With the return of the people to their homes, the peaceful avocations of life in Utah were resumed. The federal judges received assignments to their districts, and the other federal officers took possession of their offices. Chief Justice Eckles selected as his place of residence Camp Floyd, as General Johnston's camp was named; Judge Sinclair's district included Salt Lake City, and Judge Cradlebaugh's the southern part of the state.
Judge Cradlebaugh, who conceived it to be a judge's duty to see that crime was punished, took steps at once to secure indictments in connection with the notorious murders committed during the "Reformation," and we have seen in a former chapter with what poor results. He also personally visited the Mountain Meadows, talked with whites and Indians cognizant with the massacre, and, on affidavits sworn to before him, issued warrants for the arrest of Haight, Higbee, Lee, and thirty-four others as participants therein. In order to hold court with any prospect of a practical result, a posse of soldiers was absolutely necessary, even for the protection of witnesses; but Governor Cumming, true to the reputation he had secured as a Mormon ally, declared that he saw no necessity for such use of federal troops, and requested their removal from Provo, where the court was in session; and when the judge refused to grant his request, he issued a proclamation in which he stated that the presence of the military had a tendency "to disturb the peace and subvert the ends of justice." Before this dispute had proceeded farther, General Johnston received an order from Secretary Floyd, approved by Attorney General Black, directing that in future he should instruct his troops to act as a posse comitatus only on the written application of Governor Cumming. Thus did the church win one of its first victories after the reestablishment of "peace."
An incident in Salt Lake City at this time might have brought about a renewal of the conflict between federal and Mormon forces. The engraver of a plate with which to print counterfeit government drafts, when arrested, turned state's evidence and pointed out that the printing of the counterfeits had been done over the "Deseret Store" in Salt Lake City, which was on Young's premises. United States Marshal Dotson secured the plate, and with it others, belonging to Young, on which Deseret currency had been printed. This seemed to bring the matter so close to Young that officers from Camp Floyd called on Governor Cumming to secure his cooperation in arresting Young should that step be decided on. The governor refused with indignation to be a party to what he called "creeping through walls," that is, what he considered a roundabout way to secure Young's arrest; and, when it became rumored in the city that General Johnston would use his troops without the governor's cooperation Cumming directed Wells, the commander of the Nauvoo Legion, who had so recently been in rebellion against the government, to hold his militia in readiness for orders. Wells is quoted by Bancroft as saying that he told Cumming, "We would not let them [the soldiers] come; that if they did come, they would never get out alive if we could help it."* The decision of the Washington authorities in favor of Governor Cumming as against the federal judges once more restored "peace." The only sufferer from this incident was Marshal Dotson, against whom Young, in his probate court, obtained a judgment of $2600 for injury to the Deseret currency plates, and a house belonging to Dotson, renting for $500 year, was sold to satisfy this judgment, and bought in by an agent of Young.
* "History of Utah," p. 573, note.
To complete the story of this forgery, it may be added that Brewer, the engraver who turned state's evidence, was shot down in Main Street, Salt Lake City, one evening, in company with J. Johnson, a gambler who had threatened to shoot a Mormon editor. A man who was a boy at the time gave J. H. Beadle the particulars of this double murder as he received it from the person who lighted a brazier to give the assassin a sure aim.* The coroner's jury the next day found that the men shot one another!
* "Polygamy," p. 192.
Soon all public attention throughout the country was centred in the coming conflict in the Southern states. In May, 1860, the troops at Camp Floyd departed for New Mexico and Arizona, only a small guard being left under command of Colonel Cooke. In May, 1861, Governor Cumming left Salt Lake City for the east so quietly that most of the people there did not hear of his departure until they read it in the local newspapers. He soon after appeared in Washington, and after some delay obtained a pass which permitted his passage through the Confederate lines. When the Southern rebellion became a certainty, Colonel Cooke and his force were ordered to march to the East in the autumn, after selling vast quantities of stores in Camp Floyd, and destroying the supplies and ammunition which they could not take away. Such a slaughter of prices as then occurred was, perhaps, without precedent. It was estimated that goods costing $4,000,000 brought only $100,000. Young had preached non-intercourse with the Gentile merchants who followed the army, but he could not lose so great an opportunity as this, when, for instance, flour costing $28.40 per sack sold for 52 cents, and he invested $4,000. "For years after," says Stenhouse, "the 'regulation blue pants' were more familiar to the eye, in the Mormon settlements, than the Valley Tan Quaker gray."
When Governor Cumming left the territory, the secretary, Francis H. Wooton, became acting governor. He made himself very offensive to the administration at Washington, and President Lincoln appointed Frank Fuller, of New Hampshire, secretary of the territory in his place, and Mr. Fuller proceeded at once to Salt Lake City, where he became acting governor. Later in the year the other federal offices in Utah were filled by the appointment of John W. Dawson, of Indiana, as governor, John F. Kinney as chief justice, and R. P. Flenniken and J. R. Crosby as associate justices.
The selection of Dawson as governor was something more than a political mistake. He was the editor and publisher of a party newspaper at Fort Wayne, Indiana, a man of bad morals, and a meddler in politics, who gave the Republican managers in his state a great deal of trouble. The undoubted fact seems to be that he was sent out to Utah on the recommendation of Indiana politicians of high rank, who wanted to get rid of him, and who gave no attention whatever to the requirements of his office. Arriving at his post early in December, 1861, the new governor incurred the ill will of the Mormons almost immediately by vetoing a bill for a state convention passed by the territorial legislature, and a memorial to Congress in favor of the admission of the territory as a state (which Acting Governor Fuller approved). They were very glad, therefore, to take advantage of any mistake he might make; and he almost at once gave them their opportunity, by making improper advances to a woman whom he had employed to do some work. She, as Dawson expressed it to one of his colleagues, "was fool enough to tell of it," and Dawson, learning immediately that the Mormons meditated a severe vengeance, at once made preparations for his departure.
The Deseret News of January 1, 1862, in an editorial on the departure of the governor, said that for eight or ten days he had been confined to his room and reported insane; that, when he left, he took with him his physician and four guards, "to each of whom, as reported last evening, $100 is promised in the event that they guard him faithfully, and prevent his being killed or becoming qualified for the office of chamberlain in the King's palace, till he shall have arrived at and passed the eastern boundary of the territory." After indicating that he had committed an offence against a lady which, under the common law, if enforced, "would have caused him to have bitten the dust," the News added: "Why he selected the individuals named for his bodyguard no one with whom we have conversed has been able to determine. That they will do him justice, and see him safely out of the territory, there can be no doubt."