Wednesday, July 1, 1846
Council Bluffs, in
Iowa:
In the
morning, Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve rode up the bluffs to
John Taylor’s camp on Mosquito Creek, where they met together with Captain
James Allen and his men from Fort Leavenworth.
Captain Allen presented a letter of introduction from President William
Huntington at Mount Pisgah. He also
showed the brethren a letter from Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, authorizing
Captain Allen to recruit Mormons for a battalion to march toward Santa Fe. The decision had already been made by the
brethren the previous evening to support the government and raise the
battalion.
At 10:40
a.m., the council called the men in the camp to assemble. They gathered around a wagon used as a
stand. President Young introduced
Captain Allen, who then addressed the people.
He explained that his mission, authorized by the President of the United
States, was to enlist five hundred
Mormon men into a battalion to help take California in the Mexican War. He wanted the men to be ready to leave in
ten days. If he could not get five
hundred men, he did not want any. He
read his orders and passed out copies of a circular which had also been passed
out at Mount Pisgah.
President
Brigham Young next addressed the assembly.
The men were very anxious to know the feelings of the brethren on this
matter. President Young explained that
this call to service was something that he had been hoping for and that it
would bring about much good. He probably
explained about Jesse C. Little’s mission to Washington D.C. to enlist support
from the government.
There were
very bitter feelings in the hearts of the men toward the government for past
injustices. But President Young tried
to help them make a distinction between the general government and those in
public positions who oppressed the Saints in Missouri and Illinois. The government in general should not be
blamed for acts perpetrated by the mob.
He said, “The question might be asked, is it prudent for us to enlist to
defend our country? If we answer in the affirmative, all are ready to go. . . .
If we embrace this offer we will have the United States to back us and have an
opportunity of showing our loyalty and fight for the country that we expect to
have for our homes.”
President
Young next issued the call to raise the Mormon Battalion: “Now I want you men to go and all that can
go, young or married. I will see that
their families are taken care of; they shall go on as far as mine, and fare the
same, and if they wish it, they shall go to Grand Island first.”
Captain
Allen stated that he would write to President Polk and ask that permission be
granted to let the rest of the camp stay in Indian Territory while the
Battalion was away.
Elder
Heber C. Kimball formally proposed that the five hundred men be raised as asked
by the government. The motion was
unanimously supported by the brethren.
President Young immediately rose from his seat and said, “Come brethren,
let us volunteer.” Elder Willard
Richards started to take down names of volunteers.
The men in
the camp were still hesitant. Henry W.
Bigler wrote:
It was
against my feelings, and against the feeling of my brethren although we were
willing to obey counsel believing all things would work for the best in the
end. Still it looked hard when we called
to mind the mobbings and drivings, the killing of our leaders, the burning of
our homes and forcing us to leave the States and Uncle Sam take no notice of it
and then to call on us to help fight his battles.
Later,
members of the Twelve met in John Taylor’s tent to work out some of the details
with Captain Allen. There were good
feelings in the meeting. Brigham Young
proposed that he and Heber C. Kimball should travel to Mount Pisgah to raise
volunteers. He understood the urgency
to raise the Battalion. President Young
wished to have the rest of the camp settle on Grand Island for the winter while
the Twelve would travel further west with their families.
In the
afternoon Brigham Young and the others returned to their camp near the
river. Some of Brigham Young’s teams
had already been sent across the river.
President Young asked the Twelve to delay crossing over the river for
the present time.
Patty
Sessions recorded in her diary:
The boat
[ferry] is done, ready to cross. The word is for us to be ready to go to the
river at 10 o'clock. When 10 o'clock came the word was, put the teams to the
wagons and start in 10 minutes. Before that time was up the men were called to
a public council. One of the troops have come in to enlist men for one year to
go to California. The Twelve had a private council after and Brigham is going
back to Mt. Pisgah and sent word to us to stay where we were if we chose.
Lorenzo
Dow Young arrived back from his trading expedition to Missouri. He found the rest of his family well and
they were glad to see him.
A son,
Mason Lyman Tanner, was born to Sidney and Louisa Tanner.
Between Mount
Pisgah and Council Bluffs, Iowa:
At 6 a.m.,
Parley P. Pratt, traveling back to Mount Pisgah, met William Clayton’s
company. Later in the morning, Wilford
Woodruff traveled a few miles and was also met by Elder Pratt, on his way to
raise a company of pioneers to go over the mountains. Elder Pratt of course had no idea that the plans and changed and
that now a battalion would be raised.
He delivered his message to Elder Woodruff’s camp of fifty wagons. Elder Woodruff traveled twenty miles this
day. William Clayton traveled seventeen
miles and remained a few miles ahead.
Further to
the west, near the Indian village, Hosea Stout and a large company returned to
work on a bridge. A new foreman was
selected and they decided to build a “drift bridge.” This bridge would be a large raft which was to be built on top of
the old bridge that had mostly been washed away. Many wagons were backed up at this point, waiting for the
bridge. Hosea Stout wrote, “Our
encampment now was very large. The
hills were full of our tents & waggons and seemed to be nearly as large as
the first camp when it started in February [at Sugar Creek].”
Mount Pisgah, Iowa:
Sister
Mary Richards spent the morning unpacking her chest to let things air out, and
spent the rest of the day packing for her planned departure on the following
morning. She had been at Mount Pisgah
since June 12.
In the
afternoon, Parley P. Pratt arrived and called for a meeting at 5:30 p.m. He informed Ezra T. Benson that he had been
called to serve in the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, taking the place of John E.
Page. Isaac Morley was being sent to
take Elder Benson’s place in the presidency of Mount Pisgah. Elder Benson wrote:
Bro. Parley
P. Pratt came down from the Bluffs with a line from President Brigham Young,
directed to me, stating I was appointed one of the Twelve Apostles to take the
crown of John E. Page, and if I accepted of this office, I was to repair
immediately to Council Bluffs and prepare to go to the Rocky Mountains. A brother offered to take my family to the
Bluffs with his own team, and not owning a horse at this time, I went to see
Bro. Ross to buy one. He said he had
none to sell, but said if I was called to be on of the Twelve Apostles he would
give me one, and he turned out to be his best riding horse.
The
meeting was held and Elder Pratt called for a company of five hundred pioneers
to travel without their families over the mountains.
Bonaparte, Iowa:
Far to the
east, on the Des Moines River, a daughter, Mary Coltrin was born to Zebedee and
Mary Coltrin.
Sandwich Islands
(Hawaii):
The Brooklyn
raised anchor and again started to sail for California. The Orrin Smith family was left behind
because of illness. As they sailed, it soon discovered that they
had a stowaway. The stowaway was a
young lad from the U.S. Army.
Sources:
Watson, ed., Manuscript
History of Brigham Young, 203‑207; “John Taylor’s Journal”; “Extracts
from the Journal of Henry W. Bigler,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 5:36;
Bennett, Mormons at the Missouri, 57‑8; Wilford Woodruff’s
Journal, 3:56; “Diary of Lorenzo Dow Young,” Utah Historical Quarterly,
14:144; Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier, The Diary of Hosea Stout 1844‑1861,
173; William Clayton’s Journal, 52; Beecher, ed., The Personal
Writings of Eliza R. Snow, 137 The Instructor, May 1945, 217; Rich, Ensign to the Nations, 32;
“Diary of Daniel Stark,” Our Pioneer Heritage 3:498; Ward ed., Winter
Quarters, The 1846‑1848; Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards,
67‑8; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1198; Jenson, LDS
Biographical Encyclopedia; Patty Sessions Diary in Our Pioneer Heritage,
2:61
Thursday, July 2, 1846
Council Bluffs, in
Iowa:
A general
meeting had been called at 10 a.m. near the river. This meeting was to further inform the Saints about the Mormon
Battalion and the leaders asked able men to step forward and enroll. John Taylor recorded in his journal that he
had hard feelings against the government.
However, he felt that the raising of the Mormon Battalion would give
them a legal right to go to California.
Captain
James Allen worked to secure the formal permission of the Pottawatomie Indians
for the Saints to settle on their lands.
The agreement read:
We the
undersigned chiefs and braves representing the Pottawattomie tribe of Indians
near this subagency do voluntarily consent that as many of the Mormon people
now in or to come into our country as may wish from cause or necessity or
convenience to make our lands a stopping place on their present emigration to
California may so stop, remain and make cultivation and improvement upon any
part of our lands not now cultivated or appropriated by ourselves, so long as
we remain in the possession of our present country, or so long as they shall
not give positive annoyance to our people.
Brigham
Young ate dinner with Patty Sessions.
He instructed her company to move down to Council Point, so they all
started preparing to make the move.
Brother Freeman came to get Patty Sessions to deliver his wife’s baby. She went back three miles to Parley P.
Pratt’s camp and helped deliver a baby girl into the Freeman family.
Brigham
Young finished taking his teams across the Missouri River on the ferry. A camp was established about four miles to
the west at Cold Spring. Lorenzo Dow Young also started taking his
teams over. When he learned that his
brother, Brigham, was making another trip with the ferry, he paid those running
the ferry extra money so that he could also finish taking his teams over. He wrote, “I went over and got back about
half after ten, tired almost to death.
I actually felt as if I had not strength enough left to undress
myself. Went to bed and rested as well
as I could, for the mosquitoes.”
Heber C.
Kimball and Willard Richards moved their camps further away from the river on
the east bank, and dug a ten-foot well, finding plenty of good water. Elder Kimball’s daughter, Helen Mar Kimball
Whitney wrote:
Mosquitoes
were so troublesome near the river that we were obliged to move back, and as we
were far from water, the brethren dug a well close by. As it was nearly dusk when they concluded to
move from the river, and being very weary, I, with one or two others accepted
an invitation from the Chief’s daughter to accompany her home; and when
returning, finding the wagons gone and not feeling strong, she urged me to
return and stop over night, which invitation I accepted though I spent a
somewhat nervous and wakeful night.
Between Mount
Pisgah and Council Bluffs, Iowa:
With the
bridge finished, Hosea Stout attempted to cross it. There was a great rush to get across because everyone was afraid
that the poorly constructed bridge would not last. Brother Stout made it across and then
reached the next stream a mile further where another new bridge had just been
finished. He wrote:
There was
large companies of Indians followed us today for several miles and in fact they
thronged around us all the time we were building the bridge & at times
would come in droves to the camp but they were very civil, friendly & good‑natured
and done none of us any injury while we were here. They would amuse themselves sometime by swimming in the creek in
large numbers and sometimes at playing cards at which they seemed to be very
dexterous. They appeared to be much
interested at our operations while at work which seemed to be a great novelty
to them.
Brother
Stout moved on about 18 miles and camped in the prairie just after crossing a
small, deep stream.
William
Clayton lost his horses during the night.
He searched for them four miles to the east but could not find
them. He went back to his camp and
later found them a mile to the west.
His camp moved out about 10 a.m., passed through the Indian village at
sundown, and camped at the Nishnabotna River where the new bridge had been
built.
Mount Pisgah, Iowa:
In the
morning, Parley P. Pratt and Ezra T. Benson started for Council Bluffs. Sarah Rich wrote that at about this time the
brethren in the settlement found that they needed to “stake and rider” the
fences in order to secure their crops from the cattle. She explained, “Now I expect that many of my
readers will not know what stake and rider fences mean, for they do not see
much of that kind of work in this day.
They put stakes cross ways on each end of their poles, and then laid
another pole on top of the old fence, which made the fence some higher than it
was so the cattle would not jump over the fence.”
Phinehas
Richards also departed with his family in one wagon. They had originally planned to stay at Mount Pisgah longer, but
Phinehas’ brother, Elder Willard Richards, asked them to move ahead to Council
Bluffs. They traveled about eight miles
on good roads and in pleasant weather.
To the west, on the
Oregon Trail, Nebraska:
The
Mississippi Company of Saints neared the North Fork of Platte River. During the night someone came into the camp
and cut loose several of the Saints’ horses.
By morning, three were missing.
During the morning, the Saints met a company from California who told
them the distressing news that there were no Mormons on the route ahead of
them. All this time, the Mississippi
Company thought they were behind the main body of the Saints. They now understood the truth, which caused
much dissatisfaction in the camp. Some
wanted to turn back, but they decided to press on to Fort Laramie.
Nauvoo, Illinois
Franklin
D. Richards and his brother Samuel W. Richards were preparing to leave for
their mission to England. At the
temple, Thomas Bullock pronounced a blessing on some important packages that
would be taken by these brethren to the east and to England.
Sources:
Watson, ed., Manuscript
History of Brigham Young, 207; The Instructor, May 1945, 217; Woman’s
Exponent, 13:135, 150; Nibley, Exodus to Greatness, 195; William
Clayton’s Journal, 52; Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier, The Diary of
Hosea Stout 1844‑1861, 173; “Diary of Lorenzo Dow Young,” Utah
Historical Quarterly, 14:144; “John Taylor Journal,” typescript BYU;
Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church 3:143; “Thomas Bullock Journal,” BYU
Studies 31:1:74; “Sarah Rich Autobiography,” typescript BYU, 58; “John
Brown Journal,” Our Pioneer Heritage, 2:426; “Louisa Pratt
autobiography,” Heart Throbs of the West 8:241; Ward, ed., Winter
Quarters, 67; Patty Sessions Diary in Our Pioneer Heritage, 2:61
Friday, July 3,
1846
Council Bluffs, in
Iowa:
Helen Mar
Kimball Whitney had spent the night with the Chief’s daughter. In the morning they both went out to pick
blackberries and other wild fruit in the woods. Helen was impressed by her new friend.
I learned
that her parents had separated, as her mother was now living with her and did
most of the work. Though dressed in her
native costume she looked neat and kept the house tidy, and could cook equal to
white women. . . . Later she showed her taste and skill in braiding my hair in
broad plaits, after the latest French style, and put it up ‘a la mode’! In the
evening she accompanied me to the Camp.
Many of
the men were busy moving their wagons across the river. Lorenzo Dow Young got up very early and
worked hard, driving teams up the bluffs on the west side of the river. Charles Decker soon arrived across the river
with four yoke of oxen to help Brother Young.
With an additional yoke of oxen, they hauled wagons up the hill. They could only haul up one wagon at a
time. At one point, one of the oxen
panicked and tipped over a wagon which contained some children. Luckily, the children were not hurt. They made several more trips with the help
of Jedediah M. Grant and camped near a small creek at Cold Spring.
Brigham
Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards started toward Mount Pisgah at 9
a.m. to raise men for the Mormon Battalion.
They rode in President Young’s carriage while other men in the party
rode on horseback. At 1 p.m., they
stopped at the Mosquito Creek camp and had dinner with George A. Smith, Orson
Pratt, and Orson Hyde. At 5 p.m., they
passed several companies traveling to Council Bluffs, numbering 180
wagons. After a thirty-four-mile
journey, they camped with Ebenezer Brown and John I. Barnard. The brethren talked with the men in the camp
about enlisting into the Battalion until midnight.
Zadoc Judd
was among those who heard President Young’s message to enlist. He wrote that they made
a request
that all who could possibly be spared should enlist as soldiers in the
government service to serve as such for the term of one year. This was quite a hard pill to swallow‑‑to
leave wives and children on the wild prairie, destitute and almost helpless,
having nothing to rely on only the kindness of neighbors, and go to fight the
battles of a government that had allowed some of its citizens to drive us from
our homes, but the word came from the right source and seemed to bring the
spirit of conviction of its truth with it and there was quite a number of our
company volunteered, myself and brother among them.
Between Mount
Pisgah and Council Bluffs, Iowa:
William
Clayton’s company started early and traveled four miles before breakfast. As they traveled, they met Brigham Young’s
company and learned about their mission to recruit the Mormon Battalion. It was their belief that raising the
battalion would help the Church, and if the call to service was rejected, it
would bring more persecution upon the Church.
After they parted, William Clayton traveled a total of twenty‑five
miles, camping near Hiram Clark.
Further to
the east, after traveling twelve miles, Hosea Stout’s oxen could go no further
because of exhaustion. The other
brethren he was traveling with wanted to go on and did. Brother Stout was totally out of food and
pleaded with them to leave some with him for his family but they did not.
Brother Stout found a nice camp by a beautiful spring and soon other companies
joined him there. A man named Henry
Nebeker, who was not a member of the church, let Brother Stout get milk from
his cows and gave him a piece of bacon, and ten pounds of flour. By night there were many companies at the
campsite. Shortly after dark, members
of the camp saw a carriage and some horsemen coming from the west and feared
that the U.S. officers might be returning.
They soon found out it was Brigham Young and his company. President Young only stopped for a few
minutes to talk with Hosea Stout. He
explained about the mission to raise recruits for the Mormon Battalion at Mount
Pisgah and Garden Grove. Brother Stout
wrote, “Their presence seemed to give new life to all the camp who flocked
around them and asking so many questions that they could not answer any of
them. But after a few words of comfort
to us they went on.”
Still
further to the east, as Wilford Woodruff was traveling toward Council Bluffs,
he was overtaken by Parley P. Pratt and Ezra T. Benson. These brethren wanted Elder Woodruff to
return with them immediately to Council Bluffs. Elder Pratt was still following
his mission to raise a company of pioneers and then to quickly return to
Council Bluffs. Elder Woodruff decided
to join them, so he saddled his horse and off they went. He commented that he “had an interesting
time once more with Br. Parley. And to add to the interest of the days ride,
we passed through the main village of the Pottawatomie Indians the first time I
ever passed through a large village of Indians in my life.” They continued riding until dark and made
their beds in the grass on the side of a hill.
Soon the mosquitoes attacked them and they moved to the top of the hill where
the wind was blowing.
Nauvoo, Illinois:
Franklin
D. Richards and Samuel W. Richards boarded a steam boat, leaving Nauvoo for
their mission to England.
Sources:
Watson, ed., Manuscript
History of Brigham Young, 207; William Clayton’s Journal, 52, 53; Wilford
Woodruff’s Journal, 3:56; “Diary of Lorenzo Dow Young,” Utah Historical
Quarterly, 14:144; Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier, The Diary of
Hosea Stout 1844‑1861, 173‑74; Woman’s Exponent, 13:135;
“Zadoc Judd Autobiography,” BYU, 21;
Saturday,
July 4, 1846
Council Bluffs, in
Iowa:
William
Clayton finally reached the camp at Council Bluffs. He was delayed for much of the day, searching for horses and
trying to find food for his hungry family.
He attended a council meeting at Captain Allen’s tent.
Between Mount
Pisgah and Council Bluffs, Iowa:
Hosea
Stout continued his journey to Council Bluffs slowly because his teams were so
weak. The weather was hot and
muggy. He only traveled about six
miles, reaching Keg Creek, where there was a small grove. Here his oxen gave out again. After a rest in the afternoon, he continued
on for three more miles and camped on the prairie.
Further to
the east, and heading in the opposite direction, Brigham Young was in his
carriage ready to go at 8 a.m., when Elders Parley P. Pratt, Wilford Woodruff,
and Ezra T. Benson met him. Elder Woodruff had not seen President Young for
almost two years, as he had been away serving as the president of the British
Mission. He wrote, “It was truly a
happy meeting. I rejoiced to once more
strike hands with those noble men.”
Elder
Parley P. Pratt reported that he had raised a company of eighty-four pioneers
for the mountains. President Young
informed them about the new plans to raise the Mormon Battalion.
At 9 a.m.,
Parley P. Pratt continued his journey toward Council Bluffs. Since there was no longer an urgency for
Elders Woodruff and Benson to reach Council Bluffs, they joined Brigham Young’s
group, traveling back to Mount Pisgah where they would retrieve their families. After they had traveled twenty miles, they
found Elder Woodruff’s company. Brigham
Young met Elder Woodruff’s seventy-year-old father, Aphek Woodruff, for the
first time. Wilford Woodruff stayed
with his family then resumed his journey toward Council Bluffs. He rode fifty miles on this day and was very
sore, stiff, and sick.
At about a
half hour before sunset, Brigham Young’s group passed through Pottawatomie
Indian Village, pressed on for eight more miles, and spent the night in Isaac Morley’s camp. They counted 206 wagons during the day.
At 10:30
p.m., President Young retired for the night in Father Morley’s tent. It soon began to thunder, lightning and
rain. He had to crawl into a wagon to
avoid getting too wet. Many tents in
the area blew down during this hard downpour of rain.
Mount Pisgah, Iowa:
A wedding
party was held with dancing and music, with “a thunderstorm to wind up the
celebration.”
Putnam County, on
the border of Iowa and Missouri:
A Mr. L.
Marshall wrote a letter to the President of the United States, “There is a set
of men denominating themselves Mormons hovering on our frontier, well armed,
justly considered, as depredating on our property, and in our opinion, British
emissaries, intending by insidious means to accomplish diabolical
purposes.” He asked for an armed force
to be sent to “expel them from our border.”
Nauvoo, Illinois:
Almon W.
Babbitt, one of the Nauvoo Trustees, took William Law on a tour through the
temple. Brother Babbitt had been a
longtime friend of Law’s, who was one
of the missionaries that introduced Brother Babbitt to the Gospel. This temple tour did not please many members
of the Church still in Nauvoo. Thomas
Bullock wrote, “Many persons expressed their dissent of the act and well do I
remember Joseph’s words, ‘If it were not for Brutus, Caesar might have lived.’
So has Law proved a Brutus unto Joseph.”
William Law had published the “Nauvoo Expositor” which was a catalyst to
the martyrdom of the Prophet.
Martha
Haven wrote to her mother in Sutton Massachusetts: “We think soon of going to Farmington, Iowa. We shall probably stay there till fall.” Her husband, Jesse, “talks of boxing our
things ready for the wilderness. . . . We have sold our place for a trifle to a
Baptist minister. All we got was a cow
and two pairs of steers, worth about sixty dollars in trade.”
Pacific Ocean:
The Saints
on the Brooklyn recognized Independence Day. Samuel Brannan brought out the cloth that he obtained at Honolulu
and had the women make it into uniforms for the men. Each man had a military cap and there were fifty Allen revolvers
available. Brother Brannan then drilled
the men with the help of Samuel Ladd, an ex‑soldier, and Robert Smith,
another passenger who understood military tactics.
Sources:
Watson, ed., Manuscript
History of Brigham Young, 208‑9; Brooks, ed., On the Mormon
Frontier, The Diary of Hosea Stout 1844‑1861, 174; “Diary of Lorenzo
Dow Young,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 14:144; Wilford Woodruff’s
Journal, 3:57; “Thomas Bullock Journal,” BYU Studies, 31:1:74; Cook,
William Law, 117; “The Ship Brooklyn,” Our Pioneer Heritage
3:490; “Louisa Pratt Autobiography,” Heart Throbs of the West, 8:240;
Golder, The March of the Mormon Battalion, 96; Holzaphel, Women of
Nauvoo, 173
Sunday, July 5, 1846
Council Bluffs, in
Iowa:
The
weather was extremely hot and muggy.
Lorenzo Dow Young wrote, “It seems as if we could not live.” Hosea Stout finally arrived at Council
Bluffs. He searched and found Elder
Orson Hyde who was the presiding Church official at the camp. Elder Hyde recognized Brother Stout’s
destitute condition and invited him to stay near his camp, which was on a
ridge. Brother Stout pitched his tent
and prepared for what he expected would be a long stay. In the evening he took his wife to be
reunited with her mother. He wrote,
“Our feeling on meeting was very tender without a word being said we all burst
into tears in remembrance of the loss of my little son Hosea.”
Hosea
Stout then went to see U.S. Captain James Allen, who was on another ridge
“situated under an artificial bowery near his tents with several men in
attendance having the ‘Striped Star Spangled Banner’ floating above them. He was a plain non-assuming man without that
proud over bearing strut and self conceited dignity which some call an officer‑like
appearance.” They had a pleasant
conversation about the battles that had occurred recently on the Rio Grande
River.
Between Mount
Pisgah and Council Bluffs, Iowa:
During the
night, a White Hawk Chief named Oquakee came and camped near Brigham Young and
his company. They were hungry so
President Young asked a brother to give the Indians a fat cow. Brigham Young promised them another cow when
they returned to Council Bluffs. The
Indians, were of course, very pleased.
At 8:30
a.m., Brigham Young’s company resumed their journey toward Mount Pisgah. At 11:30 a.m., they stopped when they came
upon a number of brethren. Brigham
Young preached and continued recruiting for the battalion, but he sensed that
it had little effect. He reproved
Andrew H. Perkins for harboring a wrong spirit in his company, to which Brother
Perkins responded to with gratitude.
Samuel H.
Rogers reflected on reasons to join the Battalion, “It was like a ram caught in
a thicket and that it would be better to sacrifice the ram than to have Isaac
die. Reflecting upon the subject, it
came to my mind that Isaac, in the figure, represented the church . . . and for
the saving of its life I was willing to go on this expedition.”
At this
location was the Phinehas Richards’ company, including Mary Richards. President Young asked Mary Richards if her
husband, Samuel W. Richards, had left Nauvoo for his mission to England. She told him that she believed that he
had. President Young was pleased. He asked her if it had been hard to part
with him and how she was doing. She
responded: “[I] told him it was hard and I stood it the best I could being
satisfied that I had to endure it. I did
the best I know how.” Elder Kimball
also remarked that he was pleased that Samuel W. Richards had gone on the
mission and said that he was a good boy.
Mary wrote: “[They] told me to
be a good girl and it would only be a little while before I should meet him on
the other side of the Rocky Mountains.”
Willard
Richards, Samuel’s uncle, also visited with Mary Richards and the rest of the
family. He mentioned that if Samuel W.
Richards and Franklin D. Richards had not left for their missions, they would have
been asked to join the Mormon Battalion.
A third brother, Joseph, was being counseled to join the battalion as a
drummer. Mary shared with Willard
Richards her trials and asked for a blessing.
He replied, “You have got your hearts desire and there is every blessing
in the world for you and what do you ask more?” He gave them some good instruction and had to leave them at 4
p.m.
Brigham
Young’s company continued their journey.
During the day they counted 240 wagons.
Mount Pisgah, Iowa:
Jesse C.
Little arrived at the settlement on his way to deliver the news regarding the
battalion from President Polk to Brigham Young. Certainly he discovered that Captain Allen
had already been to Mount Pisgah on this mission. He went to the wagon of Louisa Pratt and delivered to her some
money from her husband, Addison Pratt, who was serving a mission in the South
Pacific.
Nauvoo, Illinois:
Meetings
were held in the temple. Almon Babbitt
spoke in the morning and Joseph Young spoke in the afternoon. He spoke against abusing wives, children,
and animals. Erastus Snow left Nauvoo
for his trip back to join his family whom he had left at Garden Grove. Brother Snow had earlier returned to Nauvoo
to try to sell his property. He did so,
for about one fourth the real property value.
On this day he crossed the Mississippi with his brothers William and
Willard Snow.
A
daughter, Barbara Young Crockett, was born to David and Lydia Crockett.