History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

COLONEL KANE'S MISSION. 525
in relation to matters concerning you now pending, I
shall then call your attention, and wish to enlist your
sympathies in behalf of the poor soldiers who are now
suffering in the cold and snow of the mountains. I
shall request you to render them aid and comfort, and
to assist them to come here, and to bid them a hearty
welcome to your hospitable valley. Governor Young,
may I be permitted to ask *a private interview for a
few moments with you?" The purport of this conversation
has never yet been ascertained, but at its
close the governor remarked: "Friend Thomas, you
have done a good work, and you will do a greater
work still." 19
On the 12th of March the colonel arrived at Camp
Scott, and was entertained as the guest of Governor
Cumming. Being presented to Judge Eckels, he displayed
credentials from the president and letters from
Brigham authorizing him to act as a negotiator. He
came as a peace-maker, but was received almost as a
spy. An invitation to dinner from Colonel Johnston
was construed by the sergeant who delivered it—
whether in malice or mischief does not appear—as an
order for his arrest. The blunder was, of course, rec-
tified; but Kane, who was now classed as a Mormon, 20
challenged the commander-in-chief, and a duel was
only prevented by the intervention of the chief justice.
Nevertheless, he received a fair hearing from the gov-
ernor. His mission was to induce him to proceed to
Salt Lake City under a Mormon escort, and at once
,8 Col Kane arrived Feb. 25th. Deseret News, March 3, 1858. On March
2d Major Van Vliet reached S. L. City from Washington at 4 A. M., and
started four hours later, probably for Camp Scott. St Louis fiejmblican, Dec.
14th, in Ibid.
20 Hyde, Mormonism, 146; Waite, The Mormon Prophet, 52, and others
claim that Col Kane had actually been baptized at Council Bluffs in 1847. The
colonel himself never made any such statement; and, as Stenhouse remarks,
if this had been the case he would surely have been treated by Brigham with
less respect, for implicit obedience was always required from those who cmbraced
the faith. Rochj Mountain Saints, 3S2. The truth appears to be that
Kane's Mormon proclivities were due to the kind treatment and excellent
nursing which he received from them in 1847, whereby his life was saved when
he sojourned in one of their camps near Winter Quarters, as already related.
There is no reliable evidence that he was a Mormon.
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