The Civil War That Almost Was: The Utah War in 16 Events

On June 19, 1858, the New York Herald reported on the culmination of the major military expedition to the Utah Territory that had begun a year before, "Killed, none; wounded, none; fooled, everybody."  The Utah War (1857-1858) was considered an anti-climactic blunder on the part of the highly polarized United States government at the time.  Although it came to be called the Utah War, and it very nearly came to something fitting to be called that, the sending of U.S. Army troops was not intended to start a war or necessarily to suppress a rebellion, because when he ordered it, President James Buchanan did not expect an armed resistance to his appointing of a territorial governor or the sending of troops to protect the routes of emigration and trade.  Yet, there were those killed and wounded, and from the Utahn perspective, the Utah War presents a disturbing cautionary tale of the perils in extreme and insular rhetoric, and of the cycle of violence.  What was derided in 1858 as "Buchanan's Blunder," was poorly planned, undersupplied, costly and rashly enacted, but also stands as an example of the triumph of diplomacy and represents a crucial pivot point in the opening of the west to U.S. settlement.

Background: 
They were widely known as the "Mormons," but amongst themselves, they were the "Saints," and everyone else were "Gentiles."  By modern standards, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the 19th century could very well be considered an apocalyptic cult.  Organized by Joseph Smith Jr. in 1830, members of the faith believed that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent in their lifetimes, and that they had been set apart from the rest of the world to built up God's kingdom (also known as "Zion") on Earth in preparation.  A series of frontier wars, civil strife and the ultimately unpunished murder of their prophet prevented them from accomplishing this dream within the settled United States, so 1847, Brigham Young led the Mormons more than a thousand miles overland across Indian country and the Rocky Mountains to make their home in the Great Basin in Utah.  The land was useable but not as coveted as California and the Oregon country, and their valleys were protected by towering mountains with easily guarded passes. Here, they planned to govern themselves and the region by their religious principles; technically ruling by common consent, but led by prophet who wielded the absolute authority of God's word.   When Utah was officially ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848, the Mormons tried to obtain statehood for Utah as soon as possible so they could elect their own officials rather than be subject to "carpetbagger" federal appointees who didn't share their religious interests.  The United States, however, being suspicious of Mormons and constantly trying to stave off the specter of civil war with a delicate balance of slave states and free states, passed the Compromise of 1850, which created Utah as a U.S. territory instead.  President Millard Fillmore appointed Mormon church president and prophet Brigham Young as territorial governor in a gesture of good faith, but other federal appointments went to "Gentiles" who actively disapproved of Mormon polygamy, chastised their perceived lack of patriotism (most Mormons believed the United States was divinely inspired in origin but had since strayed, and they bore great resentment for their treatment in Missouri and Illinois, swearing an oath of vengeance in their sacred endowment ceremonies to "pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation"), and who were disturbed by the near absolute rule Governor Young held over the territory.  A series of non-Mormon federal appointees to the Utah Territory either resigned or abandoned their positions over the course of several years, citing constant harassment, fear for their physical safety and the circumvention of their authority by a system of almost explicitly pro-Mormon law enforcement, leading many in Washington, D.C. to consider the Mormons in Utah Territory to be in open rebellion.

Emigration Canyon, looking west from Little Mountain

1.
Buchanan Decides to Appoint a New Territorial Governor
May 1857
Within the Utah Territory, support for Governor Brigham Young was practically unanimous, but his governorship was mired in controversy elsewhere throughout the United States.  Less than a year into his term, two federally-appointed, non-Mormon judges and the territorial secretary had abandoned their offices in the Runaway Officials scandal of 1851 following the deterioration of their relations with the Mormon population.  In 1853, United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers Captain John W. Gunnison and seven of his men were massacred by Pahvant Indians while on a surveying mission near Fillmore, Utah (during the Walker War, one of Utah's two major Indian wars) resulting in a national outrage that blamed Young's influence as governor and de facto superintendent of Indian affairs, the proselytizing to indigenous people by Mormons, and the well-publicized general antipathy that many Utah Mormons held toward the rest of the United States.  As a result, Young's governorship had not been officially renewed by President Franklin Pierce, but he ultimately allowed Young to remain in office in the interim.  In early 1857, the "Mormon question" flared up again with resignation of more federal appointees who believed Mormons in Utah posed a threat to their physical safety and that Young ruled with an authority that superseded the laws they tried to enforce.  In need of a national diversion from the conflicts over slavery in the Midwest that threatened to erupt into civil war, and against the calls of prominent officials for a committee to be sent first to investigate conditions in the territory, recently-elected President James Buchanan decided to replace Young and to send a significant military presence to escort Young's appointed successor, to insure the transition of power and the enforcement of the law as a posse comitatus.

James Buchanan, date unknown (1850-1870)

2.
Utahns Learn of President Buchanan's Plans
July 24, 1857
Salt Lake City, UT
Brigham Young and more than 2,500 people had gathered in the cool refuge from the summer heat that was the mountains of Big Cottonwood Canyon (around the location of modern-day Brighton) for festivities to commemorate their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley ten years earlier.  Suddenly, four Mormon mail carriers; Porter Rockwell, Abraham Smoot, Judson Stoddard and Elias Smith; galloped into camp with the shocking news.  Largely due to the limits of communication (the first transcontinental telegraph would not be completed until 1861), but possibly a deliberate inaction on the part of the U.S. government, Governor Young had not yet been officially informed of the Buchanan Administration's intentions to replace him or of the approximately 2,500 soldiers escorting the intended replacement, while the news had already quickly spread back east.  The dramatic arrival of the mail carriers was the first that anyone in Utah learned the news, and it was as good as confirmation of their worst fears: that the United States, the nation that had allowed them to be driven out ten years ago, was coming to finish the job. 

Big Cottonwood Canyon

3.
Appointment of Alfred Cumming as Territorial Governor
July 13, 1857

Although such an appointment presented a considerable stepping stone toward higher political aspirations, the well-publicized difficulties posed by the governor's office of the Utah Territory led several of President Buchanan's initial picks to replace Brigham Young to turn it down.  Finally, the experienced 55-year-old Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Nebraska Territory and former mayor of his hometown in Augusta, Georgia, Alfred Cumming accepted the position and was issued a letter of appointment on July 13, 1857.  While troops were already mobilizing for the Utah Campaign at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Cumming and his wife Elizabeth would join them and accompany the expedition west.

Alfred Cumming, date unknown

4.
Brigham Young Meets With Indian Delegations
August 30-September 1, 1857
Utah Territory
Despite often strained relations between Mormon settlers and Utah's indigenous people, crucial to Brigham Young's plans of resistance against the U.S. government was an alliance with the territory's Indian tribes.  Not only would such an alliance add considerable manpower and an aspect of psychological terror to the Mormon arsenal, but if worse came to worse, allowing the supposedly "wild" and "savage" native people to perpetrate most of the violence against emigrants and soldiers could give Young and his militias plausible deniability.  Over the course of August 30 through September 1, Young and his agents met with delegations from the Ute, Shoshone, Goshute and Paiute tribes.  Courting the tribes with wagons of food, Young and his agents encouraged them to raid "all the beef cattle & horses" along the emigrant roads, warning that the Americans had come to "fight us & you, for when they kill us, they will kill you."
Further reading: Dimick B. Huntington Journal August 30-September 1, 1857, LDS Historians Library

Bow and arrows belonging to Paiute Chief Kanosh displayed at the Territorial Statehouse State Park Museum in Fillmore, Utah

5.

Captain Van Vliet Meets With Governor Young
September 8, 1857
Salt Lake City, Utah 
U.S. Army Captain Stewart Van Vliet was sent ahead of the Utah Expedition marching from Fort Leavenworth and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 8 with a letter for Governor Young from the expedition's commander, General William S. Harney (Harney was originally intended to lead the troops to Utah but was forced to stay in Kansas when tensions over slavery erupted into violence; leadership of the Utah Expedition would be transferred to Colonel Albert S. Johnston).  The letter, addressing Young as the territorial governor, asked him to make preparations for the arrival of troops and explained that Van Vliet had been ordered to purchase supplies from the Mormons.  Young, knowing more than the letter let on, warned that he would "not suffer myself to be taken by any United States officer to be killed as they killed Joseph Smith," to which Van Vliet offered that he didn't expect the government to arrest him, but rather, that their intent was merely to install a new governor and enforce the laws of the land.  Young retorted that Van Vliet did not know their intentions as well as he did and that if they "force the issue," Young (claiming an exaggerated influence as the superintendent of Indian affairs in the territory) would let the Indians "go ahead and do as they please."  Furthermore, Young threatened to "stop all emigration across the continent, for the Indians will kill all who attempt it," (a main route along the California Trail passed through Utah, while the Oregon Trail passed through Southern Idaho, which was then part of the Washington Territory but well within the sphere of Mormon settlement).  Young warned Van Vliet, "your army shall not enter this valley."  Unable to purchase supplies from the embittered settlers under Young's leadership, Van Vliet left the city after a few days to return to Washington, D.C. and make a report to the secretary of war.  

Stewart Van Vliet, date unknown (1860-1880)

6.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre 
September 11, 1857
Mountain Meadows, near today's Veyo, Utah
In the midst of tensions against outsiders, intensified rhetoric from their spiritual leaders, and war hysteria, a faction of the Nauvoo Legion from the Iron County settlements, assisted by a small number of Paiute men, besieged the 120+ emigrants of the Baker-Fancher wagon train from Arkansas where they were camped in Mountain Meadows (also known at the time as Santa Clara Canyon), about 36 miles from Cedar City.  The attack began on September 7, disguised as an Indian attack under the leadership of stake president and Cedar City mayor, Isaac Haight, and Indian agent John D. Lee.  Seven members of the wagon train were killed during the initial attack, but as the Baker-Fancher party defended themselves stubbornly, thus drawing out the siege, members of the Mormon militia grew concerned that their identities had been exposed.  On September 11, members of the militia approached the wagons bearing a white flag, claiming to have negotiated peace with the supposed Paiute attackers and offering safe passage back to Cedar City.  Dividing the emigrants between the men and the women and children, members of the Nauvoo Legion escorted them some distance from the wagons until a signal was given.  At this, the militiamen turned their weapons on the unarmed pioneers, slaughtering an unknown number upwards of 120 men, women and children.  Only 17 children deemed too young to report what they'd seen were spared, and then taken to nearby settlements and adopted into Mormon families, while the considerable property of the Baker-Fancher Party was appropriated by members of the militia and the nearby bishop's storehouses.  The bodies were hastily buried but then soon after dug up by scavengers.  While militia members were sworn to secrecy and many of them took the specifics of the event to their graves, the killings of the pioneers and the involvement of the Mormon militia soon after came to light, resulting in national outrage and scandal.

Mountain Meadows, near Veyo, Utah.

7.
Declaration of Martial Law
Salt Lake City, Utah 
September 15, 1857  
Brigham Young had issued a proclamation of martial law on August 5, 1857, forbidding U.S. troops to enter the territory and calling on the Mormon militia of some 4,000-5,000 men (also known as the Nauvoo Legion) to be ready at a moment's notice.  In his proclamation, Young declared, "We do not want to fight the United States, but if they drive us to it, we shall do the best we can; and I tell you, as the Lord lives, we shall come off as conquerors.  The United States are sending their armies here to simply hold us until a mob can come and butcher us, as has been done before."  The proclamation was given little circulation however, until September 15 (the day after Captain Van Vliet left Salt Lake City), when a redrafted version was issued and preparations for war began in earnest.

Statue of Brigham Young in front of the Brigham Young Academy building in Provo, Utah

 
8.
Nauvoo Legion Prepares Fortifications and Burn Fort Bridger
Fall 1857
Echo Canyon, Utah and Blacks Fork, Wyoming
In September 1857, the Nauvoo Legion began building defensive walls and trenches in Echo Canyon, the primary route of passage into the Salt Lake Valley from the east.  By October, well over a thousand militiamen were stationed in the Echo Canyon and the nearby Weber Canyon, creating a deathtrap through which the federal troops could not pass without considerable losses.  On October 7, notorious Mormon frontiersman William "Wild Bill" Hickman and others were sent to burn Fort Bridger along the Blacks Fork river in Wyoming, and Fort Supply, 12 miles to the southwest, to prevent their use by the Army.  The Mormons had taken over the fort in 1855 as a supply station for their own emigrant companies passing through on their way to Utah.

Stone breastworks left by the Nauvoo Legion in Echo Canyon (right side, in front of trees)

9.
Lot Smith's Raids
October 1857
Modern-day West Wyoming
A unit (about 20-40 men, depending on accounts) of the Nauvoo Legion under the command of 27-year-old Lot Smith rode out to the easternmost region of the Utah Territory (now in west Wyoming) to delay the progress of the Utah Expedition's troops by burning their supply trains and stampeding their livestock.  Smith and his men burned three large wagon trains amounting to some 50-70 wagons and about 500,000 pounds of government supplies, reportedly after plundering what supplies they could use and allowing Army teamsters to remove their personal belongings.  Smith and other Nauvoo Legion contingents also burned large swathes of grass along the Army's route, removing a vital food source for the troops' livestock.  Although no one was killed on either side of Smith's raids, the constant harassment eventually provoked shots fired from U.S. troops in one incident, with one militiaman taking a bullet through his hat (without injury to himself) and another grazing the leg of a horse. 

Lot Smith, date unknown

10.
The Aiken Massacre
November 1857
Juab County, Utah
Six non-Mormon men, among them the brothers Thomas and John Aiken, businessman John Achard, lawman Andrew "Honesty" Jones, a young man named John Chapman and a prospector named Horace "Buck" Bucklin, were detained and questioned at Fort Box Elder (modern-day Brigham City) under the suspicion of being spies for the U.S. government after they arrived in northern Utah from California, traveling along the Humboldt River route.  Bucklin and Chapman were allowed to wait out the winter in Utah (the former had written a letter to Brigham Young pleading his case, but otherwise, why they were spared is unclear), while the other four were to be escorted out of Utah along the southern route of the California Trail by infamous Mormon gunfighter Porter Rockwell, John Lot and a couple other men.  In Nephi, they picked up four more Mormon men for their escort, making them two for each of the Aiken party.  The night of November 25, while camped alongside the Sevier River south of Nephi, the escorts used iron bars to bludgeon the Aikens, Jones and Achard, but they were only successful in killing Thomas Aiken and Achard.  John Aiken and Jones fled, with Rockwell shot Jones in the back, wounding but not stopping him.  They arrived in Nephi the next day, badly injured and half-dressed, believing they had been ambushed by Indians and that their Mormon escort had been lost in the attack.  After being treated by the physician in Nephi, the two surviving men were taken north by wagon, under the pretense that they were being taken back to Salt Lake City.  Stopping several miles from Nephi (near today's Mona) to water their horses at the spring there (today known as Burraston Ponds), they were ambushed again, and this time Aiken and Jones were both shot through the head.  Their bodies were cut open and filled with stones to sink them in the spring, but the considerable valuables the men had brought with them into Utah were later identified in the bishop's storehouse in Springville.
Further Reading: "The Aiken Party Executions and the Utah War, 1857-1858." by David L. Bigler, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4
History of Utah: 1540-1886 by Hubert H. Bancroft, p. 562-563
Brigham's Destroying Angel by Bill Hickman, p. 206-210

Burraston Ponds, near Mona, Utah

11.
Camp Scott Established
November 17, 1857
Two Miles From Fort Bridger 
In October, Colonel Edmund Alexander, leading the first detachment into Utah, opted against trying to force entry through the heavily guarded Echo Canyon route, instead attempting to enter from the north along the Bear River.  Their efforts were halted, however, by early heavy blizzards.  Upon arriving at the northeastern extremity of the Utah Territory to find it heavily guarded, with an extremely frigid winter setting in, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, overall commander of the Utah Expedition and escort of Brigham Young's successor, Alfred Cumming, with his wife Elizabeth, directed the establishment of winter quarters on Black's Fork, near the site of Fort Bridger, which had been burned to the ground along with much of the surrounding vegetation.  In temperatures frequently below zero, with considerably diminished provisions, the Army set up tents and built shacks comprising what they called Camp Scott, named after the Army's General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.
Further Reading: History of Utah: 1540-1886 by Hubert H. Bancroft, p. 320-321

Reproduction of Fort Bridger at Fort Bridger State Historic Site, Wyoming

12.
Thomas Kane Arrives
February 1858
Salt Lake City, Utah
Thomas L. Kane was a colonel in the United States Army as well as a lawyer, an aspiring politician and active abolitionist, but for all his ambition, Colonel Kane was overshadowed by his father, district court judge John K. Kane, and his older brother, Elisha K. Kane, whose Arctic expeditions had made headlines across the world.  Among the Mormons, however, the younger Kane was immensely popular and considered a rare friend from outside their fold.  It was Kane who arranged for Mormon refugees out of Illinois to temporarily occupy Indian lands during preparation for their journey to Utah, and who helped create the Mormon Battalion in an attempt to reestablish ties between the embittered Latter-Day Saints and the United States while also bringing the considerable cash flow necessary for buying supplies ahead of the emigration.  As early as January 1857, Brigham Young had written Kane about his concerns regarding his precarious governorship, but Kane's attempts to lobby on Young's behalf in Washington that spring failed.  Delayed by sickness and family strife (including the recent death of his brother), and leaving behind a wife and two small children, Kane set out for Utah in an attempt to mediate the dispute after consulting the White House.  In the middle of winter, the quickest route was by boarding a ship to Panama, taking the new Panama Railroad across Central America, boarding another ship to California and traveling overland to Utah from there.  Kane reached Utah in late February, to the relief of some and the derision of others in the area (one of Young's apostles, a notorious firebrand named George A. Smith, wrote that Kane was essentially a pawn in Washington's attempt to send even more soldiers to wipe them out while Kane persuaded the Mormons to sue for peace), but his efforts to turn Young's mind to at least consider the possibility of a negotiated peace appeared to be fruitful.
Further Reading: "Full of Courage: Thomas L. Kane, the Utah War, and BYU's Kane Collection as Lodestone." by William P. MacKinnon, BYU Studies Quarterly, Volume 48, Issue 4, Article 6

Thomas L. Kane, photograph taken approximately 1860-1861

13. 
Thomas Kane Leaves for Camp Scott
March 8, 1858
Salt Lake City, Utah
After a couple weeks in Salt Lake City, urging Brigham Young and his counselors to negotiate a peaceful solution to the standoff, Colonel Thomas Kane embarked on the 113 mile-journey to General Johnston and his troops at the recently established Camp Scott.  Around this same time, Young learned of an attack by a significant force of Bannock and Shoshone Indians on the Mormons' Fort Limhi near the modern Idaho-Montana border, closing off what Young was considering a possible route of evacuation into the Bitterroot Valley (in modern Montana) and making clear that the indigenous peoples would not be a reliable ally for the Mormons against the United States as Young had both hoped and threatened.  Furthermore, what originally began as a simple exploratory expedition led by Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives up the Colorado River in the south had been turned into a expedition to determine a possible military route to face the Mormons on another front, and California to the west was fully inflamed over the continuously emerging details about the killing of emigrants on the California Trail in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.  Although an evacuation route south was still available for the moment, and settlements were commanded to prepare for the possible evacuation south (possibly to the White Mountains in Nevada), Young realized he was running out of options and so sent one of his sons to catch up to Colonel Kane with a letter offering to sell large quantities of flour to the Army in a gesture of goodwill.  With the letter in hand, Kane arrived at Camp Scott and met with Young's intended successor, Governor Alfred Cumming, and persuaded the governor to return with him to Salt Lake City, but without the Army.

Echo Canyon, through which Colonel Kane traveled between Salt Lake City and Camp Scott

14.
Buchanan Issues a Pardon to Utahns
April 6, 1858
With the U.S. Army unable to enter the Salt Lake Valley without considerable bloodshed from both sides, the campaign having spent several months at a stalemate, and President of the United States James Buchanan facing harsh criticism from fellow politicians for the poorly planned campaign, its unexpected costliness, and the failure to properly investigate the conditions in Utah before issuing the campaign, President Buchanan sought to back himself out of a political corner.  On April 6, Buchanan, "being anxious to save the effusion of blood, and to avoid the indiscriminate punishment of a whole people for crimes of which it is not probable that all are equally guilty," issued a free and full pardon to "all who will submit themselves to the authority of the government."  The pardon was delivered to Utah by peace commissioners Lazarus Powell and Benjamin McCulloch, and while many resented the implication that they had been guilty of treason the first place, it was widely accepted.

The Salt Lake Temple and Salt Lake Tabernacle in Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah

15.
Alfred Cumming Installed as Governor
April 12, 1858
Salt Lake City
Upon the urging of Mormon-friendly negotiator Colonel Thomas L. Kane, federally appointed Governor of the Utah Territory Alfred Cumming, who had waited out the winter with Johnston's troops at Camp Scott, accompanied a Mormon escort into Salt Lake City.  Arriving on April 12, 1858, Cumming was cautiously greeted as the new governor, and Brigham Young handed over the territorial seal and other implements of the office.  A couple weeks later, Governor Cumming attended church services at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, where he addressed the congregation and promised that the Army would be stationed away from their settlements and would not be used to enforce the law except as a last resort.  In spite of his reassurances, Cumming was nonetheless subjected to jeering and bitter speeches about previous Mormon persecutions, but maintained his composure while Young calmed the crowd.

The Old Salt Lake Tabernacle shown in approximately 1851-1852, where the Salt Lake Assembly Hall now stands

16.
U.S. Expeditionary Force Marches Through Salt Lake City
June 26, 1858
Salt Lake City
On June 26, 1858, the U.S. troops led by Colonel Albert Johnston finally entered the Great Salt Lake Valley through Emigration Canyon, the same route used by Brigham Young's vanguard company nearly eleven years before.  When they reached Salt Lake City, they found it nearly devoid of human life, with thirty thousand of its Mormon residents having evacuated south to the Utah Valley, leaving behind only a handful of men prepared to burn the city to ruins if the troops attempted to occupy it.  About a week later, after some further negotiations between the Army and Mormon leaders, and after determining that the Army posed them no immediate threat, the Mormon people began to return to their homes in Salt Lake.  The Army determined a midway point in the Cedar Valley between the major settlements of Salt Lake City and Provo as a base of operations they named Camp Floyd for Secretary of War John B. Floyd.  From Camp Floyd, the U.S. Army protected stagecoach, mail and emigrant routes from bandits and Indian raids, and performed surveying and mapping operations, while allowing the expansion of secular settlements and enterprise to Utah and the Mountain West.
Further reading: "The Brink of War" by David Roberts, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2008

Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park in Fairfield, Utah, former site of U.S. Army Camp Floyd