The march of the federal force that went from Santa Fe (where the Mormon Battalion arrived in October) to California was a notable one, over unexplored deserts, where food was scarce and water for long distances unobtainable. Arriving at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers on December 26, they received there an order to march to San Diego, California, and arrived there on January 29, after a march of over two thousand miles.
The war in California was over at that date, but the Battalion did garrison duty at San Luis Rey, and then at Los Angeles. Various propositions for their reenlistment were made to them, but their church officers opposed this, and were obeyed except in some individual instances. About 150 of those who set out from Santa Fe were sent back invalided before California was reached, and the number mustered out was only about 240. These at once started eastward, but, owing to news received concerning the hardships of the first Mormons who arrived in Salt Lake Valley, many of them decided to remain in California, and a number were hired by Sutter, on whose mill-race the first discovery of gold in that state was made. Those who kept on reached Salt Lake Valley on October 16, 1847. Thirty-two of their number continued their march to Winter Quarters on the Missouri, where they arrived on December 18.
Mormon historians not only present the raising of the Battalion as a proof of patriotism, but ascribe to the members of that force the credit of securing California to the United States, and the discovery of gold.*
* "The Mormons have always been disposed to overestimate the
value of their services during this period, attaching undue importance
to the current rumors of intending revolt on the part of the
Californians, and of the approach of Mexican troops to reconquer the
province. They also claim the credit of having enabled Kearney to
sustain his authority against the revolutionary pretensions of Fremont.
The merit of this claim will be apparent to the readers of preceding
chapters."—Bancroft, "History of California," Vol. V, p. 487.
When Elder Little left Washington for the West with despatches for General Kearney concerning the Mormon enlistments, he was accompanied by Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a brother of the famous Arctic explorer. On his way West Colonel Kane visited Nauvoo while the Hancock County posse were in possession of it, saw the expelled Mormons in their camp across the river, followed the trail of those who had reached the Missouri, and lay ill among them in the unhealthy Missouri bottom in 1847. From that time Colonel Kane became one of the most useful agents of the Mormon church in the Eastern states, and, as we shall see, performed for them services which only a man devoted to the church, but not openly a member of it, could have accomplished.
It was stated at the time that Colonel Kane was baptized by Young at Council Bluffs in 1847. His future course gives every reason to accept the correctness of this view. He served the Mormons in the East as a Jesuit would have served his order in earlier days in France or Spain. He bore false witness in regard to polygamy and to the character of men high in the church as unblushingly as a Brigham Young or a Kimball could have done. His lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1850 was highly colored where it stated facts, and so inaccurate in other parts that it is of little use to the historian. A Mormon writer who denied that Kane was a member of the church offered as proof of this the statement that, had Kane been a Mormon, Young would have commanded him instead of treating him with so much respect. But Young was not a fool, and was quite capable of appreciating the value of a secret agent at the federal capital.
CHAPTER IV. — THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI
Mormon accounts of the westward movement from Nauvoo represent that the delay which occurred when they reached the Missouri River was an interruption of their leaders' plans, attributing it to the weakening of their force by the enlistment of the Battalion, and the necessity of waiting for the last Mormons who were driven out of Nauvoo. But after their experiences in a winter march from the Mississippi, with something like a base of supplies in reach, it is inconceivable that the Council would have led their followers farther into the unknown West that same year, when their stores were so nearly exhausted, and there was no region before them in which they could make purchases, even if they had the means to do so.
When the Mormons arrived on the Missouri they met with a very friendly welcome. They found the land east of the river occupied by the Pottawottomi Indians, who had recently been removed from their old home in what is now Michigan and northern Illinois and Indiana; and the west side occupied by the Omahas, who had once "considered all created things as made for their peculiar use and benefit," but whom the smallpox and the Sioux had many years before reduced to a miserable remnant.