The Impact of the Mormon Battalion

The Mormom Battalion’s Impact on the Truckee Meadows

On the Mormon Battalion website, there is a written statement that sums up the Mormon Battalion’s total contribution. “In every sense, they of the battalion had marched into history. Behind them would come many thousands of immigrants who would follow the trail they so painstakingly—and painfully—pioneered. They had raised ‘Old Glory,’ the flag of their country, on the Pacific shore. And they had raised the ensign of Zion.”[P1] 

There is no doubt that the Mormon Battalion etched a presence in the Truckee Meadows area as well. The various groups of Mormons going back and forth between Utah and California during this period made the Truckee Meadows/Carson Valley a virtual highway and a necessary way station.

Battalion veterans painstakingly carved out the Emigrant Trail passing through the beautiful Carson Valley. As the men returned to their loved ones, they gave a favorable report about Carson Valley, promoting the area as a suitable place to settle. They were impressed with its beauty, fertility, and location—being located at the end of a strenuous trip through the mountains, or just after the dry difficult journey through the desert. Each person who wrote about the valley, exclaimed how luxuriant the grass was. The trees were plentiful as were the rivers and streams. A few of the battalion members later became guides to those passing through Nevada to California and some of them came back to settle, at least for a short time.

---

The Battalion and the Donner Party

The Battalion and the Donner Party

Lavina Murphy and her husband, Jeremiah, joined the church in 1836 when Wilford Woodruff and Reed Smoot introduced them to the gospel in Tennessee. Their home was somewhat a center of activity and Elder Woodruff mentioned them several times in his missionary accounts. Not long after Jeremiah died in 1839, Lavina moved to Nauvoo with her small family. She was an active participant in church affairs including baptisms for the dead. Her name was recorded several times in the record books of Nauvoo.

 In 1842, Lavina found employment in nearby Warsaw, necessitating that she move her family to the neighboring town. According to her son William, she maintained an avid interest in the scriptures. William also indicated his mother heard of a wonderful land in the West, so the family readied themselves to move on. The Murphy’s joined with the Donner-Reed Party in St. Louis. Her children and son-in-laws became the largest family in the company.

The Donner/Reid vanguard group offered to provide for Lavina and her children if she would cook and do the wash for them. Thinking that California was to be the final destination of the saints, Lavina accepted the position feeling she would be less of a burden and still unite with the saints later.

Lavina’s two oldest daughters and their husbands, William Foster and William Pike with their children joined the Donner Party as well.

While the party was hindered with numerous difficulties, William and William, the brother-in-laws, offered to cross the summit ahead of the group and bring provisions back. As they camped in the Truckee Meadows, William Foster while cleaning his gun, accidently shot his brother-in-law, William Pike. That left Lavina’s daughter, Harriet, a widow with a baby of a few months and a three-year-old daughter, Naomi.

The early ensuing storms impeded their travel westward through the Sierra. As the  accumulating snow engulfed them, the company realized they were too ill equipped to trudge to the summit as a unit. They submitted to the mountains brutal force to hunker down, assembling a ramshackle cabin near Donner Lake.

When rescuers arrived, many were escorted down the mountain but Lavina remained due to blindness. By the fourth and final rescue, she was dead, her body badly mutilated. Of the 80 Donner Party members who camped in the Truckee Meadows in the fall of 1846, 44 survived. Of the thirteen members of the Murphy family, only seven of the thirteen survived.

Lavina Murphy’s daughter Mary, met Sergeant Daniel Tyler of the Mormon Battalion at Johnson’s ranch. She and several others marched out of the mountains to assemble a rescue party. These members are referred to as the “Forlorn Hope” group. In conversing with Mary, Daniel was informed of her family’s circumstances and concluded in his journal, “Alas, the example of Sister Murry [Murphy], although her motives were good, is an illustration of the truism that ‘it is better to suffer affliction with the people of God and trust in Him for deliverance than to mingle with the sinful for a season and be lured by human prospects of a better result’” (Tyler, A Concise History, 312).

When word of the Donner Party’s fate reached  the Thomas Rhoades family, two of his sons, John and Daniel, responded by volunteering as part of a rescue team.  There were to be principal players in rescuing several members  of the stranded group.

The rescuers endured the harsh conditions with treacherous cold and snow. None of them were experienced mountaineers who knew survival techniques. They labored to move forward through mounting exhaustion. Arriving at the camp on February 18, 1847, they were aghast at the conditions. Even so, it was impossible to take all the survivors; they could gather only twenty four.

“Big John Rhoads” carried little three-year-old Naomi Pike on his back for 40 miles. Naomi later wrote that she owed Big John her life for saving her. It is possible that John’s noble spirit had empathy for this beleaguered group since they had traveled from the East together until Fort Bridger. Not only did John make the first rescue attempt, but he volunteered for the fourth and final attempt as well.

 Next on the scene of the disaster was a small detachment of twelve Mormon battalion men. They were to accompany General Stephen Kearney as an armed escort for his return to the states from his post in California. Daniel Tyler wrote in his journal:

“On the 21^st, [the escort] traveled through snow from two to twelve feet deep and over rough mountains [the Sierra Nevadas] before reaching the Truckee River. There, a small lake was found . . . , now called Lake Tahoe. In the vicinity of this lake were several cabins built by . . . [the Donner-Reed Party], which was snowed in the previous fall. Their numbers were estimated at about eighty [82] souls, who all perished except about thirty. The General ordered a halt and detailed five men to bury the dead that were lying upon the ground.” (Tyler, A Concise History, 301–302)

When we contemplate the hardships and tragedies of the early Mormon pioneers in their treks cross country, it would be fitting to remember the Murphy family and their rescuers, much as we remember the members of the Willy, Martin Handcart companies and their ordeal in the winter wilds of Wyoming” (Quoted from Don Watts a local researcher and avid history buff).

The Donner Party tragedy left an indelible mark on all the battalion men who had contact with them either dead or alive. None of veterans had seen or heard of such a gruesome spectacle before. General Kearney commanded the men to gather the remains, dig a pit in one of the houses and burn the house with the remains. However, several other parties came upon the scene and found more evidence of the insanity that took place (Dorius, “Mormons in the Donner Party,”).

Reddick Allred was part of the newly discharged battalion party who traveled northward intent on finding their wives and families. His group came after General Kearney’s company who had already buried some of the dead in the mountains. Reddick records in his personal journal:

Proceeded on our journey on the 5^th [September 1847], and met Sam Brannan with an Epistle from President Young. All who did not intend to go to the Bluffs for their families should stay in California and get work through the winter. This broke up our organization and Andrew Lytle was our Captain.

When we passed the summit of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains, we found Hastings’[Donner Party’s] winter camp. At the base of the mountains we struck the Truckee River, then crossed an arm of the Great American Desert to the sink of the Humboldt River, passing the Hot Boiling Springs. (Family Papers.)

The Mormon Emigrant Trail

The following describes the difficulty of blazing this trail:

Saturday, July 22, Rock Creek. The climb was even steeper now. The wagons continue to break down and are in need of constant repair. Fifteen men worked the road to the top of the mountain.

       July 29, Summit Camp. Cliff with sharp drop, very hard going.

July 31. Impossible to build a road through this canyon. We had no hammers nor drills with which we could do anything with the stone. It seemed almost an impossibility to go farther. Finally someone suggested we build a fire on the rock. When the fire had died down we found as far as the heat had penetrated, the rocks were all broken in small pieces which were soon removed with pick and shovel. Another fire was built with the same result. After three or four fires, we found the rocks were not much in our way and we soon had a good wagon road right over them. (Norma Ricketts, Melissa’s Journey with the Mormon Battalion, 93)

It took five days to cut a wagon road through the seven-mile-long canyon not far from present day Grover’s Hot Springs. The canyon they worked diligently to render passable was tight and narrow, just wide enough for their wagons. Latter emigrants would never know of the exertions made by the hearty Mormons who blazed the trail before them. For the next 16 years, thousands of gold and land seekers, wagons, and livestock came into California over the Mormon Trail, following these battalion tracks. The company also blazed an estimated 170 miles of wagon road across trackless terrain in 40 days.

Most of the pioneers who wrote in diaries made mention of “The Back Bone.” It would later be dubbed “The Elephant Back” because of its apparent similarities to a pachyderm. Today it is known as the Carson Pass which reaches a grand height of 8,575 feet. The diarist of the Holmes-Thompson group who blazed this trail recorded it took another ten days to cross the Sierra Nevada. Today it is a 30-mile stretch that can be traversed by four-wheel drive between Highway 50 near Placerville, California, and Highway 88.

Henry Bigler, one of the battalion diarists wrote, “Sat. 5^th of Aug. . . .campt on Carson River though at the time we had no name for it only the one we gave it that was ‘Pilot River.’ Sun. 6^th. Continued down Carson River past a hot spring. Campt in the bend of the River. . .”( Journal of Henry William Bigler, Mormon Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.)

Melissa Coray and the Emigrant Trail

In addition to the necessary number of men in the battalion, there were women and children who accompanied them. In 1994 the U.S. government dedicated a mountain peak in the Sierra Nevada to Melissa Coray of the Mormon Battalion. The range is near the Emigrant Trail, behind Kirkwood Ski Resort. Even as a woman, Melissa came to idealize the courage and strength the battalion became known for.

Melissa was one of only four women to successfully complete the entire 2,030-mile military march accompanying her husband through dreadful exposure, exhaustion, lack of food and medicine. She was an 18-year-old bride, being married only four days, at the time they left. She said, “I didn’t mind it. I walked because I wanted to. My husband had to walk and I went along by his side” (Kenneth N. Owens, Gold Rush Saints, 197). “If he must go, I want to go,” she said. “Why must women always stay behind and worry about their husbands, when they could just as well march beside them.” (Ricketts, Melissa’s Journey with the Mormon Battalion). There were many sacrifices, but leaving her mother and father was extremely difficult for Melissa for she never saw her mother again. Hannah Burton died on the trail to Salt Lake before she could embrace her daughter Melissa again.

Melissa was wise beyond her years. During the never-ending miles of marching, she watched as others ate until they were satisfied without thinking or planning ahead. She, on the other hand, prudently planned to meet she and her husband’s needs. The young wife cooked their food cautiously so she never wasted. While many men suffered from starvation, Melissa and Will were never in danger, though they were never full. Her wisdom carried her through the bone dry conditions they were called to endure. “Thirst only gets worse when you think of it. When I was thirsty, I tried not to think of it.” It was at such a time that she learned to carry a pebble in her mouth. This caused the saliva to flow more freely and lessened her unquenchable thirst. (ibid, [pg#42]).

Toward the end of the trail, Melissa became pregnant. Nausea became another obstacle to overcome. She was anxious about her baby and wished for the day she and William could settle down to make a home for their new family. When the couple was discharged from their military service, they headed north. She delivered a baby boy named William Coray Jr. at Monterey. He lived a short while before being buried in a cemetery there.

By the time they reached Sutter’s Fort, Mormon Battalion veterans had discovered gold. William and Melissa stayed just long enough to gather two bags of gold, one of which was to be sent to some of their family back east. It would be enough to equip the family for the trip to Salt Lake.

The Corays did not linger in the gold fields long, they were anxious to reunite with the saints. The couple joined the Browett-Holmes Company with 45 men, two cannons, 17 wagons, 150 mules and horses, and about the same number of cattle. The lone woman was Melissa. The Truckee Route required 27 crossings over the mountains, so rather than ford the river with all the livestock and wagons they blazed a new trail, appropriately dubbed the Mormon Emigrant Trail.

An Early Record by Edward Bunker

Edward Bunker

Edward Bunker’s history recounts his first encounter through the Sierras and the Truckee Meadows. Several of his descendants live nearby the soil he trod upon nearly 150 years ago. 

Edward moved to Nauvoo in 1845, already having been baptized, he was told to work on the temple and/or the Nauvoo House, which he obediently did.

As he camped where he worked, disgruntled mobs broke out and began burning outlying farms and drove the homeless Saints into Nauvoo. Brother Bunker joined the militia to serve as a guard while assisting some of the persecuted saints’ move.

Quoting Edward from his own journal writes:

“The presiding priesthood compromised with the mob and agreed to leave Nauvoo. Then I crossed the river to Montrose . . . while at Montrose, I became acquainted with Emily Abbott and we were married in Nauvoo by John Taylor, February 9, 1846, just before Brother Taylor crossed the river to join the Saints at Sugar Creek.”

The couple had very few of the necessities needed to travel with the saints westward: Edward needed to obtain work. After three weeks, they scraped up enough provisions to live on. The newlyweds went to Garden Grove where some of the expelled saints had gathered. There they stayed until Edward went to Missouri with the intention of earning money to buy a team and wagon.

“At this time a report reached us that the United States government had called for a company of Saints to go to Mexico. I did not believe it, but the spirit of the Lord directed me to go home. So the following Saturday with the side of a bacon slung over my shoulder, I started for home, thirty miles distant. As I neared my destination, I met some brethren hunting stock and they confirmed the report I had heard concerning the call for a battalion. They also told me that Brigham Young had written a letter to the Grove calling on all the single men and those that could be spared to come to the Bluffs, 140 miles distant west, to assist the families and care for the teams of those who had joined the battalion, they in turn could have the use of their teams to bring their families to the Bluffs.”

“Next day being Sunday, I went to meeting and heard the letter read. Volunteers were called for and I was the first to offer my service. . .”

“The next morning [Monday] we filed out of camp and went to Trading Point on the Missouri River, where the Battalion was camped for a few days. We took up our line of march for Fort Leavenworth where we received our arms and camp equipment. We had the privilege of drawing our clothes or the money in lieu thereof. Most of the Battalion men received the money and sent the greater portion of it back to our families. We moved out a short distance from Fort Leavenworth and went into camp waiting for Col. Allen, who was sick at the fort. On learning that Col. Allen was dead, Lieutenant Smith was given command of the Battalion and he put on a forced march to Santa Fe.”

“When we got to Santa Fe we drew all of our money and sent a portion of it back to our families. Col. Cooke was left at Santa Fe by order of General Kearney to take command of the Battalion and lead it to California. At Santa Fe I was detailed as assistant teamster to Hyrum from guard duty. One detachment of the Battalion consisting of the women and sick men were sent to Benton’s Fort to winter and another detachment sent will refer the reader to [Daniel] Tyler’s History. I will add, however, that on the 27^th of January we reached San Luis Mission where we remained a short time. Then we moved up to Los Angeles at which place we remained until we were discharged on the 16^th day of July.”

“Having drawn our pay and procured an outfit, we prepared to return to our homes by way of Sutter’s Fort and across the North Pass of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Old Emigrant Trail. While crossing the mountains we met Captain Brown and Sam Brannon from Salt Lake Valley. Brown, to draw the pay for his company, and Brannon to meet the company of Saints who had gone to California by water.”

“The returning men of the Battalion divided into three squads on their return trip, and I was in company with Brothers Tyler, Hancock and others. We met Brown near where the company of emigrants, enroute to California, had perished the winter before, and saw the skeletons and bones of those unfortunate people lying on the ground unburied. Brown brought word from Brigham Young that those of the Battalion who had not provisions to last them into Salt Lake Valley had better remain in California during the winter. Some of the brethren turned back and few others continued eastward. I was in the latter number and we arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 16^th of October, 1847. After resting awhile, we proceeded on our journey towards the Missouri.”

~Anita Hicks~

The Mormon Battalion

The Mormon Battalion

Sam Brannon and the saints on the ship Brooklyn arrived in Yerba Buena in July of 1846. That same month, 541 men enlisted in what has become known as the Mormon Battalion. When war broke out with Mexico, President James K. Polk sent messengers to the beleaguered saints moving across Iowa. Brigham Young was informed that if he enlisted 500 of his men for a year, they would be paid for their service. This opportunity to serve the country appeared to be a real boon to Brigham Young. He said, “Let the Mormons be the first [U.S. soldiers] to set their feet on the soil of California” (Macomber, “The Mormon Battalion,” Friend, July 1996). He encouraged their service and gathered them together before they left. Brother Brigham made a promise that “on condition of faithfulness,” they would be spared from battle, their expedition would result in great good, and their names would “be handed down in honorable remembrance to all generations” (Urtinus, Journal of William Hyde, July 18,1846; 1:60). Brigham had good reason to recognize this as an opportunity. The saints could show their loyalty to the country while earning money for their families. (Macomber, “Exploring,” Friend, July 1996).

“On July 21, 1846, the Mormon Battalion began their march. There were thirty-five women and forty-two children, most of whom were families of the soldiers who accompanied the battalion on their journey” (Macomber, “Exploring,” Friend, July 1996). The women were employed as seamstresses, laundresses, and cooks for the marching men.

Five companies of men endured brutal forced marches by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Jackson Smith who replaced Lieutenant J. Allen whom the battalion had greatly admired. If marching through desert sands without sufficient water weren’t enough, the men who became ill, suffered from the battalion’s brutal doctor. His treatment for all ailments was a spoonful of calomel and arsenic. Daniel Tyler wrote in his memoirs the doctor was tyrannical, abusive, cruel, and wicked. “It appears that the Colonel and Surgeon are determined to kill us, first by forced marches to make us sick, then by compelling us to take calomel or to walk and do duty” (Tyler, A Concise History, 160).

The battalion arrived at their California destination shortly after the Mexicans surrendered in January 1847. The promise Brigham Young declared had been fulfilled in the sense they never engaged in battle. It took them six months through the most miserable conditions to arrive; six months later they were discharged. Eighty-one were pressured to re-enlist for another six to eight months.

As the majority of the Battalion members were mustered out July 16, 1847, they were anxious to reunite with their wives and families. Many of them traveled northeast, where they were met by Sam Brannon along with a few members of the Mormon Battalion sick detachment who had wintered at Pueblo, Colorado. Brannon’s group made a hasty trip to California to secure back wages for those in the sick detachment; those who became too ill to continue the march. They traversed the same route through the Truckee Meadows as before.

Brannon’s group also carried a message from Brigham Young stating the scarcity of supplies necessitated the single men of the Battalion stay in California. They were directed to seek gainful employment for the winter before they resumed their trek to Utah, which they did. Some of these men went to work for John Sutter who employed them to build a mill at Coloma and Natoma. As luck would have it, six of these Battalion men were with James Marshall at Coloma when gold was discovered on January 24, 1848. One of the Battalion veterans at the site was Henry Bigler who recounted the initial discovery in his journal. It is from his diary the official account of the event is taken.

When the Mormon Battalion finally finished their long, arduous, 18-month trek from Iowa, back again to Winter Quarters, they had walked 4,000 miles in all. Many of them found their families had not fared much better than themselves. The ultimate goal of securing funds and showing loyalty to the government had been achieved with a toll: some of their family members had died and some of their wives had given birth under extreme poverty. Both battalion men and their families had been refined by fire. Dire circumstances either broke them or made them stronger.

Those who profited from their experience in pioneering went on to great leadership in religious as well as community affairs. Early western history would never be the same if it weren’t for many of the battalion members who broke ground for agriculture or who colonized and organized cities throughout the future states of Arizona, California, Utah, and just as importantly, Nevada.

Samuel Brannon: California's First Millionaire

Samuel Brannon       

The year 1846 was a precipitous year for the church. The saints who had been expelled from Nauvoo were trailing across the continent. Their progress had been excruciatingly slow being hindered by hardships and weather conditions.

In the meantime, 238 saints answered the call to gather in a different fashion. Samuel Brannon advertised in the New York Messenger, a Mormon newspaper, that he had chartered a ship, the Brooklyn (Davies, Mormon Gold). The small, well-used ship began its arduous journey on the same day as the saints who trudged west by wagon in February.

Sam Brannon was appointed by Elder Orson Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to lead this little band on a 24,000-mile voyage. He presided as they journeyed around South America’s Cape Horn to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and then on to California, crossing the equator twice in the meantime. Most of them survived cramped living conditions, sickness, harsh weather, boredom, and storms that blew them off course. At the worst of times, these saints would be found praying and singing.

The Brooklyn Ship saints arrived in Yerba Buena (San Francisco) in July 1846, months before President Young departed Winter Quarters for the Rockies. The Brooklyn saints had no choice but to remain in California until they knew where the main body of the church would settle. It didn’t take long before the group determined that California should be the saints’ resting place with the obvious temperate climate and conditions that California offered. They established the first school, the first post office, first bank and first library in Northern California with the heavy supplies that Brigham sent on the ship with them. Brigham Young charged them to travel with the large bulky supplies of essentials since it would have been more difficult to carry them in wagons across prairies, deserts and mountains.

In the spring of 1847, Brother Brannon along with two other companions rode east from California to Nevada via San Francisco through the Truckee River route to find Brother Brigham. Sam found the early vanguard group in Green River, Wyoming. He tried repeatedly to persuade Brigham to settle in Northern California and take advantage of the rich opportunities there. Brigham Young responded, “Let us go to California, and we cannot stay there over five years; but let us stay in the mountains, and we can raise our own potatoes, and eat them; and I calculate to stay here” (Widtsoe, Discourses of Brigham Young, pg 475). The saints had been pushed out of lands that other people desired; now they would try land that nobody desired.

Sam stayed with the main body of the saints for 10 days, but because of his obstinate and self-serving nature, he returned to California disappointed by Brigham’s decision. As he returned to California, he used the same trail as before. Thus, Sam and his traveling companions were another early group of members to venture into what we know as the Truckee Meadows. As he approached the top of the Sierra Mountain pass, he stopped to talk to a group of Mormon Battalion members heading east to join the saints on the plains. Sam used his persuasive powers of speech to sow seeds of discontent by encouraging the men to stay in California rather than join with Brigham.

Sam had an illustrious career as a businessman, contributing to his famous place in history. Some of his fellow ship mates who accompanied him on the Brooklyn criticized him for his greed and exploitation while others under his stewardship were starving and struggling. James Skinner recorded in his autobiography, “The president of the company, Sam Brannon, he and his family lived high at the expense of the poor and needy, the widows and orphans. What he didn’t need [he] sold, which laid the foundation for wealth that he afterwards accumulated” (Kenneth N. Owens, Gold Rush Saints, pg.44).

When gold was discovered at Coloma, California, on January 24, 1848, Brannon immediately established a store near Sutter’s Fort in anticipation of the gold rush. He then appropriated the church printing press to print a special edition paper broadcasting the rich gold stike. He hired Mormon Battalion men to take the papers east while he rode his horse to San Francisco to make the announcement. Sam stepped off the ferry, “took his hat off and swung it, shouting aloud that gold was found” (Kenneth N. Owens, Gold Rush Saints, pg.131).

 As a result of his entrepreneurial spirit, Brannon became California’s first millionaire. Among his many accomplishments, he helped map out and plan the city of Sacramento as well as promote growth in Nevada by investing heavily in the Comstock Lode silver mines. Without Sam’s announcement in his newspaper, The California Star, the gold rush would not have been broadcast so far and wide so quickly. More than any other person, he was the catalyst that sparked the flurry of activity through the Truckee Meadows area as well as California.

Brigham Young requested that Sam join with the main body of saints. Instead of complying with Brigham’s desires and strong sentiments to stay in Utah, Sam went back to California directing his attention toward investments, business and power. He had many business ventures along with land holdings, but eventually his fortune changed. His family fell apart. When he died, he was broken both spiritually and physically. He died a pauper and for two years no one claimed his body for burial.