Heritage Day 2008 Returns to Temple Square

Transcription

1 Mormon Battalion THE VALIANT L TC Max W. Jamison, Publications Officer S U M M ER 2008 I SSU E Volume 13, No. 2 Heritage Day 2008 Returns to Temple Square by LTC MAX JAMISON, Publications Officer, and MAJ JOHN HAYES, Multimedia Officer ELD ER RO B E RT S. WOOD, of the Second Quorum of Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wa s t he keynote speaker for the eighth annual Mormon Battalion Heritage Day Program on 14 June from 10:00 to 11:30 A.M. in the historic Assembly Hall on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. The theme was Manifest Destiny of the West: From Sea to Shining Sea, with the program featuring a new painting by HELEN PAUL, Beleaguered Mormon Battalion Arriving at the Pacific Ocean from the Burning Deserts. An honor guard comprising members of the Mormon Battalion and Eagle Scouts posted the flags. MAJ STANFORD P. FITTS, our Judge Advocate, was master of ceremonies. The Southern Utah Heritage Choir, directed by DRS. KEITH BRADSHAW and NANCY ALLRED, returned to provide our music. MAJ ROGER GRUA presented the winners of the 2008 Seminary Essay Contest: 1st Place, MARK DAY ; 2nd Place, KORI COX ; and 3rd Place, KOLTER LAYTON. ELLIS IVORY, Chairman of the Board of This Is the Place Heritage Park, spoke of how the Mormon Battalion played a part in four major events responsible for the opening of the West to colonization and national stability: The MexicanAmerican War, opening of roads to the West, the discovery of gold, and the popularization of irrigation throughout the West. We don't ever want to forget the sacrifice and contributions of the Mormon Battalion. That's why we're excited to welcome the ambitious project of the Battalion to create your visitor center at This is The Place Heritage Park, including the two heroic size statues, by DR. [STEVEN LLOYD ] NEAL Duty Calls and Duty Triumphs. There has been a lot of work already accomplished at the site, but there's still much to be done. This Project will not only help us remember the Mormon Battalion, but will visualize and dramatize this critically important event in the history of the westward movement... May we all be blessed as we strive to do our part to insure that our generation and those of the future will never forget the people, the struggles, and the successes that built the foundation for God's Kingdom in this special land. ELDER WOOD, Dean Emeritus of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, paid homage to the original Battalion in a talk he entitled Miracles Worked by Small Means: The saga of the Mormon Battalion is one of the most remarkable in human history. A small band of 500 men and 80 women and children, crossing a trackless wilderness of nearly

2 Page 2 2,000 miles, changed the course not only of the destiny of the Church..., but of the American West and of the country as a whole....this remarkable band those who completed the journey, those who were left along the way, and those who tarried in California after the journey had a disproportionate impact on the history of the Church and of the nation....that small band, even as had the Liahona, worked by faith, and by faith it changed the destinies not only of their families, but the destiny of a nation and of the Lord s kingdom. Those who responded to the call to arms, did not, in fact, respond primarily to a government request but a prophetic counsel. They were to act not only as defenders of their country s interests, but in a profound way, they, too, were agents on the Lord s errand. And they gave of their heart and of their minds. They gave of their physical strength to forge a path in the wilderness, to secure territories to build a nation, and to provide means whereby the work of Zion, itself, might be accomplished. If one were to consider in 1847 the small band that had been formed by the Latter-day Saints to travel into the wilderness and into what was to become the Southwestern United States into then Mexican territory one would have thought that the band was, in terms of its size, inconsequential, and yet, we now know that the drama that they enacted has had a profound impact on the course of our nation s history and the establishment of Zion. It is doubtful that, at the time, most of those who participated in that great trek fully understood how their individual contribution would be part of an enterprise that would change the course of history. The individual effort of each member of the Battalion collectively added up to a remarkable set of achievements, both within the Church and beyond. Within the Church, in a real sense as Brigham Young perceived, the contribution of the Latter-day Saints to the Mormon Battalion and the Mexican War, provided a proof of loyalty to the nation that had so illtreated them, as well as material succor for the Saints, that otherwise may not have been available. As President Polk considered the calling of members of the Mormon community to participate in the Mexican War, there were some, like Senator Thomas A. Benton of Missouri, who in fact hoped that the Mormons would refuse, so that the Church s enemies could use that refusal as an excuse to continue to harass the Latter-day Saints as they made their trek across the plains. Beyond this test of loyalty, the material assistance the pay and the clothing allowance, the provision of guns all of these, in fact, provided wherewithal which proved crucial for this band of pioneers. Surely, out of small things have come great miracles in the lives of individual families and in the life of the kingdom of God itself. When Brigham Young summoned the 500 to respond to the enlistment call from the government, he had a vision that transcended this call to arms. The role that the Mormon Battalion would play was part of the Lord s intent to raise up a people and establish a community that would spread the gospel and its kingdom abroad until it filled the world. The members of the Battalion carried the weight of glory, not only of a burgeoning nation, but of the designs of the great Jehovah. As President Young proclaimed: Our faith must be concentrated in one great work--the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth, and our works must aim at the accomplishment of that great purpose. We have a work on hand whose magnitude can hardly be told. It is... our duty to love the Gospel and the spirit of the Gospel, so that we can become one in the Lord, not out of Him, that our faith, our affections for truth, the kingdom of heaven, our acts, all our labor will be concentrated in the salvation of the children of men and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth. This is cooperation on a very large scale. This is the work of redemption that is entered into by the Latter-day Saints. Unitedly we perform these duties, we stand, we endure, we increase and multiply, we strengthen and spread abroad, and shall continue so to do until the kingdoms of this world are the kingdom of our God and His Christ (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 284). Elder Wood concluded with the following admonition: May we, the heirs of the legacy of the Mormon Battalion, ever seek to realize the divine commission of which it was a glorious example. 20 June-21 August Mount Pisgah to Council Grove by KEVIN HENSON, 2008 Battalion Trek, aka 2SGT EBENEZER BROWN OF COMPANY A Exclusive to The Valiant The Battalion has passed Council Grove, Iowa Indian Territory (modern Kansas) and is headed for Santa Fe via the Cimarron Cutoff. We happily report the troops are in generally good health and have adjusted to the rigors of hiking long distances. Leaving this "As the Lord lives,...you will never be forgotten... but you will be held in honorable remembrance for ever and ever." Brigham Young

3 intelligence at the Post Office Oak cache here at Council Grove, we pray the next traveler will forward this letter to our friends back home. Ebenezer Brown I can only wonder what the 1846 Battalion members would have written or if they left letters here. We have the luxury of sending letters via (when we can get a good connection) or making a phone call. We can even conduct the necessary business aspects of the Trek with some degree of ease. But, you are interested, no doubt, in details of our experience. So, let me share a few in addition to those found at our blog: We have been greatly blessed by unusually cool weather. We ve been uncomfortably hot on less than ten hiking days and the two days of 100+ heat were on days we were not hiking. To put this in perspective, it is NEVER this cool in Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas at this time of year. Most days we ve also been blessed by cloud cover that helps keep the hikers happy. Small graces that have kept us on the road. Had we had to fight extreme heat, I wonder if I would have continued. Hopefully, the threat of great heat is quickly passing as we get closer to fall. Perhaps our happiest moment was the opportunity to be accompanied by the Scouts from the Olathe Kansas First Ward. KENT HANSEN, scoutmaster formerly lived in Southern California and wanted to bring Battalion reenacting to the heartlands. They joined us at Weston State Park [Missouri] on Friday night, then hiked to the Missouri River crossing opposite Fort Leavenworth. Early on, we d contemplated using a ferry to cross, but things didn t seem to work out. At the last minute, KENT mentioned it was too bad we couldn t use his boat to ferry the river. Within 36 hours, we had all the permissions Olathe Scouts Contemplate Drinking Water from Fish Pond Page 3 necessary and added a neat dimension to the Scouts experience and Trek lore. Thanks to KENT and the Olathe Scouts for adding another small grace. We re excited that we are having a measure of success in locating original route details especially before they joined the Santa Fe Trail south of Eudora, Kansas. Eudora didn t exist as a town in 1846, but PASCAL FISH was the owner and operator of a ferry across the Kaw (modern Kansas) River which the Battalion used to cross. Last year, the town of Eudora dedicated a monument to PASCAL and his daughter, EUDORA. When the town was established by a German group, a condition of the property sale by PASCAL was that the town be n a med E U D O R A. It s an unusual glimpse into someone s heart from KEVIN at the new Pascal and Eudora Fish Monument, Eudora, so long ago. I like the town of EUDORA and Kansas PASCAL FISH. Finally, I d like to comment about our efforts to develop cooperative events along the route. There is a LOT of Battalion related information that has NEVER been pulled into our history because we haven t looked in the right places. One of my goals is to go to these small communities, talk to their local historians, share the details from original journals and see if we can shake loose some additional details that will help us better understand our 1846 colleagues. Here at Council Grove, the BOSCOES died and were buried under a stone cairn which has been lost to history. We don t know their gravesites but the journals give some very specific clues. We happily report that by working with KEN MC CLINTOCK, a local history buff, we may have some additional options to consider. It has been our experience that the locals are heavily invested in their history and they know things that intersect our story. We just have to ask and share. My hope is that the Trek will add a great deal of information, open some new avenues for research and gain some goodwill for the Battalion. I plead with ya ll to attend our local events, most of which are free to the public. Most will be sponsored and hosted by

4 Page 4 local historical societies who would love to help us expand our understanding of the Battalion. Schedule & Blog Updates Please see our updated schedule online at: A Monumental Project Largest Sculptures in Utah by DR. STEVEN L. NEAL, sculptor WORK CONTINUES ON THE GIANT SCULPTURES, Duty Calls and Duty Triumphs. The former is all cast in bronze, and work is about to begin at Parks Bronze in Enterprise, Oregon to weld the individually cast pieces together. Duty Triumphs is in clay at this writing. It is even larger than Duty Calls and will not fit in my studio in Pendleton, Oregon. LARRY H. MILLER has graciously allowed us to move it into a warehouse at one of his car dealerships in Provo, Utah. I am very busy with bishop duties and a busy doctor s practice in Pendleton, so in order to have a definite deadline to unveil the finished work, I hired a local Provo assistant named MICHAEL HALL. Together, we hope to make the deadline of all sculpting finished by December this year, and unveiling both pieces in Salt Lake City at This Is the Place Heritage Park in June These two pieces will be the largest sculptures in Utah, a befitting legacy for the larger-than-life Mormon Battalion. Memberships Received by ERM A BULLOCK, Vice President of Membership As part of our Finding 500" membership program, we have received the following new and renewal memberships since the last issue of The Valiant: LIFE MEMBERSHIPS STEVEN J. BURTON, West Jordan, UT DEL GARDNER, Salt Lake City, UT EDWIN KIMBALL, Sandy, UT TRACE SKEEN, Eden, UT Dr. Steven L. Neal with Duty Calls NEW ANNUAL MEMBERS JOHN KENT BROOKSBY, Pinetop, AZ WAYNE K. BROWN, Riverdale, UT PAUL R. CIVITARESE, Foxborough, MA TINA MARIE FORSYTHE, St. George, UT JOSEPH A. HANSEN, Escondido, CA STEVEN A. HUNT, Santa Clara, Utah LT THOM AS JESSOP, St. George, Utah RENEWING ANNUAL MEMBERS BRENT BRYNER, Logan, UT DEAN COOPER, Wellsville, UT GORDON COULSON, Logan, UT LESLIE HANSEN, Logan, UT JOSEF ERIDE HORTA, Salt Lake City, UT JOSEPH KOSTA, Logan, UT ARLENE MILLER, Logan, UT LYNNE MILLER, Logan, UT MERRILL PAGE, Logan, UT DALE READ, Riverdale, UT JO ANN REESE, North Logan, UT WINSTON REESE, Logan, UT The Big Guns with Duty Triumphs Dr. Steven L. Neal, Michael Hall, Larry H. Miller, and associates

5 Commander s Message 7 8 Come Join the Party! by COL NORM AN T. EREKSON, Commander IT HAS BEEN A LONG TEN YEAR SAGA AND EFFORT, but at last, The Mormon Battalion Visitors Center is under construction! A new legacy is being formed. What part do you want to play in this legacy? 9 Page 5 Check the web sites daily Schedule a time to join the Mormon Battalion Reenactment Trek this year along the trail. Be with us in San Diego in January 2009 to celebrate Kevin Henson s completion of the Mormon Battalion trek and help organize all the interest groups in a cooperative efforts to do a better job of fulfilling Brother Brigham s prophecy of keeping these men and women in honorable remembrance. Women s Auxiliary Message CRAIG TAFT, LTC ROBERT PAUL, COL NORMAN EREKSON, ED KIMBALL, and MAJ RICHARD BULLOCK Things that you can do to become a player in history: 1 Make a significant tax free donation to the Building Fund! 2 Get friends and family to join you in the Mormon Battalion Association. 3 Make yourself available for service in the Battalion. A Help in local companies. B Procure a uniform. C Volunteer to make Eagle Scout neckerchief slide presentations. D Volunteer for flag ceremonies and parades. E Volunteer to help in Cub Scout Mustering in ceremonies. F Help present fireside programs, and grave memorializations. E Help your local company commanders with phone alert duties. 4 Contribute memorabilia to the new Visitors Center and Museum building. 5 Contribute histories and journals you may have or are aware of. 6 Get your family organization involved. Grave Site Memorializations by ERMA BULLOCK, Vice President of Membership THERE HAVE BEEN THREE M EM ORIALIZATIONS THIS SUM M ER. We appreciate the families that have honored their ancestors in arranging the meetings, and allowing some of our staff and members to be present. It is a privilege to do a flag presentation and be a small part of placing the plaques. There are plaques for members and participants of the original Mormon Battalion, both men and women, and also a plaque for the wives that were left behind. Some of the memorializations are accompanied by having family reunions at the same time, so that more family participation will be encouraged. Over all the years, you may like to know that even though the weather is threatening and rain may pour down just before the service begins, it has never rained during the placing of the plaque and the program that has been planned. At each of these following memorialization services, there was over 100 family members in attendance. 3 May 2008 in Scipio, Utah City Cemetery PVT RICHARD ANDERSON IVIE and ELIZABETH DOBSON IVIE were honored. RICHARD was memorialized as a member o f t h e M o r m o n Battalion, and his wife, EL I Z A B E T H, with an honorary memorializati on plaque, for waiting the return of her husband. He was a Private in Company A. There was a Mormon Battalion flag ceremony to begin the service. Life sketches were given, along with handouts, and a song written about a soldier, by a granddaughter and sung by a great-grandson, were especially appropriate and very moving.

6 Page 6 8 August 2008 in Maeser, Utah Cemetery CATHERINE MELINDA KELLEY ALEXANDER had an honorary memorialization plaque placed at her gravesite. The Mormon Battalion presented the colors in a flag ceremony. Information on the Mormon Battalion states that MILTON KELLEY and his wife, MELINDA ALLISON KELLEY, were members of CAPT CHARLES JEFFERSON HUNT S party and traveled with their wagons. The HIGGINS Detachment, composed of persons from the Battalion who had become ill and some women and children were dispatched to Pueblo, New Mexico (present Colorado) in the fall of MILTON had contracted pneumonia from exposure on a hunting trip so he and MELINDA were sent with the sick detachment. MILTON died on 4 November Their daughter CATHERINE MELINDA was born in Pueblo on 7 February The program included patriotic music, life sketches, much love and good conversation. A fine luncheon was served. 12 July 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah Cemetery PVT MOSES WADE was memorialized on the anniversary of his 216th birthday. MOSES son, 17 year old EDWARD was one of the first to sign up with the Battalion, the family talked it over and agreed that MOSES should also go. They were both Privates in Company C. SALLY MARIA, the wife and mother, and her daughter MINERVA wereleft in the hands of a trusted friend. MOSES later died in an epidemic in Salt Lake City and was quickly buried without a marker. The family has purchased a new headstone, it and the memorial plaque was dedicated on this day. A nice program was handed out naming the participants for the service. It also included lyrics for the music to be sung. A fine historical sketch was read by KEVIN WADE. Do you have an ancestor that has not been remembered and memorialized? You can be a part of the fulfillment of a prophecy made by BRIGHAM YOUNG in February of 1855 declaring that The Mormon Battalion will be held in honorable remembrance to the latest generation; and I will prophesy that the children of those who have been in the army, in defense of their country, will grow up and bless their fathers for what they did at this time. And men and nations will rise up and bless the men who went in that Battalion. Please contact COL CARL V. and MARGARET LARSON at for information regarding assistance in planning a memorial for your ancestor. We encourage all of you and your family and friends to join the Mormon Battalion Association to further support their honorable remembrance, Information and forms available at

7 Page 7 Preface, Part 8... Manifest Destiny vs. Promised Land Editor's Note: Previous issues of The Valiant have included Parts 1-7 of the serialization of the Preface to LTC JAMISON S book sponsored by the Battalion, Manifest Destiny vs. Promised Land: Francis Moore, Jr. s Annotated 1846 Mitchell Map; Deciphering an Chronicle of the Mexican-American War, the Mormon Battalion, the Gold Rush, the Alamo, and Texas. The mystery saga continues... It is an interesting footnote to history that, if the military Kearny-Cooke-Frémont Detachment with their Mormon Battalion escort had stayed on the main Oregon Trail instead of taking the Sublette Cutoff, they would almost certainly have met the Young-Brannan Mormon Pioneer Party and the Mormon Battalion Sick Detachment in mid- July 1847 near Fort Bridger. What might have transpired in meetings between Kearny, Cooke, Frémont, Young, Brannan, the Mormon Battalion Kearny Escort, and the Mormon Battalion Sick Detachments can only be speculated. At the least, this impromptu meeting would have been the first intermountain "General Conference" of the Mormon Church; and all discussions and exchange of military orders would have further delayed the late summer arrival of the Mormon Vanguard in Utah! Such an encounter would have permitted military leaders Kearny, Cooke, and Frémont to access and react to the motives of the Mormon leadership, as well as the loyalty of their Mormon Battalion Escort and Sick Detachments. Handled properly, such a chance meeting could have calmed concerns over competition between national "Manifest Destiny" and Mormon "Promised Land," perhaps even precluding the disastrous Utah War with its military invasion and occupation of Utah a decade later by Johnston s Army! Handled improperly, such a meeting could have turned into a confrontation completely aborting all Mormon settlement of the West! It is not recorded w h e t h e r, a f t e r rejoining the main trail, the Kearny- C o o k e - F r é m o n t Detachment found any messages from t h e M o r m o n Vanguard Company similar to Brigham Young s famous 23 June 1847"bone mail" (left) to following Mormon groups. According to the journal of Capt. Henry Smith Turner, Frémont and the Army apparently received additional clues about the intended location of the Mormon settlements in Utah from encounters on 29 July, 3 August, and 4 August with the larger Second Division of 3,106 Mormons led by John Taylor ( ) en route to Utah east of Fort Laramie, Wyoming. While Frémont apparently gleaned an approximate location of the future Mormon settlements somewhere along the Wasatch Front near the Great Salt Lake from encounters with Charles Smith, possible "bone mail," and John Taylor's Second Division, he had no firsthand knowledge of their exact location! He was certainly not privy to Brigham Young's 1845 vision of the Salt Lake Valley while in the Nauvoo Temple. It is therefore no surprise that all three of Frémont s 1848 maps showed a nebulous and imprecise location for "Mormon Settlements" somewhere east of the Great Salt Lake and a fictitious "Mormon Fort" east of Utah, while the handwritten "Mormons X" annotation on this copy of the Mitchell Map misplaced the them in the Wasatch Mountains near present Alpine, Utah! Clue 5. The author of the annotations on this map almost certainly recorded the presence of gold in California before any maps published in the East! Word of the discover of gold in California on 24 January 1848 did not reach the east coast until late September 1848, and no new printed maps showed it<s location before Frémont<s 1848 maps. Mitchell hurriedly rushed out an 1849 overprint (and later revision) of the remaining stock of his own 1846 map with much data copied from Frémont<s map, most notably a large colored California Gold Region. Clue 6. The author of the annotations was apparently aware of the 1848 establishment of Fort Kearny (left) where the Oregon Trail crossed the lower Platte River in Nebraska, but was either unaware of i t s n a m e o r d e l i b e r a t e l y avoided listing that name. To be Continued in the Next Issue!

8 Page 8 Mormon Battalion Association THE VALIANT P.O. Box 1983 Sandy, UT In This Issue: Heritage Day 2008 Returns to Temple Square Battalion Trek - 20 June-1 November 2008 A Monumental Project: Largest Sculptures in Utah Memberships Received 2008 Commander s Message: Come Join the Party Women s Auxiliary Message: Grave Site Memorializations 2008 Manifest Destiny vs. Promised Land, Preface, Part 8 Unless otherwise stated, Copyright 2010 Mormon Battalion Association. All Rights Reserved. "As the Lord lives,...you will never be forgotten... but you will be held in honorable remembrance for ever and ever." Brigham Young