The year after the area became a U.S. possession in 1848, the Mormons, with their strong affinity for the United States and the Constitution, petitioned for statehood. Instead, they were granted territorial status in 1850. States enjoyed considerable independence. The big national issue at the time was slavery. In some states it was legal; in others it was not. This, along with the officials of the state government, was determined by the voice of the people. The peculiar mindset of the people of each state was thus accomodated, within certain parameters.

In the territories, however, the top officials - the governor, the secretary, three judges who also comprised the territorial supreme court and the marshall - were all Presidential appointees. This was certainly the main problem which lead to the Utah War. Clearly, the Mormons were a peculiar people with an intense desire for self-government. They had demonstrated a remarkable willingness to be governed, but by leaders of their own choice.

For the Mormons, the issue was Constitutional rights. For the Federal Government, the issue was Constitutional authority. Being driven from their homes in Missouri and Illinois, the Mormons believed they had been denied their Constitutional rights to the free exercise of their religion. Further, from 1850-1857, Presidential appointees, some of whom the Mormons could not tolerate for various reasons, were imposed upon them. The President had been petitioned to select appointees from a supplied list of acceptable men. This was ignored resulting in considerable friction. Several appointees abandoned their positions and gave exaggerated and even fabricated reports of their negative experience. This was widely circulated in the press. As a result it was believed that the Mormons were in rebellion, a situation demanding a remedy through the strong exercise of Federal authority. Some newspaper rhetoric was very hostile calling for the utter annihilation of Mormon fanaticism.

Presidents of the United States:

1850-1853 Millard Fillmore

1853-1857 Franklin Pierce

1857-1861 James Buchanan

March 1857, the month President Buchanan was inaugurated, Judge W.W. Drummond, an appointed Utah Territorial judge, left Utah and wrote a letter of resignation. He charged that the Mormons accepted no law but the priesthood; that there was an oath bound organization to resist the laws of the land; that some Mormon men were called to assassinate those who questioned the authority of the Church; That the Gunnison party was murdered by Indians under the orders and advice of the Mormons; that his predecessor, Leonidas Shaver, had been poisoned by the Mormons; that the Babbitt party was not killed by Indians, but rather several Mormons on orders from Brigham Young; and, the Church had ordered destruction of the Supreme Court papers. He recommended that President Buchanan replace Brigham Young with a non-Mormon governor escorted to Utah by a military force.

Less than two months after taking office, President Buchanan decided to replace Governor Young. He further ordered an army to accompany the new Governor to quash the alleged rebellion and to enforce the new Governor's authority. This was called the Utah Expedition. These actions were based upon his uninvestigated belief in reports of disgruntled territorial ex-officials who, because of friction with the Mormons, abandoned their positions. They claimed that their rejection was in fact rebellion against the Federal government; that Governor Young and the Territory were in rebellion. It was the Mormon position that several of the appointees were reprehensibly poor choices, unqualified or unworthy for public office, who had been forced upon them at the point of a bayonet. The Mormons maintained that they were willing to be governed by respectable, qualified officials, with their ideal being Presidential appointments from a list of preferred candidates.

In May 1857 troops were ordered to assemble at Fort Leavenworth and from there to proceed to Salt Lake Valley before winter. They began their march in July.

In June the mail to Utah from the East was stopped, significantly limiting the flow of news on national affairs, specifically regarding President Buchanan's Utah expedition. In July Abraham Smoot, Salt Lake City mayor, was in Independence, Missouri where eastern mail for Utah was sent to be carried to Salt Lake City. On orders, the Postmaster refused to release the mail destined for Utah. Upon inquiry, Smoot encountered the rumor that the President was replacing Governor Young and sending an army of 2500 troops from Fort Leavenworth. This rumor was undoubtedly included in the detained mail. Smoot left in haste to carry the news to Governor Young.

President Buchanan's decisions and subsequent actions all took place without the President giving any notice to the Governor whom he had decided to replace. Nor did the President notify Governor Young of the purpose of the Army, or even that the Army was being sent. Governor Young knew nothing about the Army until after it began its march. Well familiar with the hostility toward the Mormons, which had, for some time, been published in the eastern press, and given the precedent set by the Governor of Missouri by authorizing the extermination of all Mormons who did not abandon their communities, Governor Young was proned to negative speculation on the question: Why is one-third of the United States army on its way to invade Salt Lake Valley? He was not inclined to conclude its mission was to protect the Mormons' Constitutional rights.

President Buchanan displayed some apparent sense of urgency. The Army Chief of Staff counseled that it was too late; that it was unlikely the army would reach Salt Lake Valley before winter. This counsel was disregarded. Also, President Buchanan ignored the required Congressional approval for the Presidental appointment of a new territorial governor. While Congress was in recess, the President appointed Alfred Cumming Governor of Utah. Cumming took his oath of office in July 1857. In November he arrived at the Army's winter camp in now southwest Wyoming. From there, announcing himself as Governor, he wrote a harsh letter to Brigham Young and a strong Proclamation to the people of Utah. All this before he was presented for Congressional approval in December 1857 and approved in January 1858.

Governor Young was first informed of President Buchanan's Utah Expedition at the tenth anniversary celebration of their July 24, 1847 entrance into the Valley. This information did not come from the President, or from his agent. He was informed by rumor rather than by any official communication. Abraham Smoot, after a gruelling three week flight from Independence, arrived at the celebration to report the cancellation of the contract to deliver mail to Utah and the harrowing rumors circulating in the East that a new governor and judges and an army of 2500 troops would soon start for Utah.

Governor Young had no problem with his being replaced. At the celebration, he acknowledged his willingness to receive the new Governor, but interpreted the unannounced, unexplained Army as a mob of persecutors with the sole purpose of destroying the Mormon Church. Mormon spies, who infiltrated the Army, reported back that it was fully equipped for war including artillery. In widespread Mormon belief they faced four possibilities: resist, and the Army would go away; fight with the faith that, with God's assistance, they would defeat the U.S. Army; give up their faith; or, vacate their homes again and flee. Brigham Young expressed a strong determination that the Saints not be driven again from their communities. It seems that there was little consideration of another, or fifth possibility - that the Army's mission was peaceful. There are many recorded sources of the Mormon conviction that the Army's mission was their expulsion or extermination.

A number of plans were suggested or promoted in the rhetoric of councils, conversations and sermons. Three were most significant.

1. The first plan was to forbid the Army's entrance into the Territory, which Governor Young did in a September 1857 Proclamation to the commander of the Utah Expedition. Also, the plan called for extensive efforts to hinder the Army's progress until winter snowfalls rendered passage impossible. This was in hope that before the Army could press on in the spring, a requested Federal investigation would be conducted and would find the charges of rebellion to be false. Then the Expedition would be cancelled and the troops would return to Fort Leavenworth.

2. Another proposal was an all-out war to the death. This extreme commitment is found in a number of fiery declarations. This does not, however, seem to have sustained serious consideration, but was seen rather as a worst-case scenario. The orders to the Utah Militia were to take no lives and shed no blood. This expressed determination recurred frequently and is, of course, inconsistent with this plan.

3. Consistent with the belief that the army was on a mission of destruction, the more reasoned plan, in the event the Army was not recalled, was to retreat, migrate south, burn everything and flee into the desert and the mountains.

Beginning in October, the Utah Militia harrassed the Army, driving off animals, burning grass and three wagon trains. They also built a number of fortifications and traps in Echo Canyon to stop its progress. The Mormon Militia and the weather succeeded. The Army was stalled and forced to winter in southwest Wyoming. It was the hope that the Utah Expedition would be reconsidered and the Army recalled to Fort Leavenworth. This did not happen.

From January to March, diverse opinions were expressed over the Utah situation and what should be done. The Utah Expedition was popular with some of Congress and very unpopular with others. The one extreme position was to drive the Mormons out; exterminate them; or try them for treason and hang them all. Others suggested seeking peace through investigation to determine the Mormon position, which President Buchanan had neglected, and settle the difficulties through gentle statesmanship. It was asserted in Congress that the President did not have the authority to declare war, a declaration which was not forthcoming.

There were many components of the peaceful resolution of the war including: financial, political and logistic considerations; public and Federal attitudes; much belief that the Expedition was ill-conceived; and considerable revulsion to the prospect of a civil war with many dead Americans.

There were several figures of noteworthy significance in the peaceful outcome.

Captain Stewart Van Vliet, having a favorable acquaintance of some Mormons a few years earlier, was sent to SLC ahead of the Army. found the Mormons law abiding, committed to the Constitution and impressively responsive to being governed. He sent a favorable report to

reports Mormon view Morm resist 51

Thomas Kane In March 1857 Brigham Young sent his representative to meet with a proven friend of the Mormons, Thomas Kane of Philadelphia, to seek his advice and assistance. Kane met with the President and received his unofficial approval to intervene, but privately and at his own expense. Kane left New York in January 1858 traveling by boat to California and by horseback to Utah. Arriving in Salt Lake City in late February he met with Mormon leaders, conferring privately with Governor Young, seeking to enlist his sympathy for the "poor soldiers" suffering in the cold and to assist to come to Salt Lake City and "bid them a hearty welcome."

Governor Cumming

When March 1858 arrived and the snow was melting, the Army was determined to pursue its commitment to march into Salt Lake Valley. After councils and consideration, the contingent plan became the main plan. Brigham Young gave the order to retreat, to move south and to prepare to burn Salt Lake City when the Army arrived. With little, if any resistance, the Mormons responded. Governor Cumming tried to dissuade this move with guarantees that