The families who had traveled with Elder Taylor from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs, desired to be again enrolled in the company in which he traveled. That request was granted, and they were chiefly enrolled in the first fifty of the hundred of which Edward Hunter, afterwards Presiding Bishop of the Church, was the captain, and Joseph Horne was captain of the fifty.
In preparing for this journey Elder Taylor was kept extremely busy. Wagons had to be overhauled, tires re-set, horses and oxen to be collected and shod, supplies obtained, and only a limited number of hands with which to accomplish it all; for five hundred able-bodied men, it will be remembered, had been taken into the service of the United States, and about one hundred and forty more had gone as pioneers, and those who from their circumstances had to remain at Winter Quarters were busily engaged in putting in crops for supplies for another season.
During the early part of June, however, some six hundred wagons gathered on the Elk Horn ready to start. There were 1553 souls in the company, 2213 oxen, 124 horses, 887 cows, many of which had to do service under the yoke, 358 sheep, 716 chickens and a number of pigs.
On the 21st and 22nd of June this large company began its journey. It was late in the season for starting on such an expedition. It was too late for them to put in crops that season, even if they stopped far short of the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. They barely had provisions to last them a year and a half, and if their first crop failed, starvation must follow, for they would be from ten to fifteen hundred miles from the nearest point where food could be obtained, and no swifter means of transportation than horse or ox teams!
It was a bold undertaking, this moving over fifteen hundred souls—more than half of whom were women and children—into an unknown country, through hostile tribes of savages. Had it not been for the assurance of the support and protection of Jehovah, it would have been not only a bold but a reckless movement—the action of madmen. But as it was, the undertaking was a sublime evidence of their faith in God and their leaders.
This company differed from the pioneers. The latter was made up of able-bodied men, excepting three women—none were helpless. They had the best of teams, and if they failed in finding a place of settlement they could return to the place of starting. Meantime their families were not endangered. They were secure at Winter Quarters. Not so with the Pratt and Taylor company. They had their all upon the altar, including their wives and children, who must share their hardships and their fate. They knew not their destination, they entrusted all on a single venture, from which there was no chance of retreat. If they should fail to find a suitable location and raise a crop the first season, there was no getting provisions to them, nor them to provisions. They must succeed, or perish in the wilderness to which they had started. With a faith that has never been surpassed, they placed themselves under the guidance and protection of their God, and we shall see in the sequel that they trusted not in vain.
CAMP AT WOOD RIVER
Usually on the journey this great camp traveled in sections of one hundred wagons each. The company in which Apostle Pratt traveled took the lead, and the one in which Elder Taylor traveled followed next, and then the others in their order. Between the hundreds in which Elders Taylor and Pratt traveled was a company of artillery, commanded by Charles C. Rich. When feed for the cattle was scarce, or roads bad, or water not abundant, then they traveled fifty wagons in a section, but always sufficiently near each other to readily unite for protection in case of an assault from the Indians. When the prairies were wide and the ground unbroken, two companies often traveled abreast. Crossing the level plains that now form the state of Nebraska, they came in contact with immense herds of buffalo, which supplied them with plenty of beef. Public prayer was offered up daily in the camps. Sunday was observed as a day of rest, religious services were held in each camp, and the stillness of the great wilderness of the west was broken by Saints singing the songs of Zion.
Thus day after day, week after week, the sections of the great company drew their slow length along, until the wide spreading plains of La Platte are behind them, they enter the Black Hills and at last approach the Rocky Mountains.