History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

284 IN THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE.
three thousand, 26 and including the pioneers, the battalion
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-
ino- 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. 27 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,
Parley writes: "How quiet, how still, how free
from excitement we live! The legislation of our
high council, the decision of some judge or court of
26 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 Records,
MS., 41.
27 ' So well recognized were the results of this organization, 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
Mormons. 34.