The Great Salt Lake Trail

by Henry Inman; Buffalo Bill

But the troubles of the hand-cart emigrants were not yet at an end. Some were already beyond all human aid, some had lost their reason, and around others the blackness of despair had settled, all efforts to rouse them from their stupor being unavailing. Each day the weather grew colder, and many were frost-bitten, losing fingers, toes, or ears, one sick man who held on to the wagon bars to avoid jolting having all his fingers frozen. At a camping-ground at Willow Creek, a tributary of the Sweetwater, fifteen people were buried, thirteen of them having been frozen to death. Near South Pass another company of the brethren met them, with supplies from Salt Lake City, and from the trees near their camp several quarters of fat beef were suspended—“a picture,” says Chislett, who had charge of one of the companies, “that far surpassed the paintings of the ancient masters.” From this point warm weather prevailed, and fresh teams from the valley constantly met them, distributing provisions sufficient for their needs, and then travelling eastward to meet the other company.

On reaching Salt Lake City on the 9th of November, it was found that sixty-seven out of a total of four hundred and twenty had died on the journey. Of the six hundred emigrants included in Martin's detachment, which arrived there three weeks later, a smaller percentage perished. The storm which overtook the party on the Sweetwater reached them on the North Platte. There they encamped and waited about ten days for the weather to moderate. Their rations were reduced to four ounces of flour per head a day, for a few days, until relief came. On arriving at Salt Lake City the survivors were received with the utmost kindness.

On their arrival at Devil's Gate on the Sweetwater, twenty men belonging to the other company were left in charge of stock, merchandise, and baggage, with orders to follow in the spring. The snow fell deep, and many of the cattle were devoured by the wolves, while others perished from cold. The rest were slaughtered, and on their frozen carcasses the men subsisted, their small stock of flour and salt now being exhausted. Game was scarce in the neighbourhood, and with their utmost care the supply of food could not hold out until spring. Two of the men, with the only horses that remained, were sent to Platte Bridge to obtain supplies; but the animals were lost, and they returned empty-handed. Presently the meat was all consumed, and then their only resource was the hides, which were cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water, after the hair had been removed. When the last hide had been eaten, nothing remained but their boot-tops and the scraps of leather from their wagon. Even the neck-piece of a buffalo-skin which had served as a door-mat was used for food. Thus they kept themselves alive until spring, when they subsisted on thistle-roots and wild garlic, until at length relief came from Salt Lake City.[17]

On the 5th of December, 1857, John B. Floyd, then Secretary of War, in his report to James Buchanan, President of the United States, states that the people of Utah implicitly obeyed their prophet, and that from the first day of their settlement in the territory it had been their aim to secede from the Union. He says that for years they had not even pretended obedience to Federal authority, and that they encouraged roaming bands of Indians to rob and massacre the emigrants bound for the Pacific coast.

Previous to the assembling of any troops for duty in Utah to enforce obedience to the laws of the government, an opinion was asked of General Winfield Scott, then commanding the army, as to the feasibility of sending an armed expedition into the territory. Scott's decision was most emphatically against the proposition to send troops there so late in the season. The general's advice was not heeded, however, and in May orders were promulgated that the Fifth and Tenth Infantry, the Second Dragoons, and a battery of the Fourth Artillery should assemble at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the Valley of the Salt Lake as their objective point.

In June, 1858, more than six thousand troops were mobilized for Utah, and the command was given to Brigadier-General W. S. Harney.

In the whole military history of the country, before the Civil War, no expedition had ever been better equipped and rationed than that which was to be called “The Army of Occupation in Utah.” Thousands of cattle and immense supply-trains were started across the plains in advance. The price for the transportation was twenty-two cents a pound.

These exorbitant contracts made the lucky individuals who had secured them very wealthy. By a little political wire-pulling he who had secured the flour contract obtained permission to provide the troops with Utah flour. It cost him but seven cents a pound, but he received the twenty-two cents which it would have cost to have transported it from the States.

This large army was stationed in Utah Territory for nearly four years. It is stated on good authority that the private soldiers asked of each other, “Why were we sent here? Why are we kept here?” while the common people wondered whether the authorities at Washington kept them there to make the contractors rich.

At that time the people of the territory were in a starving condition in consequence of the failure of crops and the unusually severe winter of 1856-1857. There were thousands who for over a year had never realized what a full meal meant; children by the hundreds “endured the gnawings of hunger until hunger had become to them a second nature”; yet despite this condition of affairs the orders issued to General Harney from Washington display a lamentable ignorance, or a determination to compel the Mormons to feed the troops on the basis of the miracle of “the loaves and fishes.” His instructions were as follows: It is not doubted that a surplus of provisions and forage, beyond the wants of the resident population, will be found in the Valley of Utah, and that the inhabitants, if assured by energy and justice, will be ready to sell them to the troops. Hence, no instructions are given you for the extreme event of the troops being in absolute need of such supplies, and their being with-held by the inhabitants. The necessities of such an occasion would furnish a law for your guidance.