Mormon Battalion
The Mormon Battalion was an infantry battalion of the United States Army. It was the only religious unit in the military history of the United States recruited solely from one religious body and having a religious title as the unit designation. The volunteers served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 543 and 559 enlisted soldiers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by Mormon junior officers and non-Mormon senior officers. During its service, the battalion made a march of nearly 1,950 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, California.
The Battalion’s march and service supported the eventual cession of much of the American Southwest from Mexico to the United States, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1854 of portions of modern southern Arizona and New Mexico, extending the American-Mexican border further south to access the most suitable surveyed east-west land route for the future trans-continental railroad. The Battalion's march also opened a southern wheeled wagon accessible route to California. Veterans of the Battalion played significant roles in America's westward expansion in California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and other parts of the West.
Enlistment
At the time they enlisted, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were seeking U.S. government aid for their migration west to the Rocky Mountains and Salt Lake Valley, despite having their previous petitions for redress of grievances denied. Under continued religious persecution, they had fled Nauvoo, Illinois, starting on February 4, 1846, across the Mississippi River. They camped among the Potawatomi Indians near present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa.Brigham Young,, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, sent Elder Jesse C. Little, to Washington, D.C., to seek assistance from the federal government for the Mormon Pioneers fleeing from the Illinois mobs. Little arrived in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 1846, only eight days after Congress had declared war on Mexico. Pennsylvania Army officer and attorney Thomas L. Kane , offered the Mormons his advice and assistance. Politically well connected through his jurist father, Kane provided letters of recommendation and joined Little in Washington, D.C. The two called on members of the President's Cabinet - the U.S. Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and 11th President James K. Polk., After several interviews in early June 1846, President Polk agreed to Mr. Little's offer if "a few hundred" men enlisted. On June 2, 1846, President James K. Polk wrote in his diary: "Col. Kearny was... authorized to receive into service as volunteers a few hundred of the Mormons who are now on their way to California, with a view to conciliate them, attach them to our country, and prevent them from taking part against us."
On July 1, 1846, Captain James Allen, dispatched by Colonel Stephen W. Kearny,, of the U.S. Army arrived at the Mormons' Mosquito Creek camp. He carried President Polk's request for a battalion of 500 volunteers to fight in the coming Mexican War. Most members of the Church were suspicious of the request, as the Federal government had ignored the persecutions that they suffered. They were concerned about facing discrimination by the government, as they had from both the state and federal government in the past.
Kane obtained Federal government permission for the refugee Mormons to occupy Pottawattamie and Omaha Indian lands along the Missouri River. After carrying dispatches relating to the land agreements and battalion criteria to famous Mid-Western military post of Fort Leavenworth in the then larger Indian Territory. Capt. Kane sought out Jesse Little in the Mormon encampments on the Missouri River. On July 17, 1846, he held a meeting with church leaders and Army Captain Allen.
Young had planned on moving the Mormons west that summer, but circumstances were against his plan. He saw several possible advantages to the Saints in the proposed federal service. Their enlistment would be a public relations victory for the church, demonstrating additional evidence of its loyalty to the United States. As the drafted men were given a uniform allowance at Fort Leavenworth,, of US$42 each, paid in advance, for their one-year enlistment and as they were allowed to wear their civilian clothing for the march, the bulk of those funds were immediately donated to a general Church fund. These funds were used to purchase wagons, teams, and other necessities for the American exodus. Having been forced to leave farms and homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, the Latter-day Saints were going to spend the winter on the banks of the upper Missouri River. Raising a group of able-bodied men would be difficult. Many men had already scattered to outlying areas where they sought jobs with wages to help support the group. Young wrote a letter to the Saints living in Garden Grove in which he justified the call-up and asked for help:
The public approval of Young and other members of the Twelve were critical to gain men's enlistment. While some men quickly volunteered, Young had to persuade reluctant enlistees. It took three weeks to raise the five companies of men.
Allen's instructions were to recruit "four or five companies" of men who were to receive the "pay, rations, and other allowances given to other infantry volunteers." Each company was authorized four women as laundresses, "receiving rations and other allowances given to the laundresses of our army." Approximately thirty-three women, twenty of whom served as laundresses, and fifty-one children accompanied the men. Five women would eventually complete the cross-continental trek. The Mormon Battalion was mustered into volunteer service on July 16, 1846, as part of the Army of the West under Brigadier General Stephen Kearny, a seasoned military veteran. His units included two regiments of Missouri volunteers, a regiment of New York volunteers who had traveled by ships around South America and Cape Horn to the Pacific Ocean and arrived in California to meet Gen. Kearney with there, artillery and infantry battalions, Kearny's own 1st US Dragoons, and the battalion of Mormons. For years afterward, some Mormons viewed the Mormon Battalion as an unjust imposition and as an act of persecution by the United States.
Journey begins
The battalion arrived at Fort Leavenworth on August 1. For the next two weeks, they drew their clothing allowance of $42 per man, received their equipment, and were more formally organized into a combat battalion. The volunteers took the approved clothing allowance in cash per regulations. To assure the main body of the group benefited from the men's wages, Young sent Parley Pratt to see that the men handed over the pay they had committed to contribute. Young used this and the wages they earned later to buy supplies for the main group at wholesale prices in St. Louis, Missouri. He wrote to the enlistees that the money was a "peculiar manifestation of the kind providence of our Heavenly Father at this time." There was little time for training and instilling discipline. Newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel James Allen became ill but ordered the battalion forward along the Santa Fe Trail to overtake Kearny's Army of the West. On August 23, Allen died and was the first officer buried there in the old officer's burial grounds. Later his remains were moved to what became Fort Leavenworth National Military Cemetery.Captain Jefferson Hunt, commanding A Company, was the acting commander until word reached Council Grove, Kansas, that Allen had died. While there, Lieutenant Andrew Jackson Smith, West Point Class of 1838, arrived and was given temporary command of the Battalion with the Mormons' consent. For the next several weeks, the Mormon soldiers came to hate "AJ" Smith and the assistant surgeon, Dr. George B. Sanderson, for their treatment of the men, and the long marches suffered across the dry plains of Kansas and New Mexico. The Mormon men were not accustomed to the austere military standards of the day nor to the medical treatments imposed by Dr. Sanderson, including the use of feeding mercury compounds to the sick, which were standard for the time. Because the church leaders had counseled the battalion members to avoid military medical treatment, they challenged the doctor's authority and unrest arose among the men. Smith and Sanderson continued to hold the Mormon Battalion to ordinary standards of discipline, and tensions continued.
Cooke assumes command
Arriving in Santa Fe in October, General Kearny had dispatched Captain Philip St. George Cooke, West Point class of 1827, to assume command of the Battalion. His assignment was to march them to California and to build a wagon road along the way. In Santa Fe, 91 sick men and all but five of the women and one child were sent to Pueblo, in present-day Colorado. Three separate detachments left the Battalion and went to Pueblo to winter. For the next three months and 1,100 miles, Cooke led the Battalion across some of the most arduous terrain in North America. Most of the Mormon soldiers soon learned to respect and follow him. The group acquired another guide in New Mexico – adventurer and mountain man Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who as an infant had traveled with his mother Sacagawea across the continent with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.Lieutenant Smith and Dr. Sanderson continued with the battalion, along with Lt. George Stoneman, newly graduated from West Point that Spring. During the Civil War, Cooke, Smith and Stoneman were promoted to high-level commands for the Union Army, and Stoneman would later be elected Governor of California.