LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 119. - 22 Aug, 1846.
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THE MORMON CAMP.

THE Hancock Eagle of the 10th July notices the arrival there of' Mr. S. Chamberlain, who left the most distant camp of the Mormons at Council Bluffs on the 26th ultimo, and on his route passed the whole line of Mormon emigrants. He says that the advance company of the Mormons, with whom were the Twelve, had a train of one thousand wagons, and were encamped on the east bank of the Missouri river, in the neighborhood of the Council Bluffs. They were employed in the construction of boats for the purpose of crossing the river.

The second company had encamped temporarily at station No. 2, which has been christened Mount Pisgah. They mustered about three thousand strong, and were recruiting their cattle preparatory to a fresh start. A third company had halted for a similar purpose at Garden Grove, on the head waters of Grand River, where they have put in about two thousand acres of corn for the benefit of the people in general. Between Garden Grove and the Mississippi river Mr. Chamberlain counted over one thousand wagons en route to join the main bodies in advance.

The whole number of teams attached to the Mormon expedition is about three thousand seven hundred, and it is estimated that each team will average at least three persons, and perhaps four. The whole number of souls now on the road may be set down in round numbers at twelve thousand. From two to three thousand have disappeared from Nauvoo in various directions. Many have left for Council Bluffs by the way of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; others have dispersed to parts unknown; and about eight hundred or less still remain in Illinois. This comprises the entire Mormon population that once flourished in Hancock county. In their palmy days they probably numbered between fifteen and sixteen thousand souls, most of whom are now scattered upon the prairies, bound for the Pacific slope of the American continent.

Mr. Chamberlain reports that previously to his leaving, four United States military officers had arrived at the Mount Pisgah camp, for the purpose of enlisting five hundred Mormons for the Santa Fe campaign. They were referred to head-quarters at Council Bluffs, for which place they immediately set out. It was supposed that the force would be enrolled without delay. If so, it will furnish Col. Kearney with a regiment of well-disciplined soldiers, who are already prepared to march. Mr. Chamberlain represents the health of the traveling Mormons as good, considering the exposure to which they have been subjected. They are carrying on a small trade in provisions with the settlers in the country, with whom they mingle on the most friendly terms.

LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 166. - 17 July, 1847.
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THE MORMON BATTALION.

WE have not yet had a detailed account of the march of Col. Cook, and his command, to California, and the following letter, from an officer in the pay department, now with the battalion, will be found very interesting. -- St. Louis Reveille.

SAN DIEGO, UPPER CALIFORNIA,        
Feb. 1, 1847.        

DEAR BROTHER: I wrote you last from a point on the Rio Grande, about two hundred and fifty miles south of Santa Fe, designated on Mitchell's map Fra Cristobal. About forty miles south of this place, we left the river, and directed our course toward the setting sun. As we rose upon the most prominent point of our course in the neighborhood of the river, we saw spreading from our feet an extended plain, and on the remote horizon, chains of blue mountains lifting formidable barriers to our further march.

The battalion had been reduced, the day previous, to half rations. Knapsacks, containing a scanty supply of clothing and bedding, were secured to their shoulders, and in addition, heavy muskets, with the usual accompaniment of bayonets, cartridge-boxes, belts, &c., constituted the equipments for this arduous undertaking.

Our animals were hardly fit for service; many of them had been taken out of the harness about ten days before, after crossing the prairies and plains from Fort Leavenworth. The provision wagons were heavy and unwieldy, too many in proportion to the animals, yet insufficient for the amount of provisions called for, even at the "half ration rate."

Thus was commenced our march through a wilderness, known only to the wandering tribes of the Sierra de Acha, or the daring and adventurous pioneers of Sonora; and thus commenced a scene of privation and hardships, that, I am persuaded, remains without a parallel.

I saw athletic and vigorous men reduced, by thirst and fatigue, to the imbecility of children; their bodies attenuated and feeble; their faces bloated: their eyes sunken; their feet lacerated and bruised; mechanically moving forward, without a murmur, and without an object; the latter having been lost sight of in the gloomy contemplation of their present helpless condition.

I remember, on one occasion, after having marched two days without water, while leisurely riding about a mile in the rear of the troops, to have espied, a short distance in advance, a soldier of the battalion. My attention was not attracted by his slow and uneasy step, for it was a time of general suffering, and such a thing was to be looked for; but when, in passing, he turned upon me his ghastly visage, I involuntarily checked my mule, shuddering at this horrid picture of human misery. I was about to pass him, but my heart reproved me, and I offered him my mule. The poor fellow lifted his eyes to mine, and dropped them as suddenly; he was a Mormon and had been unused to favors. He made no further reply, but continued on his weary tramp, apparently careless whether each succeeding step was leading him to destruction or safety.

But the old proverb, that all things must have a termination, was realized in the case of our sufferings; and we. may date that happy period at our arrival in the valley of San Barnadin, although we afterwards had many long marches without water, before reaching our ultimate destination.

San Barnadin is the name of what once was an extensive "ranch," embracing several leagues of land and stocked with seventy or eighty thousand cattle.

The owners of this ranch paid an annual stipend, in cattle, to the tribe of Apaches, in whose territory it was situated; but they shared the common fate of all ranches attempted to be established in this part of Sonora. A want of punctuality in furnishing the stipulated supplies afforded to the Indians, who were desirous of such an excuse, an opportunity for making themselves masters of the herd. Such of the Mexicans as were fortunate enough to escape the merciless scalping knife made their way into the garrison towns of the frontier, preferring poverty and peace to fortune and the midnight serenade of the Apache bands.

This valley of San Barnadin is about thirty miles in width, and blocked in on either side by ridges of lofty mountains.

When we arrived at this place, and the broad plain of waving grass, watered by refreshing streams and dotted with numerous herds of wild cattle, opened before us, man and beast in that weary and dispirited company, by words and looks, acknowledged the auspicious prospect; it promised a prodigal abundance and a welcome rest.

We remained in the valley several days, recruiting our animals and providing ourselves with meat. During our stay we were attended by deputations from the neighboring tribe, and entered into terms of amity with them. When they learned the object of our march and the great number of our warriors, they appeared much rejoiced and expressed a hope that we would take many scalps. These Indians are expert horsemen and well skilled in the use of the lance, which together with the bow and arrow constitutes their only implement of war.

At the valley of San Barnadin, and for twelve days after leaving it, we had an abundant supply of fine fresh beef.

A few dilapidated houses and the immense herds, now scattered over an area of more than two hundred square miles, are all that remain of the once rich San Barnadin. Killing these wild animals afforded us an amusement at once exciting and dangerous, and in the pursuit of this sport, several men were severely wounded and five mules killed. It becomes a matter of remark that these "horned heroes" of San Barnadin made a more formidable resistance to our march through their territory that did the soldiers of Sonora, who had at stake their" altars and their homes."

LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 186. - 4 Dec., 1847.
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A MORMON CONVENTICLE.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

PASSING up Merrimack-street, the other day, my attention was arrested by a loud earnest voice, apparently engaged in preaching, or rather "holding forth," in the second story of the building opposite. I was in the mood to welcome anything of a novel character, and following the sound, I passed up a flight of steps leading to a long, narrow and somewhat shabby room, dignified by the appellation of Classic hall.

Seating myself, I looked about me. There were from fifty to one hundred persons in the audience, in which nearly all classes of this heterogeneous community seemed pretty fairly represented, all listening with more or less attention to the speaker.

He was a young man with dark enthusiastic complexion, black eyes and hair; with his collar thrown hack, and his coat cuffs turned over, revealing a somewhat undue quantity of" fine linen," bending over his coarse board pulpit, and gesticulating with the vehemence of Hamlet's player, "tearing his passion to rags." A band of mourning crape, fluttering with the spasmodic action of his left arm, and an allusion to "our late beloved brother JOSEPH SMITH," sufficiently indicated the sect of the speaker. He was a Mormon -- a saint of the latter days.

His theme was the power of faith. Although evidently unlearned and innocent enough of dealing in such "abominable matters as a verb or a noun, which no Christian ear can endure," to have satisfied Jack Cade himself, there was a straight-forward vehemence and intense earnestness in his manner, which at once disarmed my criticism. He spoke of Adam, in Paradise, as the lord of this lower world -- "For," said he, "water couldn't drown him, fire couldn't burn him, cold couldn't freeze him -- nothing could harm him, for he had all the elements under his feet. And what, my hearers, was the secret of this power? His faith in God: that was it. Well, the devil wanted this power. He behaved in a mean, ungentlemanly way, and deceived Eve, and lied to her, he did. And so Adam lost his faith. And all this power over the elements that Adam had, the devil got, and has it now. He is the prince and power of the air, consequently, he is master of the elements and lord of this world. He has filled it with unbelief, and robbed man of his birthright, and will do so until the hour of the power of darkness is ended, and the mighty angel comes down with the chain in his hand to bind the old serpent and dragon."

Another speaker, a stout black-browed "son of thunder," gave an interesting account of his experience. He had been one of the apostles of the Mormon Evangel, and had visited Europe. He went in faith. He had "but three cents in his pocket" when he reached England. He went to the high professors of all sects, and they would not receive him; they pronounced him "damned already." He was reduced to great poverty and hunger: alone in a strange land; with no one to bid him welcome. He was on the very verge of starvation. "Then," said he, "I knelt down and I prayed in earnest faith, 'Lord, give me this day my daily bread.' O, I tell ye, I prayed with a good appetite; and I rose up, and was moved to go to a house at hand. I knocked at the door, and when the owner came, I said to him, 'I am a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, from America. I am starving -- will you give me some food?' 'Why, bless you, yes,' said the man, 'sit down and eat as much as you please.' And I did sit down at his table, blessed be God: but my hearers, he was not a professor; he was not a Christian, but one of Robert Owen's infidels. The Lord reward him for his kindness."

In listening to these modern prophets, I discovered, as I think, the great secret of their success in making converts. They speak to a common feeling; they minister to a universal want. They contrast strongly the miraculous power of the gospel in the apostolic time with the present state of our nominal Christianity. They ask for the signs of divine power; the faith, overcoming all things., which opened the prison doors of the apostles, gave them power over the elements, which rebuked disease and death itself, and made visible to all the presence of the living God. They ask for any declaration in the Scriptures that this miraculous power of faith was to be confined to the first confessors of Christianity. They speak a language of hope and promise to weak, weary hearts, tossed and troubled, who have wandered from sect to sect, seeking in vain for the primal manifestations of the divine power.

In speaking of Mormonism as a delusion, I refer more particularly to the apocryphal book of Mormon. That the great majority of the "Latter Day Saints" are honest and sincere fanatics, I have no reason to doubt. They have made great sacrifices and endured severe and protracted persecution for their faith. The reports circulated against them by their unprincipled enemies in the west are in the main destitute of foundation. I place no dependence upon charges made against them by the ruffian mob of the Mississippi valley, and the reckless slave-drivers, who, at the point of the bayonet and bowie-knife, expelled them from Missouri, and signalized their Christian crusade against unbelievers by murdering old men, and violating their innocent wives and daughters. It is natural that the wrong-doers should hate those whom they have so foully injured.

The Prophet himself, the master-spirit of this extraordinary religious movement is no more. He died by the hands of wicked and barbarous men, a martyr -- unwilling doubtless, but still a martyr -- of his faith. For after all, Joe Smith could not have been wholly insincere. Or, if so in the outset, it is more than probable that his extraordinary success, his wonderful power over the minds of men caused him to seem a miracle and a marvel to himself; and, like Mohammed and Napoleon, to consider himself a chosen instrument of the eternal power.
 

462                            A  MORMON  CONVENTICLE..                           

In the "Narrative of an Eye-witness of the Mormon Massacre," published in a Western paper, I was a good deal impressed by the writer's account of the departure of the prophet from "the holy city" to deliver himself up to the state authorities at Warsaw. It was well understood, that in so doing, he was about to subject himself to extreme hazard. The whole country round about was swarming with armed men, eager to imbrue their hands in his blood. The city was in a fearful state of alarm and excitement. The great Nauvoo legion, with its two thousand strong of armed fanatics, was drawn up in the principal square. A word from the prophet would have converted that dark silent mass into desperate and unsparing defenders of their leader, and the holy places of their faith. Mounted on his favorite black horse, he rode through the glittering files, and with words of cheer and encouragement, exhorted them to obey the laws of the state, and give their enemies no excuse for persecution and outrage. "Well," said he, as he left them, "they are good boys, if I never see them again." Taking leave of his family, and his more intimate friends, he turned his horse, and rode up in front of the great temple, as if to take a final look at the proudest trophy of his power. After contemplating it for a while in silence, he put spurs to his horse, in company with his brother, who, it will be recollected, shared his fate in the prison, dashed away towards Warsaw, and the prairie horizon shut down between him and the city of the saints for the last time.

Once in the world's history we were to have a Yankee prophet, and we have had him in Joe Smith. For good or for evil, he has left his track on the great pathway of life; or, to use the words of Home, "knocked out for himself a window in the wall of the nineteenth century," whence his rude, bold, good-humored face will peer out upon the generations to come. But the prophet has not trusted his fame merely to the keeping of the spiritual. He has incorporated himself with the enduring stone of the great Nauvoo temple, which, when completed, will be the most splendid and imposing architectural monument in the new world. With its huge walls of hewn stone -- its thirty gigantic pillars, loftier than those of Baalbec -- their massive caps carved into the likeness of enormous human faces, themselves resting upon crescent moons, with a giant profile of a face within the curve -- it stands upon the highest elevation of the most beautiful city site of the west, overlooking the "Father of Waters;" -- a temple unique and wonderful as the faith of its builder, embodying in its singular and mysterious architecture, the Titan idea of the Pyramids, and the solemn and awe-inspiring thought which speaks from the Gothic piles of the middle ages. -- Howitt's Journal.

LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 190. - 1 Jan., 1848.
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THE MORMON COLONY.

THE St. Louis Republican of the 1st, contains some information concerning the progress of the Mormon colony which is to be located at the "Great Salt Lake City" in California, derived from a Mr. Little who has just arrived from that place, which he left in August. The Republican says: --

We learn from him that the country selected for the habitation of the Mormons is about twenty miles east from the Great Salt Lake. In company with others, he explored the valley, and he represents that they found a range of some eighty miles in length, and perhaps ten to twenty miles in width. The preparations for the reception of the advancing company of Mormons, were not, we should infer, very extensive. A field of about one hundred acres ground had been planted with corn, potatoes, turnips, and other edibles, but as the rain seldom fell there, they had to resort to the uncertain and laborious process of irrigation. They had engaged in the erection of a stockade, to protect the colony from the attacks of the Indians, covering some ten acres of ground, within which from a hundred and sixty to two hundred dwellings were to he erected. Some parts of the valley have a very fertile appearance, but others, again, are exceedingly poor, and cannot he made to produce anything.

On his return route, Mr. Little, who holds, we believe, some high office in the Mormon church, met the Mormon emigrants in detached parties. He does not speak very flatteringly of their condition, though with some sanguine hopes, they were still moving on to their destination. Many of the heads of the families were, it will he remembered, taken to fill up the California battalion and are still in California, and the women and children were left to get along as they best could. In many cases, little boys were found driving the teams, barefoot, and the advanced parties were reduced to some extremity for the want of food. Two hundred of the oxen used in their teams had died after leaving Independence Rock. from eating some poisonous substance and exhaustion, and they were compelled to get along by using cows in their stead. All were, it is feared, stinted for provisions, and even after their arrival, unless game could be procured by their hunters, there is room to apprehend suffering from starvation -- Mr. Little representing, at the same time, that in and around the Salt Lake valley, very little game was to be found. On the whole, we are fearful that most distressing accounts will be received from this people, by the first arrivals next spring.

The following order, illustrating some of the difficulties which the California Battalion had to encounter, has been placed at our disposal: --

                       "HEADQUARTERS MORMON BATTALION,
                        Mission of San Diego, 30th January, 1847.

"ORDER No. 1.
"The lieut. colonel commanding, congratulates the battalion on their safe arrival on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and the conclusion of its march of over two thousand miles. History may he searched in vain for an equal march of infantry; nine tenths of it has been through a wilderness, where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found; or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature.
 

30                             THE  MORMON  COLONY..                            

There, with almost hopeless labor, we have dug deep wells, which the future traveller will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless prairies, where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pickaxe in hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat; and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock, more narrow than our wagons. To bring these first wagons to the Pacific, we have preserved the strength of the mules, by herding them over large tracts which you have laboriously guarded, without loss.

"The garrisons of four Presidios of Sonora, concentrated within the walls of Tucson, gave us no pause; we drove them out with their artillery; but our intercourse with the citizens was not marked by a single act of injustice. Thus marching, half naked and half fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our country.

"Arrived at the first settlement of California, after a single day's rest, you cheerfully turned off from the route to this point of promised repose, to enter upon a campaign, and meet, as we believed, the approach of the enemy; and this, too, without even salt to season your sole subsistence of fresh meat.

"Lieuts. A. J. Smith and Geo. Stoneman, of the 1st dragoons, have shared and given valuable aid in all these labors.

"Thus, volunteers, you have exhibited some high and essential qualities of veterans. But much remains undone; soon you will turn your strict attention to the drill, to system and order, to forms also, which are all necessary to the 'soldier.

    "By order of Lt. Col. P. ST. GEO. COOKE.     "[Signed] P. C. MERRIEL, Adjutant."

LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 199. - 4 March, 1848.
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FUGITIVE, PERISHING MORMONS.

[A letter to Josiah Quincy, Esq., Mayor of Boston, from
Col. Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, dated 14 Feb. 1848.]

IN our conversation, I had the pleasure of giving to you in full the views I derived from personal observation and experience with regard to the Mormons, during my recent journey to the far west. I mentioned to you what I saw of their highly upright and excellent moral character while in the Indian territory, and stated my often repeated opinion of the gratuitous injustice of their persecution. If I judge rightly, however, what is desired in my present letter is a simple, uncolored narrative, for the consideration of the charitable rather then the curious, of the position, numbers and condition of the chief sufferers of the sect. To this I will confine myself, as closely as I can, in the limited amount of time at my disposal.

Emigrating Mormons, to the number of nearly 20,000, are to be found west of the Missouri, from the country of the Platte, belonging to the Omaha and Otto Indians, to that beyond the notable Bear River Valley across the Rocky Mountains; but the condition of the majority of these persons, though undoubtedly forlorn, does not invite philanthropic investigation, since they are generally beyond the reach of timely help. The Mormons who can be counted as appealing to the immediate generosity of your townspeople, are certain stragglers in the rear of the main body in march, and whose camps are on this, the eastern side of the Missouri river, or immediately along its course. Of such the unhappy destitution is very great. It is, in part, the issue of circumstances in which their history differs from that of the emigrants further advanced; and which I think I cannot do better than detail.

They composed, originally, the refuse, lame, aged, sick, and pauper members of the church, who were found unable to attempt the great California pilgrimage of 1846. On this account, their friends who started at that date concluded, it seems, an especial treaty or armistice, for their benefit, with the anti-Mormon mob, and left them behind in Illinois under its protection. This treaty covenanted, with the most solemn formalities, that they were in no wise to be molested until another asylum could be prepared for their reception beyond the Rocky Mountains. Just so soon, however, as the Mormon host had made a progress of some months upon its travels, and could safely be considered out of the way, the instrument -- oaths, seals, and ribbons -- was broken by the anti-Mormons without ceremony or excuse, and the cripples who relied upon it, were ordered to take up their beds and walk. Upon this, the helpless beings, driven to desperation, made a remarkably resolute defence of their Holy City, which, being hardly more than a large hospital of incurables, could meritoriously have claimed of any other barbarians its privilege of sanctuary. It was bombarded, however, by an overwhelming force, and notwithstanding the beleaguered for two days supposed, as I am informed, they were replying to the fire upon them with three guns of their own of large muzzle they had forged out of a broken steamboat shaft; at last, after losing some of their soundest men in fight, they were glad to flee forth with their lives, that is to say, with little or nothing else.

I saw most of these poor folks while they were yet on the right bank of the Mississippi, opposite Nauvoo. It was just after the cannonade, and I think they had been there a matter of two or three days. Some of them had fled over before the assault to escape the balls that battered in their houses; the remainder had waited till ousted by direct force of arms.

Few had food enough to satisfy their hunger. Exposure and fatigue had combined to visit many of the nominally robust of them with the ague, and the bilious remittent fever, known as favorite
 

                      FUGUTIVE,  PERISHING  MORMONS..                       471

indulgences of the system in the western country; but, sick and well, conscientious yellow souls, they all lay down alike among the reeds and spatter-docks of the low river shore; the favored ones huddled together under tattered sheets, counterpanes or bed-spreads stretched gypsy-tent-wise over a tripod of sticks; others lodging outside of these shelters, and going to sleep with their pinched faces to the sky. I have not the satisfaction of a doubt that among those I looked upon thus shivering in the sharp night of autumn, many whom the screening of a roof might have saved, died looking across the stream upon their comfortable homes, in which the orthodox bullies of the mob were celebrating their triumph in obscene and drunken riot.

At the epoch of which I speak, they were bent on moving westward to overtake, as they hoped, the rearguard of their column in the advances, but were pitiably unprovided with adequate means for doing so. One had a cow, may be, which he could yoke to the crazy cart of his fellow. Another, by disclosing to the cupidity of the Iowa squatters his possession of his watch or other paltry treasure he had secreted, was able to hire a lift in a farm wagon. Several, they were few, appeared to own among them a mixed horse and ox team; the rest had no other means of transportation than their own bodily frames, though it may be observed that, by a natural Providence to whose effect I have already adverted, these were nearly everything they had to carry.

Thus jury rigged, unprovisioned, and almost unclothed, they started on their voyage -- an overland voyage that they intended to measure over one fourth the diameter of the world. It is little wonder then, that, being unsuccessful in overtaking their brethren, they have since literally fallen by the wayside in the wilderness, and there having eaten up the beasts of burden that helped them along so far upon their weary stage, now find themselves equally unable to push forward or to return. At sundry crossing places of the larger streams that have impeded their progress, in wooded clefts and sheltered copses of the prairie, in abandoned Indian villages -- wherever, in short, they have found life most easily sustained, or as some of them have said, and as their fate has proved in many instances, death most easily borne, they have halted and gone to work to strive to keep body and soul together till relief, either in the way of alms or of a propitious decease, should coma up and overtake them. With the aid of a quantity of Indian corn and garden roots they have raised for food, and of great fires of cottonwood brush -- these as a substitute for sufficient shelter and clothing -- many lived through the last winter, and so many will doubtless survive this one, though it presses upon the whole people with cold and famine in its train. But the return of spring is to bring them no better fortunes. The emaciated and pining survivors, if unaided by us, must still continue to be without the power of replenishing their stock of necessaries, or of changing their place to go to seek it; while it should be noted that their general health is already so impaired that they are becoming with every day less capable of vigorous effort for their own assistance.

I have limited my remarks to apply to individuals, concerning whose plight I am possessed of accurate information. I ought to add that there are still others whose numbers would with difficulty be correctly ascertained. Somewhere beyond the head waters of the Des Moines, and on the tributaries of the upper Missouri from the Nishnabotna to L'Eau qui Coule river, say from 800 to 1100 miles above St. Louis, there are, I suppose, some 3000 other dejected human beings, who are probably without any means to wave in our eyes their signals of distress. Yet many of these, I know, are dying of chill and hunger, without metaphor or exaggeration. They are dying while we are talking about them.

LITTELL'S  LIVING  AGE. - No. 285. - 3 Nov., 1849.
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                                  Correspondence of the Tribune.

FROM THE GREAT SALT LAKE.

                 Great Salt Lake City, July 8, 1849.

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