Mormon Battalion
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The battalion was a volunteer unit of 500 soldiers, nearly all LDS men with regular army officers in command and key staff positions along with Mormon company officers. The battalion made a grueling march from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California, the longest march in U.S. military history. The Mormon Battalion were mostly members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were fleeing religious persecution in Nauvoo, Illinois. The battalion's march and service was instrumental in helping secure new lands in several Western states, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 of much of southern Arizona. The march also opened a southern wagon route to California. Veterans of the battalion played significant roles in America's westward expansion in California, Utah, Arizona and other parts of the West.
Origins
President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young, sent Elder Jesse C. Little to Washington D.C. to seek assistance from the Federal government for the Mormon trek west. After several interviews with President James Polk in early June 1846, the offer to enlist some 500 men "after" the Mormons arrived in California was accepted. Yet, orders through military channels were misread and an army officer went to the Mormon camps in Iowa to enlist men into a battalion consisting of all Mormons.The battalion was mustered into volunteer service on July 16, 1846 by Captain James Allen of the famous 1st U.S. Dragoons. Dispatched by Colonel (later Brigadier General) Stephen Kearny, Allen met no success in recruiting until Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve gave public approval. Eventually some 500 men volunteered into this unique "federal" unit, which was not structured as a more typical militia or state volunteer organization. Several large families, some soldier's wives and a number of teen age boys accompanied the battalion, making it appear more as a pioneer party than a military force. The Mormon Battalion would be part of the Army of the West under General Kearny, a tough and seasoned veteran, that would have two regiments of Missouri volunteers, a regiment of New York volunteers who would travel by ships to California, artillery and infantry battalions, Kearny's own 1st US Dragoons, and the battalion of Mormons.
Journey Begins
The battalion arrived at Fort Leavenworth on August 30. For the next two weeks, they drew their pay, received their equipment (Model 1816 smoothbore flintlock muskets and a few rifles), and were more formally organized into a combat battalion, yet there was little time for training and instilling discipline. Newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel James Allen took sick but ordered the battalion forward along the Santa Fe trail to overtake Kearny's Army of the West. On August 23, Allen died and was the first officer buried in what became Fort Leavenworth National Military Cemetery.Captain Jefferson Hunt, commanding A Company, was the acting commander until word reached them at Council Grove, Kansas, that Allen had died. A few days later Lieutenant Andrew Jackson Smith, West Point Class of 1838, arrived and assumed temporary command of the battalion with the Mormons' consent. For the next several weeks the Mormon soldiers came to hate "AJ" Smith and the assistant surgeon, Dr. George B. Sanderson, for their treatment of the men and the long marches across the dry plains of Kansas and New Mexico. The Mormon men were unaccustomed to the austere military standards of the day and the medical treatments imposed by Dr. Sanderson were rigid and antiquated even by the standards of the period. As the elders of the Mormon Church had counseled the battalion members to avoid medical treatment by the military, there arose a challenge to military authority and great unrest among the men. Smith and Sanderson were typical men of their professions of the period and, although they proclaimed no malice against the Mormons, held the battalion to stricter standards of obedience than they did the Missouri and other regiments with the group.
Cooke Assumes Command
Arriving in Santa Fe in October, General Kearny had dispatched Captain, now Lieutenant Colonel, Philip St. George Cooke, West Point class of 1827, to assume command of the battalion with the assignment to build a wagon road to California. Cooke was one of the finest frontier officers of the antebellum army. In Santa Fe all the women and children, except for a very few, and many sick men were sent to Pueblo, in present-day Colorado. A total of three separate detachments left the battalion and went to Pueblo to winter. For the next four months and 1,100 miles, Cooke led the battalion across some of the most arduous terrain in North America. Most of the Mormon soldiers soon learned to respect and follow this accomplished frontier officer. Lieutenant Smith and Dr. Sanderson continued with the battalion, along with Lieutenant George Stoneman, newly graduated from West Point that spring. Eventually all three officers, Cooke, Smith and Stoneman, would have high level commands for the North during the Civil War, and Stoneman would become Governor of California.Mexicans flee
Approaching Tucson, in future Arizona, the battalion nearly had a battle with a small detachment of provisional Mexican soldiers in December 1846, but as the battalion approached the Mexicans fled. The local Indian tribes along the march route were very helpful and charitable to these American soldiers. Mormon soldiers learned many pioneer methods of irrigation from the Indian peoples and employed them later in Utah and other areas.Journey complete
The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, California on January 29, 1847 after a march of some 1,900 miles from Iowa. For the next five months until their discharge on July 16, 1847 in Los Angeles, the battalion trained and also performed occupation duties in several locations in southern California. Many of the men helped in civil works projects. One significant project the Mormons built was Fort Moore erected in present-day downtown Los Angeles, perhaps one of the first US military installations in California. Some 23 Mormon men died from disease or other natural causes during their service. About 80 of the men re-enlisted for another six months of service.A few of the men escorted John C. Fremont back east for his court martial.
A few discharged veterans worked in the Sacramento area for James Marshall at Sutter's Mill. Henry Bigler recorded the actual date, January 24, 1848, in his diary (now on display at the Huntington Library in Huntington Park, CA) when gold was discovered. This gold find started the major gold rush the next year, the most significant immigration event in American history.
Military Accolades
Colonel Cooke honored the Mormon Battalion when he declared, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor we have dug deep wells, which the future traveler will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless table-lands where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick and axe in hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught but the wild goat, and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock more narrow than our wagons... Thus, marching half naked and half fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our country."Historic sites and monuments
Historic sites associated with the battalion include:
- Mormon Battalion Memorial and Visitor Center, Presidio Park, Old Town, in San Diego, California;
- Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial, the largest bas-relief military monument in the United States, on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles, California;
- Mormon Battalion Mountain, a low-laying mountain within San Bernardino County's Glen Helen Regional Park at the mouth of Cajon Canyon where a detachment of the Mormon Battalion arrived from Los Angeles with the assignment to set up camp and guard the pass from any Indian raids.
- Mormon Rocks, northwest of San Bernardino, California in the Cajon Pass, just west of Interstate 15 on California 138. The marker commemorates the wagon trail blazed across the Sierra Nevada at the foot of Cajon Pass by 25 recently-discharged Battalion soldiers in their journey to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
- the Mormon Battalion Monument in Memory Grove, Salt Lake City, Utah [link]
References
- Bagley, Will and David Bigler. Army of Israel: Mormon Battalion Narratives, Kingdom of the West: Mormons on the American Frontier. Spokane, WA: Arthur H. Clark and Company, 2000.
- Fleek, Sherman L. History May be Searched in Vain: A Military History of the Mormon Battalion, Spokane WA: Arthur H. Clark and Company, 2006.
- Griswold del Castillo, R. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A legacy of conflict. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. First paperback printing 1992.
- Kimball, Stanley B. Historic Sites and Other Markers Along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails. University of Illinois Press, 1988.
- Merk, F. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.
- Riketts, N. B. Melissa's Journey with the Mormon Battalion; the western odyssey of Melissa Burton Couray: 1846 - 1848. Salt Lake City: International Society Daughters Utah Pioneers, 1994.
- Riketts, N. B. The Mormon Battalion; U. S. Army of the West, 1846 - 1848. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996.
- Cooke, P. S. et. al. The Conquest of New Mexico and California in 1846 - 1848. Glorieta, NM; Rio Grande Press, 1964.
- Tyler, D. A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1846 - 1847. Chicago: Rio Grande Press, 1964 (Reprint).
- Weinberg, A. K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansion in American History. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963 (Reprint).
External links
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