History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

ABANDONMENT OF SALT LAKE CITY. 535
is heard, save the murmur of the creek; nor is there
sign of life in the city of the saints. Zion is de-
32
serted !
Thirty thousand of the Mormons had left their
homes in Salt Lake City and the northern settlements,
taking with them all their movable effects, and leaving
only in the former a score of men, with instructions
to apply the torch if it should be occupied by
the troops. The outer doors were locked, and in the
vacant dwellings were heaps of straw, shavings, and
wood ready for the work of destruction. In April,
when Cumming first arrived in the city, he reported
that the people were already moving from the northern
settlements. The roads were filled with wagons
laden with provisions and household furniture. By
their side women and children, many of them so thinly
clad that their garments barely concealed their nakedness,
some being attired only in sacking, some with
no covering but a remnant of rag-carpet, and some
barefooted and bleeding, 33 tramped through the deep
snow, journeying they knew not whither, no more
than at the exodus from Nauvoo; but it was "the
will of the Lord," or rather of their prophet. 34
Returning
with the peace commissioners, the governor
repaired to the house of Elder Staines, and found the
S2 Johnston's despatch, in Sen. Doc., 35th Cong. 2d Sess., ii. p. 122. Tullidge
says that Colonel Cooke, who had commanded the Mormon battalion in
1847, rode through the city bareheaded. Hist. S. L. City, 224.
13 Jennings' Mat. Progr. in Utah, MS., 2, where it is stated that, during
the spring of 1858, the stock of clothing became exhausted and there were no
means to replenish it. Among those who set forth from S. L. City was Mrs
Jos. Home, who started on the 1st of May for Parowan, her husband being
employed in raising cotton about 100 miles to the south of that settlement.
She had two teams for herself, her ten children, and her husband's second
wife and baby. They were one month on the journey, sleeping in their
wagons, and cooking at the roadside, were scantily clad and provisioned, and
almost without money. On arriving at Parowan Mrs Home earned the means
for clothing her children comfortably by sewing, a party of Mormons having
arrived there from San Bernardino, with a load of dry goods. Home's Migr.
and Settlem. L. D. Saints, MS., 36.
84 Cumming states that at the tabernacle, on Apr. 11th, Brigham men-
tioned Sonora as their goal. House Ex. Doc., 35th Cong. 1st Sess., xiii. p. 6,
note. I find no mention of this in the files of the Deseret Hews. Between
May 12 and Sept. 1, 1858, this paper was published at Fillmore City.