According to a reporter: Peoria Register and Northwestern Gazette, April 17, 1840, quoted in Hirshson, 38–39.
And only months after choosing: Hirshson, 35.
Brigham Young, one of the Twelve: Ibid., 35–36, 190.
In their penury: Ardis Parshall, personal communication, December 11, 2006.
Young had left Illinois: Hirshson, 35–36.
George A. Smith, Joseph’s cousin: Times and Seasons, November 15, 1840, quoted in Brodie, 264.
During the single year: Hirshson, 36.
The newspaper made honeyed promises: Millennial Star, February 1, 1842.
The first British converts: Brodie, 265.
By 1844, Nauvoo’s population: Ibid., 362–63.
On a windy, rainy night: Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell, 67–69.
Rockwell’s appearance was enough: Hirshson, 64.
The dates of Rockwell’s temporary absence: Brodie, 266, 314, 323–24.
That denial failed to satisfy: Ibid., 324–25.
Disheartened by exile, Rockwell: Schindler, 88–94.
When he finally returned: Brodie, 332.
Experts, including Rockwell’s sympathetic biographer: Schindler, 72–73; Brodie, 330–31.
For his part, Smith soon wearied: Brodie, 327–29.
The final unraveling began: Ibid., 367–72.
Rather than leave Nauvoo: Ibid., 372–75.
The retaliation Smith wreaked: Ibid., 377.
At a signal from the prophet: Schindler, 116.
This violent episode: Ibid., 117–18.
The Warsaw Signal editorialized: Brodie, 378.
Governor Ford, whose role: Ibid., 382–83.
In any event, we know: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, 548.
Smith was in tears: Brodie, 383–84.
The retrospective account: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, 551.
I am going like a lamb: Ibid., 555. Italics in original.
The journey was uneventful: Ibid., 559.
According to Krakauer: Krakauer, 131–33.
The men who had murdered: Stegner, 35.
Brigham Young’s biographer: Hirshson, 50.
Fawn Brodie ponders this question: Brodie, 380–81.
Brigham Young, who had risen: Hirshson, 48.
“The death of the modern Mahomet”: New York Herald, July 8, 1844, quoted in Brodie, 397.
One of the most cherished: Hirshson, 51.
One historian calls Young’s oration: Ibid., 53.
Well, he spoke, and his words: Hyde, in Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, 181.
(Indeed, a bishop who listened): Hirshson, 53.
Desperate to be anointed: Ibid., 52.
Young, who did in fact speak last: Werner, 191.
Not once did Young: Ibid., 191–92.
Like Stalin deposing Trotsky: Hirshson, 53–54; Werner, 194.
Rigdon indeed decamped for Pittsburgh: Werner, 194–95.
As late as 1871: Hirshson, 308–9.
Besides the challenge briefly posed: Ibid., 56–58.
In the aftermath of the Prophet’s murder: Werner, 195.
John D. Lee, in his late: Lee, 161.
The feud between William and Young: Hirshson, 59.
Finally, in 1860: Werner, 195.
They were brought to the flash point: Hirshson, 64.
though Harold Schindler, Rockwell’s biographer: Schindler, 138–40.
In response, Gentiles attacked: Werner, 200.
“Every Saint, mongrel or whole-blood”: Madison Express, [n.d.], quoted in Werner, 200.
The temple, which Mormons claimed: Werner, 201–2.
During the last weeks: Ibid., 202.
Among them was Brigham Young: Hirshson, 65.
“It was the first time”: Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, 266.
No doubt there were dutiful aspects: Hirshson, 65–66.
Yet if Young initially obeyed: See, e.g., Hirshson’s chapter “The Seventy Wives of Brigham Young,” 184–223.
Early in February 1846: Werner, 202.
On the other hand: Ibid., 204–5.
We know that Young: Hirshson, 80.
In fact, as it headed west: Slaughter and Landon, Trail of Hope, 50.
As early as October 1845: Slaughter and Landon, 23.
It did not take long: Ibid., 24.
Adding to the pilgrims’ difficulties: Ibid., 28–38.
As it was, even an elite cadre: Stegner, 73.
Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah: Berrett et al., 72–75, 87–88.
Yet the Prophet still keenly hoped: Stegner, 84.
In later years, Young would rail: Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, 231–32.
The army pay: Stegner, 78, 83.
Some orthodox histories: Ibid., 78.
In the fall of 1846: Berrett et al., 121–24, 207–8, 212–15.
A year-end census: Stegner, 106.
There were 538 wooden houses: Berrett et al., 214.
No accurate death count: http://www.lds.org/placestovisit.
Winter found me bed-ridden: Margaret Phelps, quoted in Slaughter and Landon, 46–47.
That number resonated: Slaughter and Landon, 50–51.
“the most extensively reported”: Stegner, 111.
South Pass in western Wyoming: Berrett and Anderson, 116.
In 1843 alone: Unruh, Plains Across, 5.
In 1813 the Missouri Gazette: Ibid., 28–29.
The first Anglo women: David Roberts, Newer World, 31.
The few encounters with Indians: Slaughter and Landon, 61.
In fact, that spring and summer: Unruh, The Plains Across, 252.
The trail was so crowded: Slaughter and Landon, 53.
the Mormon pioneer trek is well documented: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
It comes as no surprise: Stegner, 132–34; Clayton, Emigration Guide, 10.
Sandy Bluffs, west foot: Clayton, 54.
The cavalcade on the Mormon Trail: Stegner, 119.
To bring order: Ibid., 119–20.
On May 29, Young blew his stack: Slaughter and Landon, 61.
When I wake up in the morning: unnamed source, quoted in Stegner, 137.
By June 12, the trekkers: Stegner, 127, 147–48; Slaughter and Landon, 67.
Ascending the Sweetwater: Stegner, 148–50.
“men, women and children”: Wilford Woodruff, quoted in Stegner, 150.
The Mormon caravan: Stegner, 153.
Two decades before, leading: Berrett and Anderson, 157–58.
Another Mormon legend hovers: E.g., John Steele, quoted in Slaughter and Landon, 68.
“there was but one thing”: Woodruff, Woodruff’s Journal, 220.
On June 30, as the Saints lingered: Stegner, 157–58.
Another Mormon legend: Ibid., 158.
Br Brannan fell in: Norton Jacob, June 30, 1847, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Once across the Green River: Clayton, 74.
But in that home stretch: Stegner, 164.
It was characterized: Ibid., 157.
“The sagebrush through which”: Terry Del Bene, interview, February 11, 2007.
No one was stricken more seriously: Stegner, 162–63.
On July 21, Pratt’s team: Ibid., 167.
Alas, Young never uttered: Ibid., 168.
Wilford Woodruff’s journal: Woodruff, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
CHAPTER 3: THE DIVINE HANDCART PLAN
On June 9, 1856, a party: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Though still in poor health: Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom, 40–41.
In March 1849, Brigham Young: Morgan, Deseret, 125.
The grandiosity of Mormon ambitions: Unruh, 303; Bigler, Kingdom, 46.
In an uneasy 1850 compromise: Bigler, 48–49.
Young tried at first to divert: Unruh, 303, 307–8.
The official U.S. census for 1851: Ibid., 303.
In a typical 1855 pronouncement: Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, 317, quoted in Bigler, Kingdom, 43.
The government surveyor and explorer: Gunnison, Mormons, 26, 67–71.
Yet because of the revelations: See, e.g., Fielding, Unsolicited Chronicler.
Those dark suspicions: Hirshson, 144–45.
As part of his statehood effort: Bigler, Kingdom, 102.
John Unruh, whose The Plains Across: Unruh, 408–9.
By the mid-1850s, a wagon: Olsen, 29.
To solve this problem: Slaughter and Landon, 106–9.
What those backers failed to mention: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 4–6.
In sheer practical terms: Ibid., 5–6.
“Many men have traveled the long”: Millennial Star, December 22, 1855, 811.
Adding urgency to Zion’s looming: Olsen, 21–22.
In 1848, a similar infestation: Werner, 240–41.
On October 29, 1855: Hafen and Hafen, 34–35.
A month before that, the Prophet had written: Millennial Star, December 22, 1855, 809–815.
“I have been thinking how we should”: Ibid., 813–14.
Unlike Joseph Smith: Hirshson, 81.
“The plan is the device of inspiration”: Millennial Star, December 22, 1855, 809.
Oh, our faith goes with the hand-carts: “Hand-cart Song,” quoted in Hafen and Hafen, 275.
In his December 22 editorial: Millennial Star, December 22, 1855, 809–12.
LDS scholar Andrew D. Olsen: Olsen, 29.
At once he dispatched: Ibid., 53.
More mythologizing: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
In this case, the source: Deseret News, October 8, 1856, 243.
Most of the British Saints: Hafen and Hafen, 43–44, 56.
Daniel Spencer had arrived: Spencer journal, LDS Archives, quoted in Olsen, 55.
Thus Archer Walters, a skilled carpenter: Archer Walters diary, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
It is a testimony either to the converts’ loyal obedience: Ibid.
His team earned the nickname: Ibid.
On July 1, Archer Walters: Ibid.
Archer Walters, whose duty it was: Ibid.
In a memoir written: Daniel McArthur, Reminiscences, ibid.
“June 9th, 1856. At 5 P.M.”: Edmund Ellsworth Emigrating Company journal, ibid.
As John Oakley, a sub-captain: John Oakley journal, ibid.
That pressure from peers and leaders: Patrick Twiss Bermingham journal, ibid.
Combing genealogical records: Hafen and Hafen, 199n.
In a letter to the New York newspaper: J. H. Latey, “Correspondence,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
John Oakley, Ellsworth’s sub-captain: Oakley journal, ibid.
Thus on June 20, in Oakley’s diary: Ibid.
Heartless though it seems: Ibid.
The main daily staple for adults: Edmund Ellsworth Company narrative, ibid.
Archer Walters’s clipped diary entries: Walters diary, ibid.
John Oakley dutifully recorded: Oakley journal, ibid.
Apparently the pilfering continued: Walters diary, ibid.
In an iconoclastic study: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 5.
Archer Walters thought: Walters diary, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
The punitive John Oakley: Oakley journal, ibid.
Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Jones: Mary Ann Jones Ellsworth diary, ibid.
“On the arrival of the company”: Bermingham journal, ibid.
While in Florence: Oakley journal, ibid.
(As a Swiss girl of six): Hafen and Hafen, 12.
In the McArthur Company: Thordur Didriksson, “A brief story,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
They are glancingly referred to: Ellsworth Company narrative, ibid.
e.g., an emigrant recorded as “Peter Stalle”: Ellsworth Company list of individuals, ibid.
Their addition to the party: Ellsworth Company journal, ibid.
The cold-eyed John Oakley: Oakley journal, ibid.
It would remain for a single informant: Margaret Stalle Barker, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Yet even the loyal sub-captain John Oakley: Oakley journal, ibid.
The toil was terrible: Bermingham diary, ibid.
Wrote Archer Walters: Walters diary, ibid.
On August 16, the McArthur party: Bermingham diary, ibid.
“Before half an hour,” Bermingham averred: Ibid.
In his account of the journey: McArthur, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Another member of the party: Mary B. Crandal, “Autobiography,” ibid.
As the word was given: McArthur, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Retrospect may have added a rosy glow: Crandal, “Autobiography,” ibid.
On August 31, near Deer Creek: Oakley journal, ibid.
He was buried at Deer Creek: Ellsworth company, list of individuals, ibid.
A few months later, McArthur would remember: McArthur, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Thus, farther west along the trail: Ibid.
now a mere 228 miles short: Clayton, 72.
On September 11, having pushed hard: Ellsworth Company narrative, ibid.
With laconic resignation: Ellsworth Company journal, ibid.
But that it was a dramatically orchestrated coup: Phyllis Hardie Ferguson, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
McArthur’s own report has his company: McArthur, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Archer Walters, the Ellsworth Company coffin-maker: Walters diary, ibid.
Writing later for the Millennial Star: Thomas Bullock, “Letter,” ibid.
On September 17, another English Saint: Ellsworth Company journal, ibid.
“one man of the Italian brethren”: Oakley journal, ibid.
John Oakley, who had pitilessly attributed: Ibid.
With the scent of Zion in his nostrils: Ellsworth Company journal, ibid.
Just how dangerous a passage this was: William Butler, “Autobiography,” ibid.
Charles Treseder, a young man living: Charles Treseder, “Correspondence,” ibid.
Mary Powell Sabin, a twelve-year-old: Sabin, “Autobiography,” ibid.
William Aitken, a thirty-six-year-old dentist: William Aitken, “Adventures,” ibid.
The official Ellsworth journal lists: Ellsworth Company journal, ibid.
McArthur acknowledged “only the loss”: McArthur, “Reminiscences,” ibid.
Hafen and Hafen fix the number: Hafen and Hafen, 193.
Without citing sources, the company narratives: Ellsworth Company narrative, McArthur Company narrative, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
The Deseret News baldly asserted: Deseret News, October 1, 1856.
In an emotional speech: Deseret News, October 8, 1856.
At the same meeting: Ibid.
If anything, at that bowery meeting: Ibid.
In a speech given two weeks after: Deseret News, November 26, 1856.
Mary McCleve, a sixteen-year-old: Mary Meeks, “Reminiscences,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
But William Butler, who had staggered: Butler, “Autobiography,” ibid.
Twiss Bermingham, the scrupulous diarist: Twiss Bermingham, “To Utah,” ibid.
William Aitken, that much angrier apostate: Aitken, “Adventures,” ibid.
As for Archer Walters, the loyal carpenter: Archer Walters, “The Journal,” ibid.
In New York City, President John Taylor: Hafen and Hafen, 91.
On June 11, from Iowa City, William Woodward: William Woodward to Heber C. Kimball, 11 June 1856, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Normally the arrival dates of such documents: Ardis Parshall, personal communication, May 30, 2007.
CHAPTER 4: SAVAGE ADVICE
“Dont you think I had a pleasant”: Priscilla Evans, Autobiography, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Edward Bunker, thirty-four years old: Hafen and Hafen, 81.
In mid-June of 1
856, a church official: William Woodward, “Iowa Correspondence,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Bunker himself wrote almost nothing: Edward Bunker, Autobiography, ibid.
Priscilla Evans claimed many years later: Evans, Autobiography, ibid.
Yet David Grant, a sub-captain: Millennial Star, November 29, 1856, 767.
A delay of three weeks ensued: Evans, Autobiography, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
It contains this cryptic avowal: Elizabeth Lane Hyde, “Autobiagraphy of Elizabeth L. Hyde,” ibid.
Priscilla Evans paints a woeful picture: Evans, Autobiography, ibid.
Thomas Evans had lost his leg: Ibid.
Elizabeth Lane elaborates: “He soon gave out”: Hyde, “Autobiagraphy,” ibid.
A slightly different version: Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, vol. 6, 355, quoted in Hafen and Hafen, 85.
Elizabeth Lane wrote that after rheumatism: Hyde, “Autobiagraphy,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Several sources report: John Parry, Reminiscences and diary, ibid. Also Robert David Roberts, Reminiscences, ibid.
Even this, reported John Parry: Parry, Reminiscences and diary, ibid.
Only Parry’s account even mentions: Ibid.
“Indians met us some times”: Ibid.
Priscilla relates how it backfired: Evans, Autobiography, ibid.
one diary mentions a six-inch snowfall: Roberts, Reminiscences, ibid.
One emigrant, Samuel Orton: Samuel Taylor Orton, Record book, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Twenty-three-year-old Eleanor Roberts: Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, vol. 6, 357, quoted in Hafen and Hafen, 87–88.
By his own account, Robert Roberts’s boots: Roberts, Reminiscences, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
(The actual distance from Independence Rock): Clayton, 70.
As late as August 30: Millennial Star, November 29, 1856, 767.
The loner Elizabeth Lane later recalled: Hyde, “Autobiagraphy,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Thomas Giles, one of the blind men: Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, vol. 10, 325–26, quoted in Hafen and Hafen, 86–87.
After the daily ration had been reduced: Orton, Record book, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Without citing their sources: Hafen and Hafen, 193.
One of the emigrants, Robert Roberts: Roberts, Autobiographical sketch, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
By early 1856: David L. Bigler, Kingdom, 121.
He was known to the faithful as “the sledgehammer”: Ibid., 122.
Historian David L. Bigler describes: Ibid.
A New York Times reporter: New York Times, September 21, 1857, quoted in Hirshson, 155.