Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics

Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance

Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance A EXTRAORDINARY MISSION awaited Johnston. Upon reporting to Secretary of War John Floyd, he received orders to take command of an expedition already on the march for Utah, in the far west, where the Mormon population was deemed to be in rebellion against federal authority.l That Johnston should be chosen for such a task was a measure of his rising prestige in the Army. "I consider it highly complimentary to you to be selected for this service over others more convenient & accessible," wrote Robert E. Lee, who knew of the assignment before it was announced to the public.2 It was commonly known in the Army that Johnston was already in line for promotion to brigadier general, said another fellow officer, who then added, "GenI. [Winfield] Scott always speaks of you most flatteringly." 3 Johnston's star was in the ascendant. He was to undertake a difficult and delicate task. The Morm<:ms were aroused. Harried out of Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, where their founder and leader, Joseph Smith, was lynched, in 1847 they shook the dust of the United States from their shoes and sought 1 Samuel Cooper to Johnston, August 29, 1857, Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. 2 Robert E. Lee to Johnston, August I, 1857, ibid. 3 Irvin McDowell to Johnston, August 22, 1857, ibid. 186 Albert Sidney Johnston refuge in the wilderness of the west. After a prodigious trek across the Great Plains, led by Smith's successor, Brigham Young, they founded their Zion in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. There, protected by the towering Wasatch and Uinta mountain ranges, the Mormons worked with marvelous faith and industry; within ten years they had wrought a miracle of settlement. They formed themselves into an independent theocracy later named the State of Deseret, after the word meaning "bee" in the Book of Mormon, their sacred scripture. The church-state was organized through an elaborate hierarchy of priestly orders topped by a Quorum (or Council) of Twelve Apostles and a First Presidency of three men. At the head of all the priesthood, including the First Presidency, was the President, or "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator"Brigham Young. Authoritarian organization gave purpose, cohesion, and discipline to the community. Rivers were dammed and turned from their courses in the lofty canyons and their waters brought through ingeniously designed canals to the thirsty soil of the valley; crops were grown where sagebrush had prevailed since time immemorial; homes, schools and temples were erected. Trade flourished in the sale of provisions to Oregon and California emigrants. Touched by Mormon energy, the desert was dotted with oases.4 Meanwhile, history overtook the Mormons. Their mountain fastness was part of the territory taken from Mexico by the United States at the end of the Mexican War. Two years later, as one of the measures in the famed Compromise of 1850, the United States Congress created the Territory of Utah. The Territory of Utah embraced the land of the Mormons. At first this acquisition caused little concern among either the citizens of the states or of Utah. To most Americans, Utah was a remote place of slight interest; and Mormon fears were quickly relieved by President Millard Fillmore's appointment of Brigham Young as Territorial Governor. Soon, however, early harmony began to fade. The Mormon Church insisted upon nominating candidates for territorial office; Church members were obliged to support them 4 This description of Mormon life and of the settlement of Utah is drawn from Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints, I83D-I900, pp. 3-160; Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons, pp. 6g-118; Nels Anderson, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah, pp. 28-135. Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance as a sacred duty.5 Federal territorial judges, who were appointed by the President of the United States, were usually gentile (the Mormon name for non-Mormons), and these judges were at crosspurposes with the Mormon juries, who were told by Church authorities what decisions to reach. In a word, Utah remained a theocracy even after becoming a United States territory. Trouble was perhaps inevitable.6 Mormon anger flared over the nature and behavior of the federal judges, Indian agents, and other officials sent into the Territory. These representatives were frequently pompous men who made no effort to hide their contempt for the Mormons; some of them even were of disreputable character. The final blow to Mormon pride and patience was the activity of Territorial Judge W. W. Drummond, a man who had deserted his family to go to Utah, and whose consort there was said to be a prostitute. From the bench, Drummond attacked the territorial court system, which kept most jurisdiction under Church control; from his chambers, Drummond wrote letters to the United States Attorney General, charging the Mormons with d~spotism and sedition. Life was not secure for non-Mormons in Utah, Drummond said. A non-Mormon ought to be appointed governor of Utah Territory and supported by a federal army, he advised. At the same time, federal Indian agents accused the Mormons of inciting the Plains Indians against American settlements in the west. Ultimately, the Mormons made life in Utah so miserable for Drummond and other gentile officials that a number of them, including Drummond, returned to the states, leaving their offices vacant. There, along with many other non-Mormons who had spent time in Utah, these exiles from territorial office became an instrument of propaganda for the disciplining of the Saints.7 Nor were the Mormons free of offense. Many of the accusations made by the exiles were true. Considered in the light of constitutional republicanism, the Church did practice a form of despotism over its adherents; unquestionably, non-Mormons were excluded 5 Thomas B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints, pp. 279-291, 345-347. 6 M. Hamlin Cannon, "The Mormon War: A Study in Territorial Rebellion" (Master's thesis) , pp. 1-30; Anderson, Desert Saints, pp. 140-161. 7 Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, r850-r859, pp. 45-61. Furniss gives the most recent and most authoritative account of the expedition against the Mormons. The present narrative draws heavily upon his work. 188 Albert Sidney Johnston from voice in the public affairs of the Territory. If Church authorities did not sanction intimidation and, sometimes violence, against troublesome gentiles and apostate Mormons, the hierarchy at least permitted such actions to go unpunished. Then there was polygamy. Introduced among the Mormons by Joseph Smith, this practice was carried on by Brigham Young, who proudly maintained his numerous wives and children in the commodious Lion House in the heart of Salt Lake City. Polygamy was not explicitly or officially given by Zion's refugee·critics as a cause of censure, since plural marriage was not then prohibited by federal law. Nevertheless, polygamy overshadowed all other Mormon customs in arousing hostility among the exiles and among the American people generally. Notwithstanding his doctrine of "popular sovereignty " for the territories, Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois called Mormonism a "loathesome ulcer" that must be cut out of the body politic. The Republican Party platform of 1856 contained a pledge of opposition to America's "twin relics of barbarism "-slavery and polygamy.8 Thus, like the people of Johnston's South, the Mormons practised a "peculiar institution" that plagued the conscience of a nation deeming itself otherwise without sin. By 1857 the Democratic Administration of President James Buchanan was convinced that the Mormons were in rebellion. In May, Buchanan and his Cabinet decided to appoint a non-Mormon governor for Utah, along with a fresh group of territorial judges. To assure these officials of Mormon obedience, they were to be accompanied to Utah by a force of United States troops. After much delay, Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming of Georgia as Territorial Governor; Delana R. Eckels, Charles E. Sinclair, and John Cradlebaugh were named federal judges of Utah. Initially assigned to command the armed forces was Brigadier General William S. Harney, one of the most famous Indian fighters of the Army. Obstacles beset the course of the Administration. When asked for an appraisal of the military possibilities, General Winfield Scott was dubious. The Mormons could muster 4,000 defensive troops, he reckoned; to accumulate a sufficient United States offensive force would require many weeks, or even months. Because of the lateness of the season, the great distance to be covered across an uninhabited region, and the likelihood of severe cold in the mountains, the 8 James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, 11,184. Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance 189 expedition ought not be started until spring of 1858.9 General Harney also balked at the assignment. "General Harney is opposed to going, strongly so," wrote an officer of Harney's command. "He has written ... that it is impossible to move with an army this season with any possible advantage, and it is the general impression ... that we will not go." 10 In the end, Harney did not go; he was retained in Kansas where trouble brewed between proslavery and antislavery settlers. Nevertheless, the Administration ordered the Utah expedition forward; Albert Sidney Johnston was named to take Harney's place at its headY Johnston thus inherited confusion and blunder. He received the command in Washington on August 29; advance units of his forceeight companies of the Tenth Infantry under Colonel E. P. Alexander , with an attached battery of artillery under Captain John W. Phelps, and the Fifth Infantry under Colonel Carlos Waite, with an attached battery of artillery under Lieutenant Jesse Reno-were already more than a month out of Fort Leavenworth. They were almost to Fort Laramie in present Wyoming, fifteen hundred miles west of the army commander. The rear element of the expeditionsix companies of the Second Dragoons under Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke-was still at Fort Leavenworth. Between the head of the column and the tail were two companies of the Tenth Infantry marching from Minnesota to join the regiment, and a body of two hundred infantrymen and dragoons that for some reason had been separated from their commands. Hundreds of contractors ' wagons laden with army supplies crept along the trail between Fort Leavenworth and Fort Laramie. The expedition stretched all the way across the Great Plains.12 Johnston left at once to join his far-flung column. Whether he again saw his family in Kentucky before departing for Utah is not known; possibly he stopped in Louisville on his way to Fort Leavenworth . In any event, he decided not to take his family with him on the march. A word on this subject from his friend Lee doubtless 9 Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, pp. 95-97. 10 Otis G. Hammond (ed.) , The Utah Expedition, I857-I858: Letters of Captain Jesse A. Gove, p. 7. 11 Cannon, "The Mormon War: A Study in Territorial Rebellion" (Master's thesis) , p. 30. 12 Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, pp. 99-100. Copies of the most important military orders and correspondence of the expedition are in Leroy R. and Ann W. Hafen (eds.), The Utah Expedition, I857-I858, pp. 27-88, 139-177. 190 Albert Sidney Johnston amused Johnston and confirmed him in his decision. "Tell Mrs. Johnston wives are a perfect drug out there," wrote Lee. "Besides Brigham's 50 female Saints will look upon her as a poor imposed on Sinner & she will not be appreciated in that Community." 1lI Johnston took a house in Louisville for his wife and children during his absence on the Utah campaign. The Mormons were on an outing in Big Cottonwood Canyon, celebrating the anniversary of their move to Salt Lake Valley, when they learned that a federal army was on its way to Utah. Undaunted by this prospect, Brigham Young and his associates immediately began to prepare Utah for defense. The United States Army was not to be permitted to enter the Territory. Young mobilized Mormon resources for war; he ordered out the Utah militia, which was identical with a Mormon force known as the Nauvoo Legion, and instructed Commanding General Daniel Wells to fortify the passes leading into the Valley.14 Wells was to avoid a general engagement; if possible, he was to avoid shedding a single drop of blood. He was to impede and harass the advancing army by burning the grass along its line of march, by stampeding its livestock and by destroying its wagon trains. He was to ambush and cut off its outposts and detachments . "To waste away our enemies and lose none [of our own men] will be our mode of warfare," said the Mormon leader.15 Young also recommended a measure that anticipated some of the efforts of psychological warfare in World Wars I and II: Wells was to take advantage of possible dissatisfaction in the enemy ranks by shouting invitations to the soldiers to desert and come into the Mormon 18 Lee to Johnston, August 1, 1857, Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. 14 Mormon preparations for defense are fully discussed in Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, pp. 119-147; Cannon, "The Mormon War: A Study in Territorial Rebellion" (Master's thesis) , pp. 30-50; Lorna Bagley Allen, "A Study of the Alleged Mormon Rebellion" (Master's thesis), pp. 1-148; Don Richard Mathis, "Camp Floyd in Retrospect" (Master's thesis) , pp. 1-25; Ralph Hansen, "The Nauvoo Legion in Utah" (Master's thesis) , pp. 1-120; Hamilton Gardner, "The Utah Territorial Militia," Utah Historical Society Library, pp. 322-392; Nancy N. Tracy, "Narrative," Bancroft Library, University of California; Brigham Young to Daniel H. Wells, n.d., in "Journal History," Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City; Miscellaneous Orders and Letters, Provo Military District Record; and Record of Orders, Returns and Courts-Martial of 2nd Brigade, 1St Division, Nauvoo Legion. Mormon preparations for defense are also shown in excerpts from Brigham Young's speeches, from Mormon diaries, and from newspaper accounts in H~fen and Hafen (eds.), The Utah Expedition, pp. 183-246. 15Young and Wells to William B. Pace, September 16, 1857, Provo Military Disttict.Record. Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance lines.16 Both the United States Army and the Mormons indulged in an American naivete-that the plain folk of the enemy do not have their hearts in the fight. The United States soldiers marched west under the mistaken belief that the oppressed masses of Utah would welcome liberation; Mormon leaders thought that the United States troops would seek the first opportunity to avoid service. General Wells occupied Echo Canyon, which lay on the most direct route into the Valley, and began to fortify its narrows. The Mormon people were ready to fight; that, if necessary, they would have done so with courage and determination is beyond questionY Johnston was not shaken by the difficulties that faced him. He would triumph, an old friend assured him, in spite of the blunder of the Administration in starting the expedition too late in the year. "I do not fear that disaster will overtake you, because I have abiding faith in the purity and loftiness of the motive that controls you," he was encouraged.1s Johnston arrived at Fort Leavenworth during the second week of September. He found the rear guard of the expedition under Lieutenant Colonel Cooke ready to march. Governor Cumming and his wife, along with the new judges and other territorial officials, were to accompany Cooke.19 On the day the rear guard moved out, Johnston, accompanied by an escort of forty horsemen, left to gain the remote head of the column. "[I shall be] prepared to make the journey in about 35 days," Johnston said, "and will arrive at Salt Lake Valley, say 20th October." 20 He embarked upon his mission with optimism; disillusionment awaited him in the mountain barriers of the kingdom of the Saints. Aware that he was racing against the seasons, Johnston hastened with his escort across the Great Plains. On September 29 he crossed 16 Young to Wells, n.d., "Journal History," Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City. H For expression of prevailing attitudes among the Mormon people, see J. D. T. McAllister Diary, August 13, October 18, 1857; Winslow Farr Diary, july 22-24, 1857; Jesse W. Crosby Diary, September 25, 1857; Charles L. Walker Diary, January 15, 1858; Lorenzo Brown Diary, July 24, September 28, December 1, 1857; WandIe Mace Journal, July 24-August 17, 1857. 18 N. J. Eaton to Johnston, September 8, 1857, Johnston-Eaton Letter Book, Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. 19 Johnston to Eaton, September 16, 1857, ibid. 20 Johnston to McDowell, September 16, 1857, Letters Sent, Department of Utah, Records of the War Department. Copies of johnston's official correspondence from the Utah expedition are in notebooks in the Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. Albert Sidney Johnston the South Fork of the Platte. His optimism was beginning to fade. He wrote that upon reaching his advance units he would at once carry out his mission, "unless prevented by the destruction of the grass on the route by cold, or the filling up of the passes by snow." 21 Eight days later, he arrived at Fort Laramie, still believing he might beat the winter in crossing the mountains. But he Sent instructions for Colonel Cooke to use his own judgment about advancing beyond Fort Laramie once the rear guard reached that post.22 Then he pressed on across the high, barren plateau of southern Wyoming. After Johnston had left Fort Laramie, rumors reached him of Mormon attacks upon the vanguard of his expedition. These rumors reached the wagon trains also, frightening the conductors and drivers and stopping or slowing their progress. Johnston stirred them into action as he overtook them on the trail, bringing order out of chaos even before he was in position to assume personal command of the campaign. Wrote Major Fitz John Porter, Johnston 's adjutant general: Experienced on the Plains and of established reputation for energy, courage , and resources, Uohnston's] presence restored confidence at all points, and encouraged the weak~hearted and panic-stricken multitude. The long chain of wagons, kinked, tangled, and hard to move, uncoiled and went forward smoothly.23 On October 13 Johnston reached the Sweetwater River near South Pass. That day he received dire tidings from Colonel Alexander, an indecisive and timid officer, known to his subordinates as the "Old "'Toman." In September Alexander had met Captain Stewart Van Vliet of the Army returning from Salt Lake City. Van Vliet was a special envoy sent by order of the Administration to apprise the Mormons o£ President Buchanan's intentions, and to convey the Mormons' response to Geneqll Harney and the President. Alarmed by Van Vliet's report of Mormon determination to resist, Alexander had stopped on Ham's Fork and entered into a fruitless correspondence with Brigham Young. On September 15 Young issued a proclamation of defiance, placing Utah under martial law and forbidding all armed forces to enter the Territory. Two weeks later the Mormon Lion wrote to Alexander: 21Johnston to McDowell, September 29, October 5, 1857, Letters Sent, Department of Utah, Records of the War Department. 22 Johnston to Philip St. George Cooke, October 5,1857, ibid. 23 Johnston, Life of Johnston, p. 211. Courtesy Library of Congress Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston, U.S.A. Reprinted with permission of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Mrs. Albert Sidney Johnston, in a photograph made years after Johnston's death. Reprinted with permission of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas A pen-and-ink sketch by Eliza Johnston of the Johnston home in Austin in 1851-1852, showing the old Capitol in the background and a double log cabin once occupied by the Department of State. Cactus in bloom Turk's Cap Bluebonnet Firewheel Reprinted with permission 01 the Daughters 01 the 'Republic 01 Texas Paintings of Texas flowers by Eliza Johnston Courtesy Library of Congress United States Military Academy in the 1820'S Courtesy Library of Congress Battle of the Bad Axe Courtesy Library of Congress View of Monterrey in the Mexican War Courtesy Library of Congress Review of Texas Troops in the Mexican War Courtesy Library of Congress The March to Fort Bridger Courtesy Library of Congress Fort Bridger in the Winter of 1857-1858 Federal Authority and Mormon Resistance 193 I now ... direct that you retire forthwith from the Territory by the same route you entered. Should you deem this impracticable, and prefer to remain until Spring . . . you can do so in peace, and unmolested, on condition that you deposit your arms and ammunition with . . . [the] Quarter Master General of the Territory and leave ... as soon as the condition of the roads will permit.24 While this palaver was going on, Alexander had left a gap of thirty miles between his regiment and the Fifth Infantry, with his supply trains between the two. On October 4, Mormon horsemen under Major Lot Smith slipped past the Tenth Infantry and burned three of the trains, seventy-two wagons in all. Alexander at last knew that he was at war, and frantically uniting the two regiments and their supporting artillery, he began to march northwest toward the valley of the Bear River on October 7, hoping thus to enter Salt Lake Valley in a roundabout way that would bypass Mormon fortifications in the canyon directly ahead. This was the information brought to Johnston on the Sweetwater.25 Johnston was greatly perturbed. Leaden skies portended the immediate onslaught of winter; the thermometer was falling. On September 16 he ordered Alexander to return to his former position on Ham's Fork. Johnston intended to concentrate his entire command there preparatory to establishing winter quarters in a suitable location . Warned by flurries of snow, Alexander was already on his way back to his old camp when Johnston's message reached him. On the morning of the eighteenth, Johnston's camp on the Sweetwater was blanketed with snow and the thermometer read 16 degrees. He wrote to his superiors: I greatly regret that the impossibility of concentrating the troops destined for this service, and their supplies, will prevent a forward movement before spring. It is now manifest that before the force can be united that the autumn will be too far advanced to move with a probability of success, tho' not opposed by the Mormons. He went on to recommend an expedition into Utah from the Pacific coast, to be coordinated with his advance in the spring.26 He had lost his race against the seasons. 24 Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints, pp. 358-359, 366. 25 Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, p. 109. A vivid description of the stampeding of army mules by the Mormons is. in John L. Ginn, "Mormon and Indian Wars," Collection of Western Americana, Yale University Library. 26 Johnston to McDowell, October 13, 16, 18, 1857, Letters Sent, Department of Utah, Records of the War Department. 194 Albert Sidney Johnston Johnston waited at South Pass for all units he had overtaken since leaving Fort Laramie to catch up with him and for Alexander to retrace his steps. He forbade all further communication with the Mormons and commandeered and attached to his army two merchant wagon trains bound for Salt Lake City. Once the rear elements caught up with him, Johnston planned to hasten them over the remaining ninety miles to make junction with Alexander; then he would seek the best available haven against the winter. Retarded by snow, the rear columns and supply trains were nine days in reaching him. On October 26 he began the march from the Sweetwater; eight days later he joined Alexander on Ham's Fork. Save for the dragoons under Cooke, the entire army was at last concentrated.27 Johnston's objective was now Fort Bridger thirty-five miles to the west. Built by Mountain Man Jim Bridger, this well-known station on the Oregon Trail now belonged to the Mormons; Bridger said they had forced him to sell it to them. Fort Bridger was located on Black's Fork 125 miles northeast of Salt Lake City. It offered sufficient water for Johnston's troops and livestock, and as it lay between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Wasatch on the west, it was somewhat sheltered from the fiercest blasts of the mountain winter. Johnston found Alexander's men dangerously low in supplies and morale. His presence immediately lifted their spirits, but they were in such need of winter clothing and tents, and their livestock in such need of forage, that Johnston took two precious days to distribute these and to organize his column for the march to Fort Bridger. Considering his information and expectations, this delay was perhaps justified; to push on pell-mel! without preparation or organization was to invite disaster from the Mormons or the weather; or both. As events turned out, however, the delay proved almost fatal. On November 6, as the column started for Fort Bridger, a mountain blizzard struck.28 A struggle for survival began. Amid blinding snow and intense cold the troops fought their way forward a few miles each day. Temperature in the middle of the day was 2 degrees above zero; at 27 Ibid., November 5, 30, 1857; Johnston to Eaton, February 5, October 11, 1858, Johnston-Eaton Letter Book, Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. 28 Johnston to McDowell, November 30, 1857, Letters Sent, Department of Utah, Records of the War Department; Johnston to Eaton, February 5, 1858, Johnston-Eaton Letter Book, Johnston Papers, Barret Collection. ~NIV$r"NS HAHCH To roHr.BHfOO£/f' -----~ """roO ..,0 40 . . night it fell to 16 degrees below. Grease froze on the axles of moving wagons and caissons,and horses, mules, and oxen died by hundreds. It became necessary to shuttle the remaining draft animals back and forth, pulling some of the wagons a few miles forwar