Far from the realms where civilization reigns,
Where Freedom's bastards bind her sons in chains,
They sought a home within the western wild,
And fraternized the forest's dusky child;
No fiercer found, less savage in the test,
Than priestly tyrants trampling the oppressed.
Journeying towards the Missouri river they founded temporary settlements, or "traveling stakes of Zion," recruiting their strength with needed rest along the way, and putting in crops for their own use or for their brethren to reap who came after them. Two of these settlements were named Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah, the latter over a hundred miles in the rear of the vanguard now resting on the Missouri river.
It was the design of the leaders to leave the main body of the people in these places, while they, with a picked band of pioneers, hastened on to the Rocky Mountains that season. But an incident now occurred which changed their plans and delayed the departure of the pioneers until the following spring.
Word was brought to head-quarters on the Missouri, that a United States army officer with a squad of soldiers had arrived at Mt. Pisgah, with a requisition for five hundred men, to be furnished by the Mormons, to enter the army and march to California to take part in the war against Mexico.
Imagination can alone picture the surprise, almost dismay, with which this startling news was received. What! the nation whose people had thrust them from its borders, robbed them of their homes and driven them into the wilderness, where it was hoped they might perish, now calling upon them for aid? And this in full face of the fact that their own oft reiterated appeals for help had been denied?
It was even so; five hundred able-bodied men, the flower of the camp, were wanted. And this in the heart of an Indian country, in the midst of an exodus unparalleled for its dangers and hardships, when every active man was needed as a bulwark of defense and a staff for the aged and feeble. For even delicate women, thus far, had in some instances been driving teams and tending stock, owing to the limited number of men available.
On the other hand, it was their country calling, and these sons and daughters of the pilgrims and patriots loved their country, loved its institutions and its laws, though the government of that country, in the hands of self-seeking demagogues and politicians, had been as a cruel step-mother rather than a tender parent to them.
What was to be done? What would the leaders decide to do? Such were the questions that flew like lightning through the camp, as these thoughts came rushing to mind. They were not left long unanswered.
On the 1st of July, Capt. James Allen, the recruiting officer, acting under orders of Col. S. F. Kearney at Fort Leavenworth, having arrived at "The Bluffs," went into council with Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, George A. Smith, John Taylor, John Smith and Levi Richards. Wilford Woodruff was at Mount Pisgah, where he had received Captain Allen and his party a few days before. The brethren were assured that the offer to accept the services of a battalion of Mormon soldiers in the Mexican war, was made by the government in kindness, and meant as a means of assistance to the community, whose young and intelligent men might thus proceed, at the government's expense, to the ultimate destination of their whole people, and look out the land and prepare the way for their brethren who came after them. This was the object, it was said, quite as much as to enlist their services in their country's cause.
Whether convinced or not that such was the case, the result of the council's deliberations was a resolve to raise the troops. Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, in the role of recruiting sergeants, at once set out for Mt. Pisgah, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, to execute the order for the Battalion. Colonel Thomas L. Kane, that noble friend of the Mormon people, who had arrived at the Bluffs, thus summarizes the result: "A central mass meeting for council, some harangues at the more remotely scattered camps, an American flag brought out from the storehouse of things rescued, and hoisted to the top of a tree-mast, and, in three days, the force was reported, mustered, organized and ready to march."