Forty-four men were placed under his command to perform this work, and all of them were soon impressed, even to alarm, by the very evident reliance of their leader upon the God of Israel rather than upon any merely human wisdom of his own.
The first capture was not difficult. After an all-night ride they came up with a supply-train of twenty-five wagons drawn by oxen. The captain of this train was ordered to “go the other way” until he reached the States. He started; but as he retraced his steps as often as they moved away, they at length burned his train and left him.
And then the recklessness of the new-fledged major became manifest. He sent one of his captains with twenty men to capture or stampede the mules of the Tenth Regiment, while he with the remainder of his force set off toward Sandy Fork in search of more wagon-trains. When his scouts late in the day reported a train of twenty-six wagons, he was advised by them that he ought not to attack it with so small a force; but to this advice he was deaf, rebuking the men for their little faith.
He allowed the train to proceed until after dark, and then drew cautiously near. Learning, however, that the drivers were drunk, he had his force lie concealed for a time, fearing that they might prove belligerent and thus compel him to shed blood, which he wished not to do.
At midnight the scouts reported that the train was drawn up in two lines for the night and that all was quiet. He mounted his command and ordered an advance. Approaching the camp, they discovered a fact that the scouts had failed to note; a second train had joined the first, and the little host of Israel was now confronted by twice the anticipated force. This discovery was made too late for them to retire unobserved. The men, however, expected their leader to make some inquiry concerning the road and then ride on. But they had not plumbed the depth of his faith.
As the force neared the camp-fire close to the wagons, the rear of the column was lost in the darkness. What the teamsters about the fire saw was an apparently endless column of men advancing upon them. Their leader halted the column, called for the captain of the train, ordered him to have his men stack their arms, collect their property, and stand by under guard. Dismounting from his horse, he fashioned a torch and directed one of the drivers to apply it to the wagons, in order that “the Gentiles might spoil the Gentiles.” By the time the teamsters had secured their personal belongings and a little stock of provisions for immediate necessity the fifty wagons were ablaze. The following day, on the Big Sandy, they destroyed another train and a few straggling sutlers’ wagons.
And so the campaign went forward. As the winter came on colder, the scouts brought in moving tales of the enemy’s discomfiture. Colonel Alexander of the Federal forces, deciding that the cañons could be defended by the Saints, planned to approach Salt Lake City over a roundabout route to the north. He started in heavy snow, cutting a road through the greasewood and sage-brush. Often his men made but three miles a day, and his supply-train was so long that sometimes half of it would be camped for the night before the rear wagons had moved. As there was no cavalry in the force the hosts of Israel harassed them sorely on this march, on one day consecrating eight hundred head of their oxen and driving them to Salt Lake.
Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the expedition, had also suffered greatly with his forces. The early snows deprived his stock of forage, and the unusual cold froze many oxen and mules.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke of the Second Dragoons, with whom travelled the newly appointed governor, was another to suffer. At Fort Laramie so many of his animals had dropped out that numbers of his men were dismounted, and the ambulances used to carry grain. Night after night they huddled at the base of cliffs in the fearful eddies of the snow, and heard above the blast the piteous cries of their famished and freezing stock. Day after day they pushed against the keen blades of the wind, toiling through frozen clouds and stinging ice blasts. The last thirty-five miles to Fort Bridger had required fifteen days, and at one camp on Black’s Fork, which they called the “camp of Death,” five hundred animals perished in a night.
Nor did the hardships of the troops end when they had all reached what was to be their winter quarters. Still a hundred and fifteen miles from the City of the Saints, they were poorly housed against the bitter cold, poorly fed, and insufficiently clothed, for the burning of the trains by the Lord’s hosts had reduced all supplies.