History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

ARRIVAL AT SAN DIEGO. 245
herd of wild bulls. Thence, without further adventure
worthy of note, they continued their march, and reaching
the Pacific coast on the 29th of January, 1847,
found the stars and stripes floating peacefully over the
town of San Diego. 19
A more detailed account of the career of the Mor-
mon battalion will be found in my History of California.
It remains only to add here that about one
hundred of the men reached Salt Lake City in the
winter of 1847, while some remained on the Pacific
coast. 20
The alacrity displayed by the Mormon president in
raising this battalion has been ascribed to various
causes; to the fear of further persecution should the
levy be refused, and to a desire of showing that, notwithstanding
their maltreatment, the saints were still
19 In A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1846
-1847, by Sergeant Daniel Tlyer, (Salt Lake City,) 1881, 8vo, 376 pp., we
have a most valuable book, and one that forms the leading authority on
this subject. Though written, of course, from a Mormon standpoint, and
marked by the credulity of his sect, the execution of the work is all that its
title-page'promises. In the introduction, occupying 109 pages, we have
President John Taylor's account of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Colonel
Kane's discourse on the Mormons, and a poem by Eliza R. Snow, entitled
The Mormon Battalion, and First Wagon Load over the Great American Desert.
The remainder of the volume consists of original matter. Tyler was a member
of company C in the battalion, and no doubt speaks the truth when he
says in his preface that ' neither labor, pains, nor expense has been spared in
the effort to make this a just and authentic history.' Among other authorities
may be mentioned Home's Migr. and Settlerrit, L. D. Saints, MS., 32-3;
Nebeker's Early Justice, MS., 3; Woodruff's Rem., MS., 76; Henry W. Bigler's
Diary of a Mormon in California, MS. , in which last we have a faithful
and interesting record of the Mormon battalion and Mr Bigler's account of
the discovery of gold in California. The Conquest of New Mexico and California:
an Historical and Personal Narrative, by P. St. George Cooke, Brigadier
and Brevet Major-general U.S. A., N. Y., 1878, 12mo, gives some additional
matter, as do the journal and report of that officer in U. S. Sen. Doc. No. 2,
30th Cong., Special Sess., and in House Ex. Doc, 30th Cong., IstSess., no. 41,
pp. 549-63. Cooke, it will be remembered, was in command of the battalion.
Items have also been gathered from U. S. House Ex. Doc, 31st Cong., 1st
Sess., no. 24, p. 22; Apostle Wilford Woodruff's Speech, in Utah Pioneers,
33d ann., 19-22; Smith's Pise, Progress, and Travels, 8-11; Tullidge's Life of
Brigham Young, 41-76; Olshausen, Gesch. de Mor., 142-4; and Kane's The
Mormons, 27-9. Biographical notices of some of the members, and the names
of the women who accompanied the battalion, are given in Tullidge's Women,
427, 432, 443-4.
20 In the Frontier Guardian, March 7, 1849, is a notice copied from the St
Joseph Gazette, stating that the members of the battalion can at once receive
their extra pay at Fort Leavenworth. The notice is signed by Paymaster
Thos S. Bryant.