Part 63 (1/2)

An incident of the winter was the expedition of Captain Randolph B.

Marcy across the Uinta Mountains to New Mexico, with two guides and thirty-five volunteer companions, to secure needed animals. The story of his march is one of the most remarkable on record, the company pressing on, even after Indian guides refused to accompany them to what they said was certain death, living for days only on the meat supplied by half-starved mules, and beating a path through deep snow. This march continued from November 27 to January 10, when, with the loss of only one man, they reached the valley of the Rio del Norte, where supplies were obtained from Fort Ma.s.sachusetts. Captain Marcy started back on March 17, selecting a course which took him past Long's and Pike's Peaks. He reached Camp Scott on June 8, with about fifteen hundred horses and mules, escorted by five companies of infantry and mounted riflemen.

During the winter Governor c.u.mming sent to Brigham Young a proclamation notifying him of the arrival of the new territorial officers, and a.s.suring the people that he would resort to the military posse only in case of necessity. Judge Eckles held a session of the United States District Court at Camp Scott on December 30, and the grand jury of that court found indictments for treason, resting on Young's proclamation and Wells's instructions, against Young, Kimball, Wells, Taylor, Grant, Locksmith, Rockwell, Hickman, and many others, but of course no arrests were made.

Meanwhile, at Was.h.i.+ngton, preparations were making to sustain the federal authority in Utah as soon as spring opened.* Congress made an appropriation, and authorized the enlistment of two regiments of volunteers; three thousand regular troops and two batteries were ordered to the territory, and General Scott was directed to sail for the Pacific coast with large powers. But General Scott did not sail, the army contracts created a scandal,** and out of all this preparation for active hostilities came peace without the firing of a shot; out of all this open defiance and vilification of the federal administration by the Mormon church came abject surrender by the administration itself.

* For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of 1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II.

** Colonel Albert G. Brown, Jr., in his account of the Utah Expedition in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1859, said: ”To the shame of the administration these gigantic contracts, involving an amount of more than $6,000,000, were distributed with a view to influence votes in the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the lesser ones, such as those for furnis.h.i.+ng mules, dragoon horses, and forage, were granted arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were wavering upon that question.”

The princ.i.p.al contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies, involving for the year 1858 the amount of $4,500,000, was granted, without advertis.e.m.e.nt or subdivision, to a firm in Western Missouri, whose members had distinguished themselves in the effort to make Kansas a slave state, and now contributed liberally to defray the election expenses of the Democratic party.”

CHAPTER XIV. -- COLONEL KANE'S MISSION

When Major Van Vliet returned from Utah to Was.h.i.+ngton with Young's defiant ultimatum, he was accompanied by J. M. Bernhisel, the territorial Delegate to Congress, who was allowed to retain his seat during the entire ”war,” a motion for his expulsion, introduced soon after Congress met, being referred to a committee which never reported on it, the debate that arose only giving further proof of the ignorance of the lawmakers about Mormon history, Mormon government, and Mormon ambition.

In Was.h.i.+ngton Bernhisel was soon in conference with Colonel T. L.

Kane, that efficient ally of the Mormons, who had succeeded so well in deceiving President Fillmore. In his characteristically wily manner, Kane proposed himself to the President as a mediator between the federal authorities and the Mormon leaders.* At that early date Buchanan was not so ready for a compromise as he soon became, and the Cabinet did not entertain Kane's proposition with any enthusiasm. But Kane secured from the President two letters, dated December 3.** The first stated, in regard to Kane, ”You furnish the strongest evidence of your desire to serve the Mormons by undertaking so laborious a trip,” and that ”nothing but pure philanthropy, and a strong desire to serve the Mormon people, could have dictated a course so much at war with your private interests.” If Kane presented this credential to Young on his arrival in Salt Lake City, what a glorious laugh the two conspirators must have had over it! The President went on to reiterate the views set forth in his last annual message, and to say: ”I would not at the present moment, in view of the hostile att.i.tude they have a.s.sumed against the United States, send any agent to visit them on behalf of the government.” The second letter stated that Kane visited Utah from his own sense of duty, and commended him to all officers of the United States whom he might meet.

* H. H. Bancroft (”History of Utah,” p. 529) accepts the ridiculous Mormon a.s.sertion that Buchanan was compelled to change his policy toward the Mormons by unfavorable comments ”throughout the United States and throughout Europe.” Stenhouse says (”Rocky Mountain Saints,”

p. 386): ”That the initiatory steps for the settlement of the Utah difficulties were made by the government, as is so constantly repeated by the Saints, is not true. The author, at the time of Colonel Kane's departure from New York for Utah, was on the staff of the New York Herald, and was conversant with the facts, and confidentially communicated them to Frederick Hudson, Esq., the distinguished manager of that great journal.”

** Sen. Doc., 2d Session. 35th Congress, Vol. II, pp. 162-163.

Kane's method of procedure was, throughout, characteristic of the secret agent of such an organization as the Mormon church. He sailed from New York for San Francisco the first week in January, 1858, under the name of Dr. Osborn. As soon as he landed, he hurried to Southern California, and, joining the Mormons who had been called in from San Bernardino, he made the trip to Utah with them, arriving in Salt Lake City in February.

On the evening of the day of his arrival he met the Presidency and the Twelve, and began an address to them as follows: ”I come as amba.s.sador from the Chief Executive of our nation, and am prepared and duly authorized to lay before you, most fully and definitely, the feelings and views of the citizens of our common country and of the Executive toward you, relative to the present position of this territory, and relative to the army of the United States now upon your borders.” This is the report of Kane's words made by Tullidge in his ”Life of Brigham Young.” How the statement agrees with Kane's letters from the President is apparent on its face. The only explanation in Kane's favor is that he had secret instructions which contradicted those that were written and published. Kane told the church officers that he wished to ”enlist their sympathies for the poor soldiers who are now suffering in the cold and snow of the mountains!” An interview of half an hour with Young followed--too private in its character to be partic.i.p.ated in even by the other heads of the church. An informal discussion ensued, the following extracts from which, on Mormon authority, ill.u.s.trate Kane's sympathies and purpose:--

”Did Dr. Bernhisel take his seat?”

Kane--”Yes. He was opposed by the Arkansas member and a few others, but they were treated as fools by more sagacious members; for, if the Delegate had been refused his seat, it would have been TANTAMOUNT TO A DECLARATION OF WAR.”

”I suppose they [the Cabinet] are united in putting down Utah?”

Kane--”I think not.”*

* Tullidge's ”History of Salt Lake City,” p. 203.

Kane was placed as a guest, still incognito, in the house of an elder, and, after a few days' rest, he set out for Camp Scott. His course on arriving there, on March 10, was again characteristic of the crafty emissary. Not even recognizing the presence of the military so far as to reply to a sentry's challenge, the latter fired on him, and he in turn broke his own weapon over the sentry's head. When seized, he asked to be taken to Governor c.u.mming, not to General Johnston.* ”The compromise,”

explains Tullidge, ”which Buchanan had to effect with the utmost delicacy, could only be through the new governor, and that, too, by his heading off the army sent to occupy Utah.” A fancied insult from General Johnston due to an orderly's mistake led Kane to challenge the general to a duel; but a meeting was prevented by an order from Judge Eckles to the marshal to arrest all concerned if his command to the contrary was not obeyed.