CHAPTER XV. 1845-1847. THE EXODUS-BRIGHAM YOUNG LEADS HIS PEOPLE WESTWARD- SUGAR CREEK SAMUEL BRAN- BATTALION-ELDER THE BATTLE OF NAUVOO-EXPULSION OF THE MORMON REMNANT FROM THE CITYCOLONEL KANE'S DESCRIPTION OF NAUVOO-THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS-WINTER QUARTERS. URSUANT to the terms of the agreement, which satisfied General Hardin and his associate commissioners, and appeased for a time the anti-Mormons, preparations went forward all during the fall and winter for the spring exodus. Houses and lands in and around Nauvoo were sold, leased or abandoned. Wagons by hundreds were purchased or manufactured, and horses, mules, oxen, riding, draft and pack animals in general, procured in large numbers. Clothing, bedding, provisions, tents, tools, household goods, family relics and camp equipage composed the lading, wherewith animals and vehicles were packed and loaded until little or no room remained. At length, all being ready for a start, on the 4th of February, 1846, the exodus of the Mormons from Illinois began. Charles Shumway, afterwards one of the original Utah pioneers, was the first to cross the Mississippi. Colonel Hosea Stout with a strong force of police had charge of the ferries, which were kept busy night and day until the river froze over. The companies then crossed on the ice. By the middle of February a thousand souls, with their wagons, teams and effects had been landed on the Iowa shore. Sugar Creek, nine miles westward, was made the rendezvous and starting-point of the great overland pilgrimage. Here the advance companies pitched their tents, and awaited the coming of their leaders. The weather was bitter cold, the ground snow-covered and frozen, and the general prospect before the pilgrims so cheerless and desolate as to have dismayed souls less trustful in Providence, less inured to hardship and suffering than they. It was February 5th that the first camp formed on Sugar Creek. That night—a bitter night-nine wives became mothers; nine children were born in tents and wagons in that wintry camp. How these tender babes, these sick and delicate women were cared for under such conditions, is left to the imagination of the sensitive reader. How these Mormon exiles, outcasts of civilization, carrying their aged, infirm and helpless across the desolate plains and prairies, were tracked and trailed thereafter by the nameless graves of their dead, is a tale which, though often attempted, has never been and never will be fully told.* On the 15th of February, Brigham Young, the leading spirit of the exodus, arrived at the camps on Sugar Creek. He was accompanied by Willard Richards and George A. Smith, with their families. Two days later Heber C. Kimball and Bishop Whitney joined them. Parley P. Pratt, who had returned from the east, was already there, but encamped at some distance from the main body. men, such as had not preceded these, soon followed. departure of the Apostles from Nauvoo, Church affairs at that place Other leading After the final There is no parallel in the world's history to this migration from Nauvoo. The exodus from Egypt was from a heathen land, a land of idolaters, to a fertile region designated by the Lord for His chosen people, the land of Canaan. The pilgrim fathers in fleeing to America came from a bigoted and despotic people-a people making few pretensions to civil or religious liberty. It was from these same people who had fled from oldworld persecutions that they might enjoy liberty of conscience in the wilds of America, from their descendants and associates, that other of their descendants, who claimed the right to differ from them in opinion and practice, were now fleeing. * * * Before this the Mormons had been driven to the outskirts of civilization, where they had built themselves a city; this they must now abandon, and throw themselves upon the mercy of savages."-Bancroft's History of Utah, page 217. 17-VOL. 1. were left in charge of a committee consisting of Almon W. Babbitt, Joseph L. Heywood and John S. Fullmer. Two days after Brigham's arrival on Sugar Creek,-during which interim he was busy with his brethren in organizing the camps for traveling, he called together the Apostles who were with him and held a council. There were present Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, George A. Smith and Willard Richards. The subject considered by these leaders was as follows: It seems that about the time of the beginning of the exodus from Nauvoo, there had sailed from New York on the ship Brooklyn a company of Latter-day Saints bound for the Bay of San Francisco. They numbered two hundred and thirty-five souls, and were in charge of Elder Samuel Brannan. The company were well supplied with farming implements, and all tools necessary for the formation of a new settlement, which they proposed founding somewhere on the Californian coast. Elder Brannan believed that that would be the ultimate destination of the main body of his people. These Mormon colonists, who were probably the first American emigrants to land on the coast of California, carried with them a printing press, type, paper and other materials, with which was afterwards published the California Star, the pioneer newspaper of the Golden State. Elder Brannan, in New York, had edited a paper called The Prophet, published in the interests of the Latter-day Saints. He was a man of considerable energy and ability, but of speculative tendencies, and bent more to worldly ends than to spiritual aims. Prior to sailing for San Francisco-then Yerba Buena-Brannan had entered into a peculiar compact with one A. G. Benson, representing certain politicians and financial sharpers at Washington. who, being aware of the contemplated Mormon exodus, proposed if possible to profit by it. This compact, which Brannan had sent to Nauvoo for the Church leaders to sign and then return to Mr. Benson, required that the Mormons transfer to A. G. Benson and Company, and to their heirs and assigns, the odd numbers of all the |