"On the 24th of July, 1857, I was in company with my husband and a goodly number of others at the Big Cottonwood Lake, near the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon, where we were celebrating the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in Salt Lake Valley, when word was brought to us that the United States mail for Utah was stopped, and that President James Buchanan was sending out an army to exterminate us. We turned to hear what President Young would say. In effect he said: 'If they ever get in, it will be because we will permit them to do so.'
"In September my husband went out into the mountains and stayed about four weeks, assisting in conducting the correspondence with the leaders of the invading army. Fear came upon the army, and they dared not come face to face with our people; so they stayed out in the mountains, while our people came home, excepting a few who remained to watch them.
"Soon after my husband's return, he married Sister Susan Elizabeth West, and brought her home.
"About this time I was having a new house built. One day, in the forenoon, I had been watching the men plastering it, and had been indulging in the pleasant thoughts that would naturally occur on such an occasion, when my husband came home and said it had been determined in council that all of our people were to leave their homes and go south, as it was thought wiser to do this than to fight the army. Accordingly, on the last day of March, 1858, Sister Susan, myself, and son and daughter, started south, bidding farewell to our home with much the same feelings that I had experienced at leaving Nauvoo.
"Peace having subsequently been restored, we returned to Salt Lake City on the third of July following. Instead of flowers, I found weeds as high as my head all around the house. When we entered the city it was near sunset; all was quiet; every door was shut and every window boarded up. I could see but two chimneys from which smoke was issuing. We were nearly the first that had returned. Being thus restored to my home again, I was happy and contented, although I had but few of the necessaries of life."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE WOMEN OF MORMONDOM IN THE PERIOD OF THE UTAH WAR—THEIR HEROIC RESOLVE TO DESOLATE THE LAND—THE SECOND EXODUS—MRS. CARRINGTON—GOVERNOR CUMMING'S WIFE—A NATION OF HEROES.
For an example of the heroism of woman excelling all other examples of history—at least of modern times—let us turn to that of the Mormon women during the Utah war.
In the expulsions from Missouri, first from county to county, and then en masse from the State, undoubtedly the Mormons yielded to the compulsion of a lawless mob, coupled with the militia of the State, executing the exterminating order of Governor Boggs. It was an example of suffering and martyrdom rather than of spontaneous heroism. Something of the same was illustrated in the expulsion from Illinois. It was at the outset nothing of choice, but all of compulsion. True, after the movement of the community, inspired by the apostolic forcefulness of Brigham Young and his compeers, swelled into a grand Israelitish exodus, then the example towered like a very pyramid of heroism; and in that immortal circumstance who can doubt that the heroic culminated in the women?
But what shall be said of their example during the Utah war? Here were women who chose and resolved to give an example to the civilized world such as it had never seen. The proposed exodus from Utah was not in the spirit of submission, but an exhibition of an invincible spirit finding a method of conquest through an exodus. This was not weakness, but strength. It was as though the accumulated might and concentrated purposes of their lives were brought into a supreme action. The example of the Utah war was in fact all their own. The Mormons were not subdued. Had the issue come, they would have left Utah as conquerors.