The Mormon people had suffered many persecutions in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Joseph Smith, founder and prophet of Mormonism, along with his brother, Hyrum Smith, had been martyred by a mob in Carthage, Illinois on June 27,1844, and John Taylor was badly wounded. Their followers began the search for Zion, a place of gathering where all Mormons could establish a Kingdom of God on Earth. Under a new leader, Brigham Young, they eventually turned their attention toward the West. Always the pragmatist, Young, after weighing the sacrifices and advantages, pondered the possibility of moving a large number of people West with Federal assistance.

In 1845 the United States annexed Texas. This angered Mexico since they still claimed much of the Texas Territory.  The United States and Mexican troops had a skirmish on April 24, 1846. The Congress declared war on Mexico on May 12, 1846.

"On March 21, 1846, near the river Chariton, the organization of the "Camps of Israel" was perfected. Near the end of April, Garden Grove (so named by them) was reached and there was established a settlement.  Shortly afterward another settlement was founded at what they called Mount Pisgah; and, on June 14, the head of the column reached the Missouri river at or near the site of the present city of Council Bluffs, where another settlement was begun.

These settlements were made for the purpose of affording rest for the moving trains, for the planting of crops to be cultivated and used by following parties, and similar ones were to be established and maintained along the route, as relay stations, forming a continuous line of connection from the beginning to the end of the journey, and they were called "Stakes of Zion". --Babbitt, page 78

The initial suggestion about the raising of these Mormon volunteers came from a Mormon source. 1 By volunteering as many as two thousand Mormons from the eastern United States and from the Church camps along the Missouri River. The battalion was the direct result of Brigham Young's correspondence on 26 January 1846 to Jesse C. Little, presiding elder over the New England and Middle States Mission. Young instructed Little to meet with national leaders in Washington, D.C., to seek aid for the migrating Latter-day Saints, the majority of whom were then in the Iowa Territory, and to offer Mormon men for California and the Mexican War, "ready to enter the field of battle and then like our patriot fathers, with our guns and swords, make the battlefield our grave or gain our liberty." In special council meetings Brigham Young called his plan the "Great Western Measure." . In response to Young's letter, Little journeyed to Washington, arriving on 21 May 1846, just eight days after Congress had declared war on Mexico.The plan of campaign designed by the United States authorities comprised an invasion of Mexico at two points, by Generals Taylor and Wool, and a descent on Santa Fe, and thence a march into California.

Jesse C. Little, President of the Eastern States Mission 1846-1847

Jesse C. Little held a letter of introduction from Governor John Steele of New Hampshire and had Colonel Thomas Leiper Kane's introduction to the Mormon cause in his native Philadelphia at a conference in May 1846 held under the direction of Jesse C. Little, who was soliciting support for the Latter-day Saints' westward migration. Colonel Kane gave Jesse Little helpful letters of recommendation and later joined him in Washington, D.C., where they called on the secretary of state, secretary of war, and President James K. Polk.

Little met with President James K. Polk on 5 June 1846 and urged him to aid migrating Mormon pioneers by employing them to fortify and defend the West. The president offered to aid the pioneers by permitting them to raise a battalion of five hundred men, who were to join Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, Commander of the Army of the West, and fight for the United States in the Mexican War. Little accepted this offer.

According to Little, this matter was laid before the cabinet, who proposed that he should visit the Mormon camp and raise 1000 picked men to make a dash for California overland, while as many more would be sent around Cape Horn from the Eastern states. As a result of their negotiations, the United States agreed to enlist a battalion of 500 LDS men to serve in the campaign against Mexico in what became known as the Mormon Battalion.  The government contract summoned the Mormon Battalion to carry provisions or naval stores to the Pacific coast, and thus pay part of the expense of conveying Mormons to California.

When Elder Little left Washington for the West with despatches for General Stephen F. Kearney concerning the Mormon enlistments, he was accompanied by Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a brother of the famous Arctic explorer, Elisha Kent Kane. On his way West, Colonel Kane visited Nauvoo while the Hancock County posse were in possession of it, saw the expelled Mormons in their camp across the river, followed the trail of those who had reached the Missouri, and lay ill among them in the unhealthy Missouri swamplands. From that time Colonel Kane became one of the most useful agents of the Mormon church in the Eastern states. He performed for them during the remainder of his life, services which only a man devoted to the church, but not openly a member of it, could have accomplished.

Kearney designated Captain James Allen, later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, on 26 June 1846 to raise five companies of volunteer soldiers from the able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in the Mormon encampments in Iowa, stating that he "would accept the service, for twelve months, of four or five companies of Mormon men" (each numbering from 73 to 109), to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and march thence to California, where they would be discharged". Allen arrived at the encampment of Mt. Pisgah. He was treated with suspicion by some as they believed that the raising of a battalion was a plot to bring trouble to the Mormons while they migrated through Indian country.

Aside from the opportunity afforded by General Kearney's invitation to send a pioneer band, without expense to themselves, to the Pacific coast, the offer gave the Mormons great, and greatly needed, pecuniary assistance. Parley Parker Pratt, on his way East to visit England with Taylor and Hyde, found the Battalion at Fort Leavenworth, and was sent back to the camp with between $5000 and $6000, a part of the Battalion's government allowance. Battalion members drew their arms and accoutrements, as well as a clothing allowance of forty-two dollars, at the fort. Since a military uniform was not mandatory, many of the soldiers sent their clothing allowances with Pratt to their families in the encampments in Iowa. This was a godsend where cash was so scarce, as it enabled them to make purchases in St. Louis, where prices were much lower than in western Iowa.

John Taylor, in a letter to the Saints in Great Britain on arriving there, quoted the acceptance of this Battalion as evidence that "the President of the United States is favorably disposed to us," and said that their employment in the army, as there was no prospect of any fighting, "amounts to the same as paying them for going where they were destined to go without."

Smith and his accompanying surgeon, a Dr. Sanderson, have been described in journals as the "heaviest burdens" of the battalion. Under Smith's dictatorial leadership and with Sanderson's antiquated prescriptions, the battalion marched to Santa Fe. On this trek the soldiers suffered from excessive heat, lack of sufficient food, improper medical treatment, and forced long-distance marches.

The first division of the Mormon Battalion approached Santa Fe on 9 October 1846. Their approach was heralded by Col. Alexander Doniphan, who ordered a one-hundred-gun salute in their honor. At Santa Fe, Smith was relieved of his command by Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke. Cooke, aware of the rugged trail between Santa Fe and California and also aware that one sick detachment had already been sent from the Arkansas River to Fort Pueblo in Colorado, ordered the remaining women and children to accompany the sick of the battalion to Pueblo for the winter. Three detachments consisting of 273 people eventually were sent to Pueblo for the winter of 1846-47.

Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cook
Commander of Mormon Battalion at Santa Fe

The remaining soldiers, with four wives of officers [and one private's wife- Nancy Brown Davis], left Santa Fe for California on 19 October 1846. The march of the federal force that went from Santa Fe to California was a notable one, over unexplored deserts, where food was scarce and water for long distances unobtainable. They journeyed down the Rio Grande del Norte and eventually crossed the Continental Divide on 28 November 1846. While moving up the San Pedro River in present-day Arizona, their column was attacked by a herd of wild cattle. In the ensuing fight, a number of bulls were killed and two men were wounded. Following the "Battle of the Bulls," the battalion continued their march toward Tucson, where they anticipated a possible battle with the Mexican soldiers garrisoned there. At Tucson, the Mexican defenders temporarily abandoned their positions and no conflict ensued.

Tucson as the Mormon Battalion saw it in 1846. This is the Presidio, or military fort/town of the Mexicans. The Mormon Battalion Monument sits close to what would have been the center. On the approach of the Army, the Mexicans declared a religious holiday and ran to the hills to where the Mission exists to the south.

On 21 December 1846 the battalion encamped on the Gila River. They crossed the Colorado River into California on 9 and 10 January 1847. By 29 January 1847 they were camped at the Mission of San Diego, about five miles from General Kearny's quarters, concluding a march of over two thousand miles. That evening Colonel Cooke rode to Kearny's encampment and reported the battalion's condition. On 30 January 1847 Cooke issued orders enumerating the accomplishments of the Mormon Battalion. "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for lack of water, there is no living creature."

The war in California was over at that date, but during the term of their enlistment the Battalion did garrison duty at San Diego, San Luis Rey, and then Los Angeles, then Ciudad de los Angeles. Other soldiers were assigned to accompany General Kearny back to Fort Leavenworth. All soldiers, whether en route to the Salt Lake Valley via Pueblo or still in Los Angeles, were mustered out of the United States Army on 16 July 1847. Various propositions for their reenlistment were made to them, but their church officers opposed this, and were obeyed except in some individual instances. Eighty-one men chose to reenlist and serve an additional eight months of military duty under Captain Daniel Coon Davis in Company A of the Mormon Volunteers. About 150 of those who set out from Santa Fe were sent back invalided before California was reached, and the number mustered out was only about 240. These at once started eastward, but, owing to news received concerning the hardships of the first Mormons who arrived in Salt Lake Valley, many of them decided to remain in California, and a number were hired by Sutter, on whose mill-race the first discovery of gold in that state was made. Those who kept on reached Salt Lake Valley on October 16, 1847. Thirty-two of their number continued their march to join their families at Winter Quarters on the Missouri, where they arrived on December 18, 1848.

On the 20th of January 1847, the force of sailors and marines which marched with Commodore Stockton and General Kearny, left Los Angeles to embark at San Pedro for San Diego. On the 21st a national salute was fired by the artillery company belonging to the battalion, in honor of Governor John C. Fremont. On the 22d, letters were received from San Diego, stating that Colonel Philip S. Cook, who followed General Kearny from Santa Fe with a force of four hundred Mormon volunteers, had reached the neighborhood of that place.

The men of the Mormon Battalion are honored for:
-Their willingness to fight for the United States as loyal American citizens, at great sacrifice to their migrating families.
-Their march of some 2,000 miles beginning on July 20, 1846 from Council Bluffs to Fort Stockton, California in January 1847, and to the Mission of San Diego by January 9th, is one of the longest military marches in history.
-Their labors in building a road for American pioneers to later follow.
-Their participation in the early development of California by building Fort Moore in Los Angeles, building a courthouse in San Diego, and making bricks and building houses in southern California contributed to the growth of the West.
-Their part in extending the territory of the United States to the Pacific shore.

Following their discharge, many men helped build flour mills and sawmills in northern California. Captain James Brown, and his nephew, James Stephens Brown, and some of his men of Company C were among the first to discover gold at Sutter's Mill, Coloma, CA on January 24, 1848. Men from Captain Davis's Company A were responsible for opening the first wagon road over the southern route from California to Utah in 1848.

"With the exception of eighty-one officers and men, who re-enlisted and performed garrison service at San Diego, the rest of the Battalion, numbering two hundred forty, on being mustered out of service, July 16, 1847, began their march for the Great Basin by way of Sutter's Fort, near Sacramento. Part of the men left New Helvetica on August 27, the rest leaving a day or two later to follow Kearney's trail over the Sierras. On September 5, the Mormons were at the scene of the Donner disaster, where many fragments of human bodies were found unburied. On the following day they met Samuel Brannan, returning from a visit with Brigham Young on Green River Crossing. He painted a dreary picture of the New Zion in the Rocky Mountains and urged all, except those having families, to return and work until spring. The next day, the volunteers met Captain Brown of the Pueblo detachment, who stated that President Young urged those who had no means of subsistence, to work until spring. Accordingly about half of the company returned to Sutter's Fort. Those who continued arrived at Salt Lake October 16, 1847, thirty-two of that number after a rest of two days joining their people at Winter Quarters on the Missouri River, December 18, 1847. The Sutter contingent arrived September 28, 1848. The re-enlisted men remained at San Diego for eight months, being discharged from service in March, 1848. Most of them returned to Utah by way of Los Angeles and the southern route, arriving in Salt Lake Valley, June 5, 1848.
Thus was completed the march of the Mormon Battalion, a circuit of two thousand thirty miles from Council Bluffs.  According to Colonel Cooke's report, the eleven hundred twenty-five miles from Santa Fe to San Diego was accomplished in one hundred two days, on fourteen of which no march was made, making the average day slightly less than thirteen miles. Such a record has seldom been equaled." --Heart Throbs of the West, Vol. 2, 1940, pages 418-419.

   1. Opened routes of transportation in and out of what is now California.

   2. Was a deciding factor in the conquest of Northern Mexico and subsequent purchase from Mexico, involving all or part of what are now seven U.S. States.

   3. Was instrumental in the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.

   4. Initiated irrigation farming by Anglo-Saxons in the American West.

   5. Brought seeds and tree cuttings back to the Utah valleys which were valuable for the successful settling of the territory.

6. Army pay and uniform allowances provided much needed pecuniary relief for purchasing food, equipment, wagons, livestock for the main body of migrating Mormons, and for purchasing the Weber County land from Miles Goodyear.

In 1880 a large banquet was organized to honor the soldiers of the Mormon Battalion. Talks were given by President Young, J.M. Grant, Heber C. Kimball, William Hyde,  James Brown, Thompson and others they could get together in Salt Lake.

A charter was obtained in 1954 and the present organization called the U. S. Mormon Battalion, Inc. was formed to help fulfill Brigham Young's prophecy to those Mormon Battalion men. Today there are units, with Ladies Auxiliaries, in Utah, California and Arizona, with others in the process of formation in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico. The USMB have four Major Purposes: