UTAH WAR IN MID-OCTOBER 1857

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WORDS FROM SOME UTAH WAR PARTICIPANTS:




ANDREW JACKSON ALLEN JOURNAL, near Fort Bridger, 11 Oct. 1857: “Slight snow fell, we lerned the soaldiers camp had moved. Sent too men to see which way they had went by eight o clock we lerned thay had moved up Hams Fork, now there was 80 of our boys go to gether we started amediaty after them we over took them in traviling 20 miles found them in a scatterd condition, we cut off there cattle which ware behind them about seven hundred head and drove them 14 miles overnight us men.”



NEWTON TUTTLE, near junction of Black's Fork and Ham's Fork, 11 Oct. 1857: “rainy we got & drove up the fork 3 miles & got breakfast O. P. Rockwell & Thomas Rich Started for the enemys camp & Meet or came on to Lot Smiths camp. T. Rich came back and we started & went Down to Lot Smiths camp 4 or 5 miles above Hams fork & camped with them . . . Wm A. Hickman Sent his 2 brothers in to the enemys camp & they have not got back yet. [The Hickman brothers were made prisoners by the army but were soon released]. .” Monday 12 Oct. 1857: “ Snowed. Men came in to camp from Col Burton the two men we sent to see which way the enemy had gone they came in & said the enemy had gone up Hams Fork . . .”



HENRY BALLARD, at Fort Supply, 12 Oct 1857: “News came in that the soilders had moved some more up Hams fork and that 30 men was to be sent to their camp to reconnoiter.” 13 Oct 1857: “All left Fort Suply except 4 of us. I was some better but not able for duty, news came that O.P. Rockwell had taken 600 head of cattle and Wm Hickmans 2 brothers had been taken prisoners.”

[Henry Ballard is the ancestor of M. Russell Ballard, current member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.]




CAPTAIN JESSE A. GOVE 10TH U.S INFANTRY, letters to his wife, written on Ham's Fork, 13 Oct. 1857: “Tomorrow we strike the Oregon road which, I am told, is very good. It takes the Mormons perfectly by surprise that we have avoided their strongholds, Echo Can(y)on and Emigrant Can(y)on, Fort Bridger and Fort Supply. Our distance this way is nearly double than through the can(y)ons, but our progress cannot be stayed this way by any natural defences. If the Lord gives us 25 days of good weather we have them very tight.” [Captain Gove’s hope for providential 25 days of good weather would come to naught. Within four days, the snow was falling and Colonel Alexander had decided to give up the Oregon road and the route that would allow the army to have the Mormons “very tight.” In all, the army’s concern for the Mormon “strongholds”, vacillations and the futile Ham’s Fork venture cost them 18 days, more than enough time to go on into the Valley. Some historians belittle the Mormon resistance effort. But it obviously worked.]


HOSEA STOUT, Nauvoo Legion, in Echo Canyon, Sunday 11 Oct. 1857: “Like for a Storm this morning. 149 head of the captured oxen passed, look well. . . . The deserter a long slab sided Dutchman reports that many of the soldiers would desert if they believed they would be well treated here, also that they are dissatisfied with their officers and that the officers were divided in their councils what to do.” [The slab "sided" Dutchman was Carl Heinrich Wilcken, a former German soldier that was with Light Battery "B" of the 4th Artillery. He had joined the army when he was stranded in New York with no money to continue on to South America after leaving Germany to avoid a life in the army there. After deserting, he was sent into the valley and settled there, marrying a Mormon girl and becoming a bodyguard to Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and other Mormon leaders. He is an ancestor of George W. Romney and of course, Mitt Romney.]