Page 45 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Figure 13. General Stephen Watts Kearny. Photo cour- tesyoftheMuseumofNewMexico,#9938
were forced to camp without it, almost creating
a mutiny when the men learned they would
have to travel without breakfast the following
17 day.
The Mormon Battalion
In parallel with the development of the United States’ difficulties with Mexico, the Mormons had experienced their own problems. Subjected to increasingly hostile pressure from other citizens fearful of their growing political influence and miltia strength, the Mormons had held out in Nauvoo for two years after founder Joseph Smith’s death at the hands of a mob in the Carthage jail and had attempted to retain their Zion in Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young. Young, however recognized that his people must aban- don their well-constructed holy city of Nauvoo or be destroyed. The consequent mass migra- tion would require many things, but the need for money to purchase wagons and supplies for the journey to a yet unselected promised land was above all other considerations.
Young sent Elder Jesse C. Little to Washingtontosoundoutthe possibilitiesof the paid enlistment of a body of Mormons to fight in the war with Mexico. Little secured an
audience with President Polk, and on May 25, 1846,
15
conflict by perhaps as much as $60 million. Acutely aware of these previous problems,'Kearny foresaw that California and the Pacific coast would never be securely American until a viable overland wagon route linked these western territories (still to be wrenched from Mexico) to the eastern states. The only contemporary alternate routes were either a voyage of some 18,000 miles around the tip of South America, requiring 4 to 6 months, or a 4 to 6 week three-stage sea and land voyage that involved
crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific over the
16
isthmus of Panama.
When Kearny’s Army of the West marched out of
the assembly point at Fort Leavenworth it was fol- lowed by 414 civilian merchant wagons, including those of James Wiley Magoffin, Charles Bent, and Ceran St. Vrain. Many of the various military units had difficulty in finding either the proper route or their equipment. Captain Richard Hanson Weightman’s artillery company, composed of Ger- mans, became separated from their baggage and
Polk transmitted the appropriate orders to Kear- 18
Chapter 2
31
To the Mormon hierarchy, the enlistment of a
ny.
battalion would mean that 500 of their best men would be taken to California at federal government expense, and once there they would have an oppor- tunity to assess the land for possible emigration of
19
the remaining Saints.
Captain James Allen went to the camps of the
Mormons in Iowa Territory, and although the Saints were not too keen on fighting for a country from which they were attempting to flee serious persecu- tion, Allen was successful in recruiting the required Battalion of 545 men.20 He organized them in five companies (A, B, C, D, and E), whereupon he was breveted Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. By accepting the Battalion, the United States government hoped to conciliate this per- secuted religious minority and to avert the possibility of their joining the British in the Pacific Northwest."