Gold! by Fred Rosen Page B

Smith announced that he was running for the presidency of the United States.
    In response, a newspaper in Carthage, Illinois, ran an expose of the Mormons’ practice of polygamy. Incensed at the article, Smith attempted to destroy the newspaper’s office but was arrested and charged with incitement to riot. Before he could be tried, a mob overpowered his jailers, broke into his cell, and murdered him.
    Suddenly, the saints were at a crossroads. Should they stay, or flee once again?
    Most of them followed the banner of Brigham Young. As president of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he claimed he was Smith’s successor. He became leader just in time to face the ire of the president of the United States, James Polk. Polk thought the Mormons aberrant and a threat to the westward expansion of the United States. If they tried to cross the Rocky Mountains, he intended to intercept them by force.
    Young was a much better politician than Smith. He sent letters to Senator Stephen A. Douglas—who would later lock up in a series of debates with an Illinois barrister named Lincoln—and other influential members of Congress. He tried to persuade them that the Mormons were peaceable, that they were not a threat in any way to the United States, and that they were good citizens. In fact, Young had already made the decision for the Mormons to journey farther west, beyond the Rockies, but he now knew he needed government sanction to do it.
    When the United States entered the Mexican-American War in 1846, President Polk made plans for an invasion of California. The overtures of Young with Douglas and the others now paid off. Ever mindful that his Army of the West was too undermanned to attempt an invasion of California, Polk chose to put his prejudices aside. He issued an executive order establishing that a military battalion of the U.S. Army be raised from the Mormons. Young saw this as a practical opportunity to expand west with the sanction of the U.S. government.
    â€œThe enlistment of the Mormon Battalion in the service of the United States, though looked upon by many with astonishment and some with fear, has proved a great blessing to this community. It was indeed the temporal salvation of our camp,” he said.
    Thus was born the Mormon Battalion: five hundred men, thirty-four women, and fifty-one children. To assist General Stephen Watts Kearney in California’s conquest from the Mexicans, the Mormons’ job was to march through New Mexico, Arizona, and California, following the route taken by sixteenth-century explorers across the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and California deserts. The intent was to rendezvous with General Kearney in San Diego.
    Before they left, Brigham Young told the Mormon Battalion:
    â€œBrethren, you will be blessed, if you will live for those blessings which you have been taught to live for. The Mormon Battalion will be held in honorable remembrance to the latest generation; and I will prophesy that the children of those who have been in the army, in defense of their country, will grow up and bless their fathers for what they did at that time. And men and nations will rise up and bless the men who went in that Battalion.
    â€œThese are my feelings in brief respecting the company of men known as the Mormon Battalion. When you consider the blessings that are laid upon you, will you not live for them? As the Lord lives, if you will but live up to your privileges, you will never be forgotten, without end, but you will be held in honorable remembrance, for ever and ever.”
    Among the battalion that day listening to Young’s speech were many men destined to build Sutter’s Mill. The Mormon trek west began in July 1846 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with twenty-five army wagons and twelve privately owned wagons. They literally blazed the southern trail that many of the subsequent argonauts bound for northern California’s gold fields would take.
    Six months later they