Kane—"Yes. He was opposed by the Arkansas member and a few others, but they were treated as fools by more sagacious members; for, if the Delegate had been refused his seat, it would have been TANTAMOUNT TO A DECLARATION OF WAR."
"I suppose they [the Cabinet] are united in putting down Utah?"
Kane—"I think not."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 203.
Kane was placed as a guest, still incognito, in the house of an elder, and, after a few days' rest, he set out for Camp Scott. His course on arriving there, on March 10, was again characteristic of the crafty emissary. Not even recognizing the presence of the military so far as to reply to a sentry's challenge, the latter fired on him, and he in turn broke his own weapon over the sentry's head. When seized, he asked to be taken to Governor Cumming, not to General Johnston.* "The compromise," explains Tullidge, "which Buchanan had to effect with the utmost delicacy, could only be through the new governor, and that, too, by his heading off the army sent to occupy Utah." A fancied insult from General Johnston due to an orderly's mistake led Kane to challenge the general to a duel; but a meeting was prevented by an order from Judge Eckles to the marshal to arrest all concerned if his command to the contrary was not obeyed.
"Governor Cumming," continued Tullidge, "could do nothing less than espouse the cause of the `ambassador' who was there in the execution of a mission intrusted to him by the President of the United States."**
* Colonel Johnston was made a brigadier general that winter.
** Kane brought an impudent letter from Young, saying that he had
learned that the United States troops were very destitute of provisions,
and offering to send them beef cattle and flour. General Johnston
replied to Kane that he had an abundance of provisions, and that, no
matter what might be the needs of his army, he "would neither ask nor
receive from President Young and his confederates any supplies while
they continued to be enemies of the government" Kane replied to this the
next day, expressing a fear that "it must greatly prejudice the public
interest to refuse Mr. Young's proposal in such a manner," and begging
the general to reconsider the matter. No farther notice seems to have
been taken of the offer.
Kane did not make any mistake in his selection of the person to approach in camp. Judged by the results, and by his admissions in after years, the most charitable explanation of Cumming's course is that he was hoodwinked from the beginning by such masters in the art of deception as Kane and Young. A woman in Salt Lake City, writing to her sons in the East at the time, described the governor as in "appearance a very social, good-natured looking gentleman, a good specimen of an old country aristocrat, at ease in himself and at peace with all the world."* Such a man, whom the acts and proclamations and letters of Young did not incite to indignation, was in a very suitable frame of mind to be cajoled into adopting a policy which would give him the credit of bringing about peace, and at the same time place him at the head of the territorial affairs.
* New York Herald, July 2, 1858. For personal recollections of
Cumming, see Perry's "Reminiscences of Public Men," p. 290. What is said
by Governor Perry of Cumming's Utah career is valueless.