The Mormon Battalion

In May and June 1846, as the Mormon people traveled west, their services were officially tendered to the United States government during the war with Mexico. President James K. Polk authorized Colonel Stephen W. Kearney, commander of the Army of the West, to enlist five hundred Mormon volunteers for a march to California. Captain James Allen arrived at the Mormon camps on June 26, and after three weeks of recruiting with the aid of Brigham Young and other Mormon Church officials, the battalion was mustered into United States service at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on July 16. The march went by Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the battalion arrived in two divisions in October and Lieutenant-Colonel P. St. George Cooke was given command. Leaving Santa Fe on October 19, the battalion marched southward down the Rio del Norte to 32º41' north latitude, then south and westward to near the headwaters of the San Pedro, north and westward to Tucson, and on to the Pacific. The march of over two thousand miles ended at San Diego on January 29, 1847. The battalion then served in garrison duty at San Diego, San Luis Rey, and Los Angeles, and in outpost duty at Cajon Pass until its term of enlistment ended on July 16, 1847, after which eighty-one members re-enlisted for six additional months as the Mormon Volunteers. Under Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke's Order No. 1 at San Diego on January 30, 1847, the march was praised as an unequaled infantry march through wilderness and desert, marked by deep wells, a pass hewed through living rock to bring the first wagons to the Pacific, the driving out of the Tucson garrison with its artillery, just conduct toward the citizens, and the discovery and making of a road of great value to the country. Seven members of the battalion participated in the discovery of gold in California on January 24, 1848. Detachments invalided to Pueblo on the Arkansas, numbering one hundred fifty men, joined Brigham Young's original pioneer company and participated in founding the Commonwealth of Utah. By their justice to the conquered, their courage and endurance, and their patriotic devotion, the battalion's members brought lasting honor to their people, to the state of Utah, and to their nation.

Salt Lake City, Utah · United States