Elder Taylor brought his company up to the main encampment[[1]] at Council Bluffs on the 17th of June. Soon afterwards he was busily engaged with his brethren in raising a company of pioneers to go to the Rocky Mountains in advance of the main body of the people. He was going as one of this company and began putting his wagons in order.
It was in the midst of these preparations that Captain Allen of the United States army came to the encampment and called upon the Saints in the name of the United States for five hundred volunteers to march to California. The strained relations which for some time had existed between the United States and Mexico had resulted in a declaration of war, and an actual beginning of hostilities in May. It was part of General Scott's plan of campaign for the "Army of the West" to rendezvous at Fort Leavenworth, invade New Mexico and co-operate with a fleet which was to sweep around Cape Horn and attack the enemy on the Pacific coast of his territory. It was to assist in carrying out this part of the campaign that the exiled Saints were called upon to furnish five hundred men.
In that moment of supreme trial the leaders of the Church did not permit the memory of their wrongs to outweigh their patriotism. They resolved to raise the number of men required. For this purpose meetings were called and the proposition of enlistment made to the brethren. It was not at first received with much enthusiasm by the people. Perhaps they could not forget that the general government had witnessed without protest their expatriation and expulsion from the confines of the United States. They also remembered that their repeated appeals for justice had been met with repeated and increasing indifference, and it required no small amount of persuasion at the first to induce men to enlist.
In this work of arousing the people to trust the government of the United States to deal justly by them, no one was more earnest than Elder Taylor. In a speech he made at a meeting held in George A. Smith's camp, he said:
"Many have felt something like rebelling against the government of the United States. I have myself felt swearing mad at the government for the treatment we have received at the hands of those in authority, although I don't know that I ever swore much. We have had cause to feel as we have, and any man having a spark of the love of liberty in him would have felt likewise. We are now something like Abraham was, wandering about we know not whither, but fleeing from a land of tyranny and oppression."
He then explained that it was the present intention to settle in some part of California, which at that time belonged to Mexico; but to go there they must have a legal pretext else they would be regarded as interlopers. As the United States was at war with Mexico, they had a right, according to the law of nations, to invade her territory; and if they enlisted in the service of the United States they would have a right to go there; and as the stipulations offered by the government provided as the stipulations offered by the government provided for their being disbanded in California, they would be at or near the place of their proposed destination, with a right to remain. There they would be the "old settlers," and bringing in some thirty thousand people, there was a prospect of obtaining a state or territorial government, where they could live in peace. Their children could boast, too, that their fathers had fought and bled for their country. "Although," he remarked, "I do not think you will have much fighting to do. Still, I do not say this to encourage cowards to go on this expedition.
"A great many seem to distrust the government," he continued, "and are afraid they will not be carried to California, but be sent to Texas or somewhere else. They will not be—they need not fear. Who cannot trust the United States? Her flag floats over every ocean, and her ministry are in every nation. I know it is a great journey for a man to undertake and leave his family; but Captain Allen says he will give absolute permission for the families to remain here. He has also obtained a writing from the Pottawatamie sub-agency, signed by the chiefs and braves to that effect, so that everything is straightforward."
He concluded by making a motion that a body of five hundred men be raised, and make Captain Allen Lieutenant-Colonel, a promotion he had been promised providing he raised the battalion. That motion was carried.
It was the 30th of June that Captain Allen arrived at Council Bluffs and asked for the battalion, and by the 16th of July the men were organized and placed under his command, ready to start for Fort Leavenworth.
About the time the battalion was made up, the men Elder Taylor had sent out form his company to trade for corn and flour and to swap horses for cattle returned without having met with any success. "I now found myself in the wilderness without the means of procuring the necessary provisions for a year and a half;" and then he adds, half reflectively, "Twelve months prior to this time, I had ten thousand dollars' worth of property at my disposal!"