In the year 1857 amusements as well as business of all kinds received a sudden and severe shock from which it took a year or more to recover. In this year a rupture occurred between the Mormon chiefs and the United States Judges, which resulted in President Buchanan sending Albert Sidney Johnson to Utah with an army to crush the incipient rebellion. The heroes of the Social Hall stage now were cast to play more serious parts. The stage was now to be the tented field, their music, the roll of the drum and the ear-piercing fife.
"Jim" Ferguson, one of the leading actors, was Adjutant General of the "Nauvoo Legion," as the Territorial militia was called, and all the other stage heroes were enrolled under its banners. The "Legion" was sent out into the mountains to check the advance of the invading army. Not only did all amusement and business generally come to a sudden stop, but so serious was the situation that a general exodus of the people to the south was ordered by the church authorities and Salt Lake City was abandoned.
Meeting houses, theatre, stores and nearly all the dwellings in the city were vacated, and the intention was to burn the city rather than this "hell born" army should occupy and pollute it.
No occasion for carrying into effect this insane resolution transpired, for which the people have ever since been thankful. Soon after its adoption a better understanding was reached between the refractory Saints and Uncle Sam's government, and the people gradually came back to their homes in the city, glad indeed that the sacrificial torch had not been applied to them.
"The invading army" had passed peacefully through the city and made its encampment forty miles away. Things began to resume their normal condition, but the winter of 1857-8 was a blank in the Mormon amusement field.
CHAPTER III.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried;
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums are changed to merry-meetings
And our dreadful marches to delighted measures.
—Richard III.
The Mormon war cloud that lowered so portentously during the winter of 1857-8 had been dispelled without bloodshed, and peace once more brooded over the land. The soldiers of the "Nauvoo Legion" had "hung up their un-bruised arms for monuments" and resumed their old avocations, and the wheels of trade, "the calm health of nations," were once again running in their accustomed grooves.
The people had set to work with redoubled energy to make up for the losses "the war" had entailed upon them, so that they had little time or inclination for amusement. The advent of Johnson's army into Utah, although encamped forty miles from the city, had its effect; it brought in its wake, as an army always does, a lot of camp followers,—hangers-on—a contingent that was thrown largely into Salt Lake, and not a desirable one. This made the Mormon people wary and suspicious, and inclined them more than ever to isolate themselves from strangers.