History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

668 THE LAST DAYS OF BRIGHAM YOUXG.
and therefore he was roundly abused by the gentile
press. 35
It is worthy of note, however, that as
the Mormons were now for the first time left undisturbed,
there was little which needs record in their
annals as a body politic, 36 except that from their midst
passed one whose place never could be filled. At
the obsequies of the great president who had cut the
cords of slavey, and being asked to banish its sister
institution, said " Let them alone," believing that in
time it would banish itself, none felt the nation's
loss more grievously than did the Mormons. And
now on the 29th of August, 1877, Brigham Young
was summoned to render his account at the great
tribunal before which all must appear.
Although for several years he had been in feeble
health, he was able to attend to his manifold duties
until six days before his death. Retiring at eleven
o'clock on the night of Thursday, the 23d of August,
after delivering an address before the bishops' meeting
in the council-house, he was seized with an attack
of cholera-morbus, and suffered severely till the morning
of the following Saturday, when he obtained a few
hours' sleep, opiates being administered to relieve the
pain caused by cramping of the muscles. During the
afternoon, however, inflammation of the bowels set in,
and throughout this and the following day he continued
to moan at intervals, though when asked whether he
was in pain he invariably replied, "No, I don't know
that I am." On Monday morning there were strong
symptoms of nervous prostration, among which was a
constant moving of the hands and twitching of the
85 See S. L. G. Tribune, April 14, June 2, 1S77.
36 On the 22d of April, 1S70, Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, visited Salt
Lake City on his way eastward; and on October 3, 1S75, President Grant,
this being the first occasion on which a president of the United States set
foot in the territory. For account of these visits, and also those of General
Sheridan, Henri Rochefort, Jay Gould, and William Hepworth Dixon in
187-4, James G. Blaine in 1873, generals Garfield and McClellan and the
Japanese embassy in 1872, see files of the Deseret News; Utah Jour. Legist.,
1S72; Ventronules' Tour, 74-5; Tullidge's Life of Young, 441. Sheridan's
visit was mainly for the purpose of establishing another military post in Utah,
Provo being the point selected.