Organization was a matter of only a few days before the column had been put into motion toward the west. There was no drill worthy of the name. There was establishment of companies simply as administrative units. Discipline seems to have been very lax indeed, even if there were periods in which severity of undue sort appears to have been made manifest by the superior officers.

Still more remarkable, the rank and file glorified in being men of peace, to whom strife was abhorrent. They were recruited from a people who had been driven from a home of prosperity and who at the time were encamped in most temporary fashion, awaiting the word of their leaders to pass on to the promised western Land of Canaan. For a part of the way there went with the Battalion parts of families, surely a very unmilitary proceeding, but most of people, whom they were to join later on the shore of the Great Salt Lake of which they knew so little. They were illy clad and shod, were armed mainly with muskets of type even then obsolete, were given wagon transportation from the odds and ends of a military post equipment and thus were set forth upon their great adventure.

Formation of the Mormon Battalion came logically as a part of the determination of the Mormon people to seek a new home in the West, for in 1846 there had come conclusion that no permanent peace could be known in Illinois or in any of the nearby States, owing to religious prejudice. The High Council had made announcement of the intention of the people to move to some good valleys of the Rocky Mountains. President Jesse C. Little of the newly created Eastern States Mission of the Church, was instructed to visit Washington and to secure, if possible, governmental assistance in the western migration. One suggestion was that the Mormons be sent to construct a number of stockade posts along the overland route. But, finally, after President Little had had several conferences with President Polk, there came decision to accept enlistment of a Mormon military command, for dispatch to the Pacific Coast. The final orders cut down the enlistment from a proffered 2000 to 500 individuals.

California Was the Goal

There should be understanding at the outset that the Mormon Battalion was a part of the volunteer soldiery of the Mexican War. At the time there was a regular army of very small proportions, and that was being held for the descent upon the City of Mexico, via Vera Cruz, under General Scott. General Taylor had volunteers for the greater part of his northern army in Mexico. Doniphan in his expedition into Chihuahua mainly had Missouri volunteers.

In California was looming a very serious situation. Only sailors were available to help American settlers in seizing and holding the coast against a very active and exceptionally well-provided and intelligent Mexican, or Spanish-speaking, opposition. Fremont and his "surveying party" hardly had improved the situation in bringing dissension into the American armed forces. General Kearny had been dispatched with all speed from Fort Leavenworth westward, with a small force of dragoons, later narrowly escaping disaster as he approached San Diego. There was necessity for a supporting party for Kearny and for poor vision of troops to enforce an American peace in California. To fill this breach, resort was had to the harassed and homeless Saints.

The route was taken along the Santa Fe trail, which then, in 1846, was in use mainly by buffalo hunters and western trading and trapping parties. It was long before the western migration of farm seekers, and the lure of gold yet was distant. There were unsatisfactory conditions of administration and travel, as narrated by historians of the command, mainly enlisted men, naturally with the viewpoint of the private soldier. But it happens that the details agree, in general, and indicate that the trip throughout was one of hardship and of denial. There came the loss of a respected commander and the temporary accession of an impolitic leader. Especially there was complaint over the mistaken zeal of an army surgeon, who insisted upon the administration of calomel and who denied the men resort to their own simple remedies, reinforced by expression of what must have been a very sustaining sort of faith.

A more popular, though strict, commander was found in Santa Fe, whence the Battalion was pushed forward again within five days, following Kearny to the Coast. The Rockies were passed through a trackless wilderness, yet on better lines than had been found by Kearny's horsemen. Arizona, as now known, was entered not far from the present city of Douglas. There were fights with wild bulls in the San Pedro valley, there was a bloodless victory in the taking of the ancient pueblo of Tucson, there was travail in the passage of the desert to the Gila and a brief respite in the plenty of the Pima villages before the weary way was taken down the Gila to the Colorado and thence across the sands of the Colorado desert, in California, to the shores of the western ocean.

All this was done on foot. The start from Leavenworth was in the heat of summer, August 12, 1846. Two months later Santa Fe was entered, Tucson was passed in December and on January 27, 1847, "was caught the first and a magnificent view of the great ocean; and by rare chance it was so calm that it shone like a great mirror."

In detail, the following description of the march, as far as Los Angeles, mainly is from the McClintock History of Arizona.