desert route.
We sometimes now for lack of bread,
Are less tha n quarter rations fed,
And soon expect, for all of meat,
Naught else than broke-down mules to eat.
Now half-starved oxen, over-drilled,
Too weak to draw, for beef are killed;
And gnawing hunger prompting men,
To eat small entrails and the skin.
'