Meanwhile, the Mormons had received word of what was coming. When A. O. Smoot reached a point one hundred miles west of Independence, with the mail for Salt Lake City, he met heavy freight teams which excited his suspicion, and at Kansas City obtained sufficient particulars of the federal expedition. Returning to Fort Laramie, he and O. P. Rockwell started on July 18, in a light wagon drawn by two fast horses, to carry the news to Brigham Young. They made the 513 miles in five days and three hours, arriving on the evening of July 23. Undoubtedly they gave Young this important information immediately. But Young kept it to himself that night. On the following day occurred the annual celebration of the arrival of the pioneers in the valley. To the big gathering of Saints at Big Cottonwood Lake, twenty-four miles from the city, Young dramatically announced the news of the coming "invasion." His position was characteristically defiant. He declared that "he would ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the devil," and predicted that he would be President of the United States in twelve years, or would dictate the successful candidate. Recalling his declaration ten years earlier that, after ten years of peace, they would ask no odds of the United States, he declared that that time had passed, and that thenceforth they would be a free and independent state—the State of Deseret.
The followers of Young eagerly joined in his defiance of the government, and in the succeeding weeks the discourses and the editorials of the Deseret News breathed forth dire threats against the advancing foe. Thus, the News of August 12 told the Washington authorities, "If you intend to continue the appointment of certain officers,"—that is, if you do not intend to surrender to the church federal jurisdiction in Utah—"we respectfully suggest that you appoint actually intelligent and honorable men, who will wisely attend to their own duties, and send them unaccompanied by troops"—that is, judges who would acknowledge the supremacy of the Mormon courts, or who, if not, would have no force to sustain them. This was followed by a threat that if any other kind of men were sent "they will really need a far larger bodyguard than twenty-five hundred soldiers."* The government was, in another editorial, called on to "entirely clear the track, and accord us the privilege of carrying our own mails at our own expense," and was accused of "high handedly taking away our rights and privileges, one by one, under pretext that the most devilish should blush at."
* An Englishman, in a letter to the New York Observer, dated
London, May 26, 1857, said, "The English Mormons make no secret of
their expectation that a collision will take place with the American
authorities," and he quoted from a Mormon preacher's words as follows:
"As to a collision with the American Government, there cannot be two
opinions on the matter. We shall have judges, governors, senators and
dragoons invading us, imprisoning and murdering us; but we are prepared,
and are preparing judges, governors, senators and dragoons who will
know how to dispose of their friends. The little stone will come into
collision with the iron and clay and grind them to powder. It will be in
Utah as it was in Nauvoo, with this difference, we are prepared now for
offensive or defensive war; we were not then." Young in the pulpit was
in his element. One example of his declarations must suffice:—
"I am not going to permit troops here for the protection of the priests and the rabble in their efforts to drive us from the land we possess.... You might as well tell me that you can make hell into a powder house as to tell me that they intend to keep an army here and have peace.... I have told you that if there is any man or woman who is not willing to destroy everything of their property that would be of use to an enemy if left, I would advise them to leave the territory, and I again say so to-day; for when the time comes to burn and lay waste our improvements, if any man undertakes to shield his, he will be treated as a traitor; for judgment will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 160.
The official papers of Governor Young are perhaps the best illustrations of the spirit with which the federal authorities had to deal.
Words, however, were not the only weapons which the Mormons employed against the government at the start. Daniel H. Wells, "Lieutenant General" and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, which organization had been kept up in Utah, issued, on August 1, a despatch to each of twelve commanding officers of the Legion in the different settlements in the territory, declaring that "when anarchy takes the place of orderly government, and mobocratic tyranny usurps the powers of the rulers, they [the people of the territory] have left the inalienable right to defend themselves against all aggression upon their constitutional privileges"; and directing them to hold their commands ready to march to any part of the territory, with ammunition, wagons, and clothing for a winter campaign. In the Legion were enrolled all the able-bodied males between eighteen and forty-five years, under command of a lieutenant general, four generals, eleven colonels, and six majors.
The first mobilization of this force took place on August 15, when a company was sent eastward over the usual route to aid incoming immigrants and learn the strength of the federal force. By the employment of similar scouts the Mormons were thus kept informed of every step of the army's advance. A scouting party camped within half a mile of the foremost company near Devil's Gate on September 22, and did not lose sight of it again until it went into camp at Harris's Fort, where supplies had been forwarded in advance.
Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of General Harney's staff, was sent ahead of the troops, leaving Fort Leavenworth on July 28, to visit Salt Lake City, ascertain the disposition of the church authorities and the people toward the government, and obtain any other information that would be of use. Arriving in Salt Lake City in thirty three and a half days, he was received with affability by Young, and there was a frank interchange of views between them. Young recited the past trials of the Mormons farther east, and said that "therefore he and the people of Utah had determined to resist all persecution at the commencement, and that the TROOPS NOW ON THE MARCH FOR UTAH SHOULD NOT ENTER THE GREAT SALT LAKE VALLEY. As he uttered these words, all those present concurred most heartily."* Young said they had an abundance of everything required by the federal troops, but that nothing would be sold to the government. When told that, even if they did succeed in preventing the present military force from entering the valley the coming winter, they would have to yield to a larger force the following year, the reply was that that larger force would find Utah a desert; they would burn every house, cut down every tree, lay waste every field. "We have three years' provisions on hand," Young added, "which we will cache, and then take to the mountains and bid defiance to all the powers of the government."
* The quotations are from Captain Van Vliet's official report in
House Ex. Doc. No. 71, previously referred to. Tullidge's "History of
Salt Lake City" (p. 16l) gives extracts from Apostle Woodruff's private
journal of notes on the interview between Young and Captain Van Vliet,
on September 12 and 13, in which Young is reported as saying: "We do not
want to fight the United States, but if they drive us to it we shall do
the best we can. God will overthrow them. We are the supporters of the
constitution of the United States. If they dare to force the issue,
I shall not hold the Indians by the wrist any longer for white men to
shoot at them; they shall go ahead and do as they please."