Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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on the current border between Utah and Nevada, to see whether a new settlement
could be established there. But even without Young giving any orders, many
Mormons were fleeing ahead of what they expected to be a violent i ncursion by
federal troops.
Finally, good sense prevailed on all sides. As a result, in June 185 8, President
Buchanan authorized peace commissioners to travel to Utah. There they oversaw
Brigham Young agreeing that Cumming was the new gover nor, and under t akin g
to follow directions by him. In return, the Mormons were all pardoned for “acts
of rebellion.” Young accepted the pardon, although he did claim that Utah had
never been in an act of rebellion.
When U.S. soldiers entered Salt Lake City under Johnston in June 1858, their
arrival was greeted with disdain from the locals. However, historians have discov-
ered that there were mixed feelings amongst the soldiers. Johnston himself was
reported to have said that he would have liked to “bombard the city f or fifteen
minutes.” Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ferguson Smith (1807–1862), who later
served as a Union general in the Civil War, said that he would have liked to hang
“every dammed Mormon by the neck.” Philip St. George Cooke (1809–1895),
who also later became a Union general and was a distinguished cavalry c om-
mander (his son-in-law being the Confederate cavalry general J. E. B. Stuart),
reacted very differently. Cooke had led the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican
War. He wrote of his great respect for the Mormons and took off his hat in respect
as he rode through the streets.
Even though there were no “battles,” and only 38 soldiers were recorded as
casualties, with also a number of non-Mormon civilian casualties, it was a very
expensive conflict and was the most costly military undertaking by the U.S. Army
between th e Mexican War and the Civil War. Altogether, i t is beli eved that 150
people died, of whom 120 were in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The war
became known as Buchanan’s Blunder, with the press criticizing the president on
several fronts. Some felt that the entire expedition was a large waste of money as
there was no real evidence that Ut ah had rebelled. On an operational level, the
sending of the soldiers so late in the season, and the failure to adequately resupply
them, led to further criticisms for Buchanan. For the Mormons, many of them had
had to evacuate their homesteads and put up with, in effect, a military occupation
of Utah.
One of the conseq uences for the war was that diss atisfaction with Buchanan
was expressed in the 1858 congressional elections, with the Republicans winning
control of the House of Representatives. However, they were unable to pass any
major bills as these were either rejected in the Senate, or vetoed by the president.
This, in turn, led to a split in the Democrats between the Southern Democrats
and the Northern Democrats, which would become even more apparent in the
386 Utah War (1857–1858)
1860 presidential election. Curiously, the war was to have an unforeseen outcome.
Some outfitters, Russell, Majors and Waddell, lost some 52 wagons of goods,
which had been burned by Lot Smith and the men of the Nauvoo Legion. The
decided to take on a government mail contract to rebuild their business fortunes,
and thus was the beginning of the Pony Express.
U.S. forces established a large camp at Camp Floyd (now Fort Crittenden).
However, they were not there long, as they were withdrawn in 1861 with the out-
break of the Civil War. Johnson went on to serve as a commander of the
Confederate forces, and he was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Cumming’s
nephew, Alfred Cumming (1829–1910) became a brigadier general in the Civil
War. In 1874, indictments were finally issued against some of the perpetrators of
the Mountain Meadows Massacre. John D. Lee, a prominent Mormon, was
charged in court and convicted, albeit after two trials. A polygamist, he had 19
wives, and 67 children. His defense was that although he was present at the massa-
cre, he had not personally killed anybody. This had seen his first trial end in a hung
jury in 1874, but three years later, he was found guilty. Lee was executed by firing
squad on the site of the massacre, on March 23, 1877.
—Justin Corfield
See also all entries under Pueblo Revolt (1680); Philadelphia Election Riot (1742);
Pima Revolt (1751); Philadelphia Nativist Riots (1844); Know-Nothing Riots (1855–1856).
Further Reading
Bannon, John Francis. The Spanish Borderlands Frontier 1513–1821. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1974.
Brooks, Juanita. John Doyle Lee : Zea lot, Pioneer Builder, Scapegoat. Logan: Utah State
University Press, 1992.
Freeman, Rob ert C., ed. Nineteenth Century Saints at War. Provo, UT: Religious Studies
Center, Brigham Young University, 2006.
Furniss, Norman F. The Mormon Conflict 1850–1859. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1977.
Mackinnon, William P. “Causes of the Utah War.” Fort Douglas Vedette: Newsletter of the
Fort Douglas Military Museum Association, Spring 2007.
Stott, Clifford L. Search for Sanctuary: Brigham Young and the White Mountain Expedition.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984.
Utah War (1857–1858) 387
Buchanan, James (1791–1868)
The 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan was elected in 1856 at a
time when there were increased tensions over slavery. A Democrat from Pennsyl-
vania, he was essentially a “northerner” with southern sympathies, and this
allowed him to hold together the Democratic Party and defea t the Republican
Party candidate John C. Fre
´
mont.
Buchanan’s inauguration was quickly followed by the famous Dred Scott ver-
dict, which ruled that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from the territo-
ries. Buchanan certainly believed in the rights of slave owners, but he was keen
to try to hold the country together. T he success of the newly formed Republican
Party in 1856 had shaken many Democrats who saw their party as hopelessly
divided over slavery.
It was in this light when Buchanan, in March 1857, started receiving reports that
Brigham Young, the governor of the Utah Territory, was planning a revolt, and he
felt he had to act swiftly. Buchanan thought that Young, being a Mormon, might
lead a revolt against the central authority, and as president, he saw his duty as
being to hold the Union together—the problems in Utah having nothing to do with
slavery. Indeed, Buchanan regarded the Dred Scott decision as resolving the issue
from a constitutional point of view.
A confirmed bachelor, Buchanan was a devout Presbyterian, and an active Free-
mason. When he was 27, he had ended a short engagement with the daughter of a
wealthy business man—the woman involved was believed by some to have com-
mitted suicide. Buchanan personally disliked the Mormons and their belief in po-
lygamy, which he had vigorously denoun ced during his election campaign. Also,
many of them had come from Pennsylvania. Indeed, Joseph Smith, the founder
of the Mormon Church came from Pennsylvania, although Harmony was far from
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where Buchanan grew up, and Lancaster, Pennsylva-
nia, where Buchanan died. It was at Harmony that, according to Mormon tradition,
Smith was visited by John the Baptist.
In the Utah War, Buchanan was decisive as he saw it as an easy way to uphold
the power of the presidency in an issue which could unite the “northern” and
“southern” politi cians, both of whom disliked the Mormons. Certainly as a mili-
tary operation, it involved officers from both the North a nd the South working
together.
After the war in Utah, Buchanan’s presidency became almost fully occupied by
the issue of slavery and the possible secession of the southern s tates. As t he
Republican Party became stronger, this became more of a probability; and follow-
ing the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860, South
389
Carolina and then other southern states seceded. Buchanan tried to stop this and
indeed denied that there was a right to secession. After remaining in Washington,
D.C., for Lincoln’s i nauguration, he then retired back to Pennsylvania and died
on June 1, 1868.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Binder, Frederick Moore. James Buchanan and the American Empire.Selinsgrove,PA:
Susquehanna University Press, 1994.
Birkner, Michael J ., ed. James Buchanan and the Political Crisis of the 1850s.Selins-
grove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1996.
Nevins, All an. The Emergence of Lincoln. Vol 1: Douglas, Buchanan and Party Chaos,
1857–1859. New York: Scribner’s, 1950.
Smith, Elbert B. The Presidency of James Buchanan. Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 1975.
Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established by Joseph Smith
after he translated some golden plates into what became the Book of Mormon.
Essentially his followers, known as the Mormons, believed in the a dditional
revelations in the Book of Mormon. Thus, although many of their beliefs were
the same as Christians, these extra beliefs included Jesus visiting the Americas
after his resurrection.
Many Christians saw the Mormon beliefs as heretical, and it was not long
before they faced persecution in the eastern states where many of them lived—this
led to war in 1838. Many moved westward but still faced continual discrimination,
especially over the Mormon belief in plural marriage (or polygamy). Indeed,
Joseph Smith himself w as murdered when a g roup of men broke into the prison
where Smith was held.
The remaining Mormons under Brigham Young moved west in 1846 to escape
this persecution, and this trek ended when they reached the Great Salt Lake, where
they built Salt Lake City in the Utah Territory. By this time, the Mormon beliefs, in
particular plural marriage, had attracted the ang er of many pol iticians, especially
during the heated debates of the 1856 election.
390 Utah War (1857–1858)
For Brigham Young and the Mormons, they had hoped that by moving to Utah,
they would be able to govern themselves and follow their own beliefs as their con-
sciences dic tated. The Church of Jesus Chr ist of Latter-day Saints was incorpo-
rated and became a legal entity, and Brigham Young became, in effect, a
theocratic leader. In 1850, he had become governor of the Utah Territory, and Salt
Lake City had transformed itself into from a population of 143 to a major trading
center, helped by the California Gold Rush with many prospectors stopping there
on their way to the West Coast.
Although there was a popular outcry against the Mormons practicing polygamy,
little was published at the time about their other beliefs. They did not drink alcohol,
many were drawn from the temperance movement, and the y did not smoke. They also
refrained from drinking coffee or tea, although many did drink herbal teas. The press
preferred the sensational stories around plural marriages, and also many people
rejected the idea that Smith had found the gold tablets, none of which had survived.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Allen, James, and Glen M. Leonard. The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City,
UT: Deseret Books, 1992.
Arrington, Leonard K. The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
Roberts, B. H. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University Press, 1965.
Nauvoo Legion
This group legion was initially organized as part of the Illinois state milit ia with
the authority of a charter issued by the city of Nauvoo, in Hancock County, Illi-
nois, close to the borders with Iowa and Missouri. Most of its members were mem-
bers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and during the early 1840s,
it was commanded by Joseph Smith Jr. and Brigham Young. Its formation was to
prevent attacks on Mormons as had happened in 1838. By 1844, it had a strength
of about 2,000, but it also had a very high number of officers.
Disbanded in 1845, when the Mormons decided to move west to Utah in 1846,
most of the legion members went with Brigham Young. These served to help
protect Mormons in Utah. Although some members of the legion served in the
Mormon Battalion in the war with Mexico in 1846, most remained in Utah, where
Utah War (1857–1858) 391
they helped protect the Mormons from attacks by Native Americans, first in 1849
and then in the “Walker War” against Chief Walkara in 1853–1854.
When the Utah War broke out in 1857, members of the legion were quickly
called together under the command of Colonel William Horne Dame. Dame had
been born in New Hampshire, and he and his wife had been some of the earlier set-
tlers in Utah. Facing a possible invasion, Dame had ordered a brigade to be formed
in September 1857, and he started drilling the men. They had all been trained with
the Model 1803 Rifle, and also boasted a mountain gun nicknamed “Old Sow,”
which still survives on display at the Church Museum of History at Salt Lake City.
Alongside Dame, Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Haight commanded the Mormons.
However, the Utah War saw no real fighting between the federal soldiers and the
Mormons, so the Nauvoo Legion never saw any major action, although individual
members were involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Two units of the
Nauvoo Legion served in t he Civil War, pr eventing Confeder ate saboteurs fro m
attacking the telegraph li nes. In the Black Hawk War of 1865–1868, some of the
Nauvoo Legion also saw ac tion. They were disbanded with the Edmunds-Tucker
Act of 1894.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Bagley, Will. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Mead-
ows. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Gardner, Hamilton. “Nauvoo Legion, 1840–1845—A Unique Military Organization,”
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 54 (Summer 1961): 181–197.
Roberts, Richard C. Legacy: The History of the Utah National Guard from the Nauvoo
Legion Era to Enduring Freedom. Salt Lake City: National Guard Association of Utah,
2003.
Polygamy
When men took more than one wife at the same time, this became known as
“plural marriage” and later more commonly as polygamy. It was illegal in Britain
but had not specifically been outlawed in the United States after American
Independence. However, it was a practice that certainly happened in biblical times,
and there are many instances of it in the Old Testament.
With the emergence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(the Mormons), the members allowed polygamy, and it gained converts from the
followers of Jacob Cochran of Maine, who also believed in polygamy. By the
1850s, it was estimated that between a fifth and a quarter of all Mormons were
392 Utah War (1857–1858)
living in polygamous households. In most cases, polygamous families were larger
than others , and this accou nts f or the high percentages, with the vast majori ty of
Mormon marriages at the time being in non-polygamous marriages.
However the instances of polygamy amongst the Mormons resulted in much criti-
cism of their church. Critics viewed it as a method of oppressing wome n and
allowing immorality to flourish. Indeed a former Mormon in the New York Times
in 1852 denounced it as “the demoralization of young women ...that would almost
chill the heart’s blood.” Much information circulated about the number of wives of
Joseph Smith—possibly as many as 33—with some being also married to other men.
In June 1856, a bill was brought before the House of Representatives by Justice
Smith Morrill of Vermont to outlaw polygamy in the territory of Utah. This
became the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act. Four years later, during the 1856 presiden-
tial election, slavery was a major focus of the campaign, but the Republican Party
also actively campaigned against polygamy. Indeed, they pledged “to prohibit in
the territories those twin relics of barbarism: polygamy and slavery.” In an inter-
esting twist, it was the Repu blican presidential candidate John Fre
´
mont who had
surveyed the Great Salt Lake in 1843 and 1845, giving Brigham Young the idea
of settling there. The Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, was also outspoken
in his criticism of polygamy. His victory quickly led to a clash between the new
president and the Mormons, resulting in the Utah War.
By late November 1856, much publicity was given to a sermon by Brigham
Young in which he spoke out strongly in favor of polygamy. Indeed, by the end
of his life he had 51 wives, and had 56 children by 16 of them. However, although
polygamy did cause much anger against the Mormons in the eastern states, it was
not the reason why the war took place. The New York Times in 1857 claimed “theo-
retical polygamy is one thing, but practical polygamy is quite another,” and it
urged for indictments against people living in polygamy to be followed up by the
grand jury in Utah. The war ended with polygamy illegal, but still practiced.
The issue continued with George Q. Cannon being denied a nonvoting seat in
the U.S. House of Represent atives because he had more than one wife. In
March 1882, the Edmunds Act made it illegal for polygamists to hold office, and
eight years later, the 1890 Manifesto issued by the Mormons banned plural mar-
riage. Although a very few “Mormon fundamentalists” are still in polygamous
marriages, it remains illegal.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
“Bill for the Suppression of Polygamy.” New York Times, June 30, 1856, 3.
Hardy, B. Carmon. Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage. Urbana: Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 19 92.
Utah War (1857–1858) 393
Hardy, John. “Mormonism Exposed by an Ex-Mormon.” New York Times, February 14,
1852, 6.
“Polygamy in Utah—The Progress of Mormonism.” New York Times, November 13, 1856, 2.
Van Wagoner, Richard S. Mormon Polygamy: A History. Salt L ake C ity, UT: Signature
Books, 1992.
“What Shall We Do with the Mormons?” New York Times, April 21, 1857, 4.
State of Deseret
The State of Deseret was proposed as a state of the United States by Mormons in
1849. It existed in a provisional form for nearly two years and it included the vast
majority of what was then Utah Territory but followed natural boundaries.
Altogether , it included all of Utah and Ne v ada, as well as large portions of Arizona,
California, and also parts of Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wyoming.
The name Deseret came from the word for “honey bee” in the Book of
Mormon, and after the settlement at Salt Lake City by the Mormons in 1846,
Brigham Young petitioned for the establishment of Deseret as a territory. He sent
Dr. John Milton Bernhisel, a physician and Mormon—he had, in fact, delivered
some of Joseph Smith’s children—to Washington, D.C. However, it soon became
apparent that California and New Mexico were trying to gain statehood, and Young
changed his plans, urging Bernhisel to try to get statehood for Deseret.
Even though the planned land area of Deseret was vast, and some of it had only
been taken from Mexico a few years earlier, Young believed he had a chance if he
was able to fulfill the requirements for statehood. This required a constitution, and
as a result Young and other Mormons drafted it and sent the tr anscript to Iowa to
be printed. At that time, there were no printing presses in Salt Lake City.
Many members of Congress did not like the Mormon practice of plural mar-
riage (polygamy), but Brigham Young had some unexpected allies. The southern
states were eager that they were not outnumbered by the northern non-slave states
in the Senate. To this end, Deseret was so large that it would result in a single free
state joining the Union (and the Senate) rather than a large number of smaller
states. This was to prove even more popular when there was the idea of combining
Deseret with California.
However, in the Compromise of 1850, California became a state, and the Utah
Terri tory was creat ed, covering the northern part of the planned Deseret, with
Brigham Young as the first governor. The General Assembly of Deseret, a bicam-
eral state legislature, had been established in 1850, but it passed a resoluti on to
394 Utah War (1857–1858)
dissolve the state on April 4, 1851. The idea of revising Deseret was later raised on
several occasions, and the worry that it might become independent (rather than
becoming a state) was behind the Utah War of 1857–1858.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Allen, James, and Glen M. Leonard. The Story of the Latter-day Saints.SaltLake
City, UT: Deseret Books, 1992.
Morgan, Dale L. The State of Deseret. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1987.
Young, Brigham (1801–1877)
The leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) after
the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young l ed the Mormons from Illinois to the
Great Salt Lake in 1846, bei ng president of the church from 1847 until his death
thirty years later.
Born in Vermont, Young had worked as a carpenter and then as a blacksmith,
and then joined the Mormons in 1832. He emerged as the successor to Smith after
the founder (Smith) was murdered by mob members in 1844. Recognizing that the
members of the Mormon Church were not safe in Illinois, he led a group of them
to the Great Salt Lake, where they founded Salt Lake City. A politician, he urged
for the creation of the state of Deseret, which would have been dominated by the
Mormons, taking advantage of the possible support for the idea from the southern
states. However when this failed, he accepted the governorship of the Utah
Territory, a much smaller area than Deseret, and managed to get Mormon settle-
ments established throughout the region.
Although Jos eph Smith founded the Mormon C hurch, it very much owed its
strength to Brigham Young. He managed to hold the community together and help
it flourish. He also enabled the infrastructure of the region to be established,
including irrigation systems, education, and postal services. He certa inly treated
African Americans with respect and accepted interracial marriages of Mormons.
However, he was best known as a polygamist. Young not only believed in plural
marriage, but also had many wives. In fact he is believed to have marred 55 times,
and had a large house where they all lived.
In 1857, Brigham Young was replaced as governor by Alfred Cumming, and he
recognized that this was an attempt by President James Buchanan to try to
encroach into the lives of Mormons. In the previous year, both Buchanan and
Utah War (1857–1858) 395