http://johnstonsarmy.blogspot.com/ This blog has some nice quotes.
In 1857 Utah territory was invaded by a hostile force of American soldiery. The events and influences that led to this confrontation are difficult to establish. The conflict was triggered in 1855 when David H. Burr, a non-Mormon appointed to be surveyor general of the territory, found his work impeded by Saints understandably anxious about any official survey of lands that they possessed only by right of occupation, not by any explicit declaration or approval of Congress. Burr and his assistants left the territory and reinforced the reports of Mormon skullduggery already prevalent in Washington. Garland Hurt, and energetic Indian agent, added his disturbing opinion that the Mormons were teaching the Indians to distinguish between the “Mormonee” and other Americans. Not willing to accept the explanation that Mormons had to adopt some means of letting the Indians know that they shouldn’t be held responsible for the brutality practiced by other Americans, Hurt alleged that the Mormons were planning to employ native Americans in a war of vengeance against all non-Mormon settlers and travelers.
Troubles with surveyors and Indian agents were overshadowed by continuing strife between Mormons and federally appointed judges. After 1855 the Utah judiciary was headed by three non-Mormons: W.W. Drummond, George P. Stiles, and John F. Kinney. While on the surface Kinney was friendly to the Mormons, he represented them to Washington as being seditious and unruly. Stiles and Drummond did not bother to temper their distaste; the latter, especially, came to personify for the Mormons all the injustices of the territorial system.
The Mormons found Drummond to be a “lithesome specimen of humanity.” Norman Furniss, a recent historian, wrote that he was “as unsavory as any man appointed to office.” Drummond’s flagrant association with a prostitute offended the moral sense of the Saints. Perhaps most threatening was his attack on the probate courts, with Mormon bishops as probate judges, which had ruled on both civil and criminal cases. At the time he accused Mormons of destroying court records, an accusation later proved false. Offensive as his personal character might have been, Drummond played an important role in sparking the national reaction to Utah.
By the spring of 1857 the disgruntled officeholders were assembled in Washington clamoring for the newly inaugurated president, James Buchanan, to do something about the state of affairs in Utah. Although he had not considered the Mormon issues important enough to mention in his inaugural address, Buchanan was sensitive to public opinion. Between April and the early part of May he decided to replace Brigham Young as governor. By the end of the month he had chosen an even more drastic course of action. What had led him to these two momentous decisions? We do not know exactly, but there are several clues.
The Mormons had picked an awkward time to establish their semi-independent kingdom in the West. The issues of slavery and states’ rights were already dividing the nation. Northerners wanted to make an example of Mormon rebelliousness, while some Southerners hoped and anti-Mormon campaign might relieve the pressure on them. One Southern leader wrote to Buchanan urging a vigorous Utah policy that would “supersede the Negro-mania with the almost universal excitement of an Anti-Mormon Crusade.” The thousands of European Saints flocking to Utah made it difficult to ignore the “Mormon problem,” and in fact aroused some early anti-immigrant nativism.
But such considerations lay in the background as predisposing conditions. On the front of the stage Drummond, Hurt, and others somehow persuaded Buchanan that the Mormons were in a state of rebellion. They contended that through threats, boycotts, and murder the Mormon leaders hoped to drive all non-Mormons from the territory. A stream of newspaper articles, pamphlets, novels, and public speeches enumerated supposed Mormon treacheries and called for reprisals as extreme as a holy war of extermination. When Apostle Parley P. Pratt was murdered in Arkansas in may 1857, many newspapers greeted his death with undisguised glee.
Buchanan and his cabinet officers found themselves in a climate of public opinion that seemed to support any move to protect the rights of non-Mormons, suppress Mormon home rule, and eradicate polygamy. The President became convinced that a vigorous anti-Mormon action could only be to his credit. By May 1857 he had decided upon a show of military force as the best and quickest solution. But he seriously underestimated the degree to which it would be opposed by the Mormons. In the ensuing two years he found that his solution was anything but quick, and even the political popularity of a Utah campaign was to prove disappointing.
Indecision, incompetence, and competition for lucrative contracts surrounded the preparations of the Utah Expedition. The first body of soldiers did not leave Fort Leavenworth until mid-July. Others did not straggle out until September. Within weeks they were plagues by foul weather and the indecision of their officers. William S. Harney, originally chosen to command the army, was replaced by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson. During the winter Johnston engaged in a running dispute with the newly appointed governor of Utah, Alfred Cumming of Georgia and Missouri, who accompanied the troops West. The Colonel seemed to be intent on a military victory over the Mormons, whereas Cumming was primarily concerned with acceptance of himself as governor.
Although Mormon leaders had suspected something was afoot, they first heard of the impending invasion on July 24, 1857, the tenth anniversary of their entrance into the valley. Four dust-covered horsemen galloped into a festive assembly and announced that a large force of American soldiers was on its way to install a non-Mormon governor and prevent any further “rebellion.” Buchanan’s action conjured up memories of Missouri and Illinois—of mobs aided and abetted by the military. The President had even neglected to send an official communication to Brigham Young, who, in his own mind still the official governor, chose to regard the approaching troops as a hostile army invading Utah Territory.
Determine to greet the invaders with force if necessary, The Mormons hoped to avoid bloodshed with “scorched earth” and harassment policies that would lead the invaders with a precarious line of supply. Young called out the territorial militia and asked each community to donate men, firearms and provisions to the defense. By the fall of 1857 eleven hundred men were fortifying the mountain passes east of Great Salt Lake. Other parties were dispatched to burn Fort Bridger and Fort Supply, Mormon-owned outposts at the eastern entrance to the territory. By November 1857 a troop of eighteen hundred federal soldiers and camp followers were huddling around the charred ruins of Fort Bridger, desperately trying to avoid starvation until spring, when they could resume their campaign. Mormon raiders managed to burn three wagon trains sent to supply the expedition, destroying three months’ provisions and bringing federal troops to the brink of starvation. Young added insult to injury by offering to provide the embattled U.S. troops with salt, flour, and cattle.
It was miraculous that the Utah Expedition did not end in a bloodbath. Unleashing military force is always easier than restraining it, and for the Mormons to attempt harassment of the invaders and destruction of supply trains while avoiding the taking of life and open battles was, on the face of it, a delicate combination that would not seem to have much chance of success. Yet there were practically no casualties except from frostbite and exposure.
Young’s initial anger at the Utah Expedition was tempered as he realized the futility of open warfare against the U.S. Army. He cautioned raiders to do all they could to delay the force but not to heighten the troops’ belligerency toward the Mormons, but the official position emanating from Washington had already begun to change. Through Colonel Thomas L. Kane, Young had initiated peace feelers. While Kane was sailing to California to mediate between Governor Cumming, Young, and Colonel Johnston, Buchanan dispatched a presidential peace commission overland, an action motivated mainly by congressional unrest over the vast amount of money and manpower being used to provision and reinforce the Utah Expedition. Both Young and Buchanan, therefore, now sought a peaceful settlement.
While negotiations were still in process, Young decided on a dramatic gesture. This was a decision to “move South,” to abandon the entire northern sweep of the territory to the army, leaving men behind with instructions to set fire to any settlement the soldiers made moves to occupy. Hoses Stout recorded the decision in his diary:
Thursday 18 March 1858: Attended a general Council at the Historians office of the first Presidency, Twelve, and officers of the Legion. The object which was to take into consideration the enemies, whether to attack them before they came near us or wait until they come near, or whether it is yet best to fight only n unavoidable defense or in case a large force is sent against us this spring whether to fight or burn our houses and destroy every thing in and around us and flee to the mountains and deserts.
Adopting the “Sebastopol plan,” which had served a similar purpose during the Crimean War, yung was attempting to muster some national sympathy while demonstrating that the Mormons were not willing to submit to a blatant military occupation of their homes. Throughout the spring the Mormons streamed south to temporary encampments near Provo and farther south.
Meanwhile, Governor Cumming made a trip to the Salt lake Valley, assured himself there was no rebellion, and returned to Camp Scott, the bivouac at Fort Bridger. In April, agreement was reached that the expedition would be allowed to march through Salt Lake City and establish a position some forty miles distant from which it could ensure the rights of the presidential appointees without seeming to “occupy Mormon territory.” In June, after announcing that Buchanan had granted the Mormons “free and full pardon,” the new territorial officers and an escort of more than fifty-five hundred soldiers, teamsters, and suppliers marched through the abandoned streets of Salt Lake City. To the south, some thirty thousand Mormon faithful waited, fearful that their homes might be either occupied or destroyed. Nothing of the kind occurred. The Utah Expedition marched beyond the city and across the Jordan River to Cedar Valley, some forty miles south of Salt Lake City. There they established Camp Floyd, named in honor of the Secretary of War who had supported the mission.
The peaceable march of the army through Salt Lake City, the unopposed installation of Cumming as governor, and the subsequent return of the Mormons to their abandoned farms and homes ended a confrontation that had been heralded as apocalyptic but had always had something of the incongruity of comic opera. The President of the United States had dispatched the largest peacetime army in the nation’s history to oversee the installation of half a dozen officials in a minor territory. He had done so without thorough investigation of charges made by a few disgruntled or economically interested individuals. He had neglected to notify the Mormons or to inquire after their viewpoint, until nearly a year after the expedition was sent. The Mormons, in turn, had once more been uprooted from their homes, interrupted in their development of the territory, and labeled a rebellious people.
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