* Greeley's leaning to the Mormon side was quite persistent,
leading him to support Governor Cumming a little later against the
federal judges. The Mormons never forgot this. A Washington letter
of April 24, 1874, to the New York Times said: "When Mr. Greeley was
nominated for President the Mormons heartily hoped for his election. The
church organs and the papers taken in the territory were all hostile to
the administration, and their clamor deceived for a time people far more
enlightened than the followers of the modern Mohammed. It is said
that, while the canvass was pending, certain representatives of the
Liberal-Democratic alliance bargained with Brigham Young, and that he
contributed a very large sum of money to the treasury of the Greeley
fund, and that, in consideration of this contribution, he received
assurances that, if he should send a polygamist to Congress, no
opposition would be made by the supporters of the administration that
was to be, to his admission to the House. Brigham therefore sent Cannon
instead of returning Hooper."
** It is curious to notice that the Utah troubles are entirely
ignored in the "Life of James Buchanan" (1883) by George Ticknor Curtis,
who was the counsel for the Mormons in the argument concerning polygamy
before the United States Supreme Court in 1886.
Early in 1856 arrangements were entered into with H. C. Kimball for a contract to carry the mail between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City. Young saw in this the nucleus of a big company that would maintain a daily express and mail service to and from the Mormon centre, and he at once organized the Brigham Young Express Carrying Company, and had it commended to the people from the pulpit. But recent disclosures of Mormon methods and purposes had naturally caused the government to question the propriety of confiding the Utah and transcontinental mails to Mormon hands, and on June 10, 1857, Kimball was notified that the government would not execute the contract with him, "the unsettled state of things at Salt Lake City rendering the mails unsafe under present circumstances." Mormon writers make much of the failure to execute this mail contract as an exciting cause of the "war." Tullidge attributes the action of the administration to three documents—a letter from Mail Contractor W. M. F. Magraw to the President, describing the situation in Utah, Judge Drummond's letter of resignation, and a letter from Indian Agent T. S. Twiss, dated July 13, 1856, informing the government that a large Mormon colony had taken possession of Deer Creek Valley, only one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, driving out a settlement of Sioux whom the agent had induced to plant corn there, and charging that the Mormon occupation was made with a view to the occupancy of the country, and "under cover of a contract of the Mormon church to carry the mails."* Tullidge's statement could be made with hope of its acceptance only to persons who either lacked the opportunity or inclination to ascertain the actual situation in Utah and the President's sources of information.
* All these may be found in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session,
35th Congress.
As to the mails, no autocratic government like that of Brigham Young would neglect to make what use it pleased of them in its struggle with the authorities at Washington. As early as November, 1851, Indian Agent Holman wrote to the Indian commissioner at Washington from Salt Lake City: "The Gentiles, as we are called who do not belong to the Mormon church, have no confidence in the management of the post-office here. It is believed by many that there is an examination of all letters coming and going, in order that they may ascertain what is said of them and by whom it is said. This opinion is so strong that all communications touching their character or conduct are either sent to Bridger or Laramie, there to be mailed. I send this communication through a friend to Laramie, to be there mailed for the States."
Testimony on this point four years later, from an independent source, is found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855, to the New York Herald. The writer said: "From September 5, to the 27th instant the people of this territory had not received any news from the States except such as was contained in a few broken files of California papers.... Letters and papers come up missing, and in the same mail come papers of very ancient dates; but letters once missing may be considered as irrevocably lost. Of all the numerous numbers of Harper's, Gleason's, and other illustrated periodicals subscribed for by the inhabitants of this territory, not one, I have been informed, has ever reached here." The forces selected for the expedition to Utah consisted of the Second Dragoons, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth in view of possible trouble in Kansas; the Fifth Infantry, stationed at that time in Florida; the Tenth Infantry, then in the forts in Minnesota; and Phelps's Battery of the Fourth Artillery, that had distinguished itself at Buena Vista—a total of about fifteen hundred men. Reno's Battery was added later.
General Scott's order provided for two thousand head of cattle to be driven with the troops, six months' supply of bacon, desiccated vegetables, 250 Sibley tents, and stoves enough to supply at least the sick. General Scott himself had advised a postponement of the expedition until the next year, on account of the late date at which it would start, but he was overruled. The commander originally selected for this force was General W. S. Harney; but the continued troubles in Kansas caused his retention there (as well as that of the Second Dragoons), and, when the government found that the Mormons proposed serious resistance, the chief command was given to Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a West Point graduate, who had made a record in the Black Hawk War; in the service of the state of Texas, first in 1836 under General Rusk, and eventually as commander-in-chief in the field, and later as Secretary of War; and in the Mexican War as colonel of the First Texas Rifles. He was killed at the battle of Shiloh during the War of the Rebellion.
General Harney's letter of instruction, dated June 29, giving the views of General Scott and the War Department, stated that the civil government in Utah was in a state of rebellion; he was to attack no body of citizens, however, except at the call of the governor, the judges, or the marshals, the troops to be considered as a posse comitatus; he was made responsible for "a jealous, harmonious, and thorough cooperation" with the governor, accepting his views when not in conflict with military judgment and prudence. While the general impression, both at Washington and among the troops, was that no actual resistance to this force would be made by Young's followers, the general was told that "prudence requires that you should anticipate resistance, general, organized, and formidable, at the threshold."
Great activity was shown in forwarding the necessary supplies to Fort Leavenworth, and in the last two weeks of July most of the assigned troops were under way. Colonel Johnston arrived at Fort Leavenworth on September 11, assigned six companies of the Second Dragoons, under Lieutenant Colonel P. St. George Cooke, as an escort to Governor Cumming, and followed immediately after them. Major (afterward General) Fitz John Porter, who accompanied Colonel Johnston as assistant adjutant general, describing the situation in later years, said:—
"So late in the season had the troops started on this march that fears were entertained that, if they succeeded in reaching their destination, it would be only by abandoning the greater part of their supplies, and endangering the lives of many men amid the snows of the Rocky Mountains. So much was a terrible disaster feared by those acquainted with the rigors of a winter life in the Rocky Mountains, that General Harney was said to have predicted it, and to have induced Walker [of Kansas] to ask his retention."