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Posted on 12/22/2004 10:57:32 PM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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The federal expedition into Utah Territory in 1857-58, which pitted President James Buchanan's U.S. Army against Brigham Young's Nauvoo Legion, was largely a bloodless affair, but misjudgments, embarrassments and expenses abounded.  President James Buchanan When Brigham Young, with the first Mormon pioneers, set foot on the spacious Salt Lake Valley floor on July 24, 1847, he boasted that if they could have just 10 years of peace, they would ask no odds of the devil or Uncle Sam. The young religion that taught continuing revelation had already experienced a turbulent 17-year history. By the time the Latter-day Saints sought refuge in the Rocky Mountain wilderness, some members had been driven from their homes as many as four times. It was, curiously, 10 years to the day--on July 24, 1857--that Young received word that an American army was on its way to Utah Territory. The news was not altogether unexpected. Utah was a difficult post for federal territorial appointees. Mormon polygamy and theocratic tendencies were viewed by much of the country as peculiar and un-American. On the other hand, the federally appointed judges and other agents chosen from outside their community were an annoyance to the Mormons, whose petition for statehood was repeatedly refused. President Millard Fillmore had made a small concession, appointing Brigham Young as Utah's territorial governor. Judge William W. Drummond was particularly obnoxious to Salt Lake society. He lectured polygamists for their immoral lifestyle while he was cohabitating with another man's wife. Of even greater irritation, Drummond, along with Judges George P. Stiles and John F. Kinney, all sought to recoup federal jurisdiction from Utah's probate courts, which the Mormons had been creatively using to circumvent federal authority. The stormy relationships climaxed when Utah lawyers broke into Stiles' office in protest and pretended to burn court documents and law books in the privy out back. One by one, Drummond, Stiles and Kinney each packed his bags and headed back to Washington, declaring in scathing letters that they had barely escaped Utah with their lives. President Buchanan thought he should do something. Appointing a new territorial governor and new federal judges, and sending in 2,500 troops seemed like a good solution.  Brigham Young Instructions from General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to General William S. Harney on June 29, 1857, stated that the troops under Harney's command were to be a posse comitatus, and that "in no case will you, your officers or men, attack any body of citizens whatever, except on such requisition or summons, or in sheer self-defense." The administration, however, whether unintentionally or deliberately, neglected to inform Utah Territorial Governor Brigham Young of its decision or directives. Utah's leaders learned of the approaching army from mail carriers, who had picked up word of the big government supply contracts in Independence, Mo. In this vacuum of information, and after 27 years of persecution, the Mormons assumed the worst. It had been only 13 years since they buried their first prophet, Joseph Smith, killed by a mob in Carthage, Ill., and only two months since Parley P. Pratt, one of their 12 apostles, had been murdered in Arkansas. Memories of mob violence and broken government promises were still fresh in their minds. Typifying Mormon reaction, Sanford Porter Sr. wrote, "[We are] weak in number, and weak in means, but with too much American blood in our veins to put ourselves up as a target for an army to shoot at without making any effort to protect ourselves." Popular Utah rhetoric cast the Mormons in the role of "Uncle Sam's nephews," walking in his footsteps against tyranny. Nor were Mormon women the oppressed victims waiting for liberation that many Americans, including some of the approaching soldiers, assumed. Salt Lake wives poured hot lead into molds to make bullets and sewed blankets into overcoats for militiamen. When an army quartermaster asked Mrs. Albert Carrington if she would cut down her carefully cultivated peach orchard to defend her faith, she replied in the affirmative, "And would sit up nights to do it."  General William S. Harney On August 1, 1857, Utah mustered its territorial militia, called the Nauvoo Legion after its Illinois antecedent. Drilling commenced throughout the territory. The government sought to gather guns and ammunition, and manufactured Colt revolvers. Grain and other food supplies were cached. Settlers were recalled from distant homesteads such as San Bernardino, Calif., and the Carson Valley (then part of Utah Territory but later part of Nevada), while traveling associates were sent for from the Eastern states and Europe. Councils were held with the native tribesmen with the aim of keeping them friendly, or at least neutral. On August 15, the Mormons sent Colonel Robert T. Burton and a reconnaissance unit of 125 men eastward from Salt Lake City with orders to observe the American regiments en route to the territory and protect the Mormon emigrants still on the overland road that season. Two of Burton's men, Charles Decker and Jesse Earl, went into the soldiers' camps posing as travelers from California. What they learned while mingling with the uninformed and boastful enlisted men and junior officers only fueled Mormon fears that the army was coming to hang their leaders and abuse their women. Initially, there was a belief that the invasion of Utah might be a two-pronged attack, with troops sent from both the east and also from California. Tooele Valley militiaman Thomas Atkin Jr. was a member of a unit assigned to watch the roads and passes on the western routes into the territory. Another likely access from the west coast was the southwestern road, leaving Los Angeles and reaching Utah by way of St. George. In southern Utah, Colonel William H. Dame of the Parowan Military District reported on August 23 that he could field 200 men, if necessary, and that all the roads south of Beaver were being guarded. Units were also sent to explore and guard the passes from the north. Forty-three men under Captain Andrew Cunningham were sent to the Snake River near Fort Hall, while 12 men from Weber County were sent to explore the country east of Ogden. Indeed, all of the passes into the territory were being watched and evaluated as potential routes of invasion or as avenues of escape for the Mormon people.  In Defense against the approach of Johnston's army, Brigham Young posted this proclamation throughout Utah Territory on August 5, 1857, declaring martial law and forbidding any person to pass in or through the territory without permission from an authorized officer. Courtesy Special Collections Department, University of Utah Libraries. Though preparing for war, Utah's leaders sought to keep their options open. Publicly, they spoke of defending their rights and reminded each other of past abuses. Privately however, Brigham Young expressed what would become his favored policy. In the communiqués that accompanied his proclamation of martial law on September 14, Young along with the Nauvoo Legion's commanding general, Daniel H. Wells, told the district commanders Philo Farnsworth and Colonel Dame: "Let there be no excitement....Save life always when it is possible. We do not wish to shed a drop of blood if it can be avoided. This course will give us great influence abroad." Envoys were sent east to Washington, D.C., and influential friends hoped to work out a negotiated solution. At the same time, plans were also discussed for a mass migration to distant mountain valleys where extended guerrilla war could be fought, as a last resort. During the months of October and November, between 1,200 and 2,000 militiamen were stationed in the narrow, high-walled Echo Canyon and the equally defensible East Canyon, on the main road into the Salt Lake Valley. Living on little more than baked flour and water and dealing with the numerous feet of snow that kept falling on the Wasatch Range, the Utah men built breastworks, dug rifle pits and dammed the streams and rivers in preparation for battle. Those who venture off today's interstate highway can still see the remnants of their efforts. Utah's first line of defense, however, were several hundred mounted men known as "scouts," "rangers," or "bandits" and "scoundrels," depending on your point of view. This unorthodox cavalry was sent eastward on the high mountain plains that are now southwestern Wyoming with orders to stampede the animals, burn the grass, stage nightly surprises to keep the soldiers from sleeping, block the road with fallen trees and destroy the fords; in other words, "to annoy [the army] in every possible way."
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Bump for a later read. K feels we need more culture so we're off to the museum. I'll check in later and will be more "cultured". Let us pray . . .
Come to think of it, yes it is.
Good morning Matthew. How is Poland today?
Hi miss Feather. Started shopping yet?
No shopping for me... I give out the bucks they do their own.
One cannot please teenagers. :-)
Let me know how this works out.
Hiya Sam.
Where there's a GI, there's a way!
Several years ago, my dad sent a book that had belonged to my great, great uncle. The book itself is really cool. It was published in 1893, and is titled How To Become A Succesful Electrican. It's really about becoming an Electrical Engineer.
Attached to the book was a note saying, "look for the bookmark". The bookmark was a c-note. I was tickled pink to receieve the book itself, but forced myself to find a use for the dough as well.
Wonderful story PE!!
And here you are an Engineer.
God Bless America!!!!
We silly stupid Americans STILL refuse to use it.
Sometimes we do tell the government to stick it where the sun don't shine. Not often enought IMO, but sometimes.
JAMES BRIDGER
Matthew Despain and Fred R. Gowans
Utah History Encyclopedia
http://historytogo.utah.gov/jbridger.html
James Bridger was one of the greatest frontiersmen of Utah and American history. During his lifetime he was a hunter, trapper, trader, Indian fighter, and guide, and one of only a few trappers to remain in the Rockies after the demise of the fur trade. In 1822 young Bridger heeded William Ashley's call for one hundred "enterprising young men" and ascended the route of the Missouri River under Major Andrew Henry's command.
Bridger spent his first year with the company on the upper Missouri until Blackfoot Indian hostilities forced the expedition back down river in the spring of 1823. Bridger then accompanied Henry's brigade to the Yellowstone River, where, en route, Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly. Evidence would indicate that Bridger volunteered as one of Glass's caretakers, but that he abandoned Glass believing he would not live. Glass miraculously survived and apparently exonerated Bridger's desertion due to his youth.
Bridger spent the fall of 1823 and the following winter and spring of 1824 trapping and wintering in the Bighorn region as part of John Weber's brigade. By summer's end, he had pushed west across South Pass to trap the Bear River. The brigade assembled in "Willow Valley" (Cache Valley) to winter on Cub Creek near present Cove, Utah. Allegedly during that winter of 1824-25 a dispute arose concerning the Bear River's course south of Cache Valley. Bridger was selected to explore the river to resolve the question. His journey took him to the Great Salt Lake, which he believed was an arm of the Pacific Ocean due to its saltiness. For years, Bridger was recognized as the first documented discoverer of the great "Inland Sea"; however, more recent evidence seems to indicate that this honor should be given to Etienne Provost.
The following spring, Weber's brigade spread along the Wasatch Front to trap. In May, Bridger was probably at the Ogden-Gardner trappers' confrontation near present Mountain Green; however, there is no documentation that indicates he participated in the proceedings. That summer Bridger attended the Randavouze Creek rendezvous, just north of the Utah-Wyoming border near the present town of McKinnon, Wyoming.
The winter of 1825-1826 was spent by Bridger and most of Ashley's men in the Salt Lake Valley in two camps: one at the mouth of the Weber River and one on the Bear. Bridger continued to trap the regions of the Wasatch Front for approximately the next four years, spending some of his winters in the Salt Lake Valley. He was present at all the rendezvous, including the Cache Valley rendezvous of 1826 and the rendezvous of 1827 and 1828 on the south shore of Bear Lake at present-day Laketown, Utah.
In 1830 Bridger and four other partners formed the Rocky Mountain Fur Company; however, exhausted fur reserves and increased competition from John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company forced the company to venture north into hostile Blackfoot territory. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was dissolved in 1834 and by the end of the decade the fur trade itself was over.
During the final years of the fur trade, Bridger, with partner Louis Vasquez, planned and constructed what was to be Fort Bridger, located on Black's Fork of the Green River. This new enterprise was to become one of the principal trading posts for the western migration, established specifically to serve the wagon trains heading to the far West. Bridger's post served many immigrants heading west, including the ill-fated Donner-Reed party.
In June 1847 Bridger had his first encounter with the Mormon pioneers near the mouth of the Little Sandy River. At this gathering, Bridger and Brigham Young discussed the merits of settling in the Salt Lake Valley. Also during this meeting Bridger drew his map on the ground for Young depicting the region with great accuracy and conveyed to the Mormon leader his misgivings regarding the agricultural productivity of the Salt Lake area. This first meeting between the Mormons and Bridger appears to have been pleasant, yet this relationship was to become a bittersweet one for Bridger.
The coming of the Mormons increased the number of immigrants at the fort. However, the Mormon settlements attracted away a significant portion of Bridger's trade, including that of the Indians, causing economic hardships for the post.
In 1850 Bridger consulted and guided the Stansbury expedition, which established a road much of which would later become the route of the Overland Stage and the Union Pacific Railroad. The same year, the territory of Utah was created; it included under its jurisdiction the Fort Bridger area.
Animosity between Bridger and the Mormons festered in the summer of 1853. Mormon leaders were convinced that Bridger was engaged in illicit trade with the Indians, especially guns and ammunition, and that he had stirred hostility among the Native Americans against the Mormons. Mormon leaders revoked Bridger's license to trade and issued a warrant for his arrest; however, before the posse's arrival Bridger had fled.
By the end of 1853, the Mormons had begun to move in and secure control of Bridger's Green River Basin, opting to establish Fort Supply rather than occupy Fort Bridger. Bridger had gone to the east, but returned to the mountains in 1855. That summer, Bridger sold his fort to the Mormons for $8,000. The Mormons paid Bridger $4,000 in gold coin that August; however, the final payment was not made until 1858, when Vasquez received the remaining $4,000 in Salt Lake City.
The Mormons took possession of Fort Bridger in 1855, making much-needed improvements, including erecting a large cobblestone wall around the fort. However, in 1857, the fort was destroyed by the Mormons to hinder the advance of Albert Sidney Johnson's Army, which was being guided by none other than James Bridger. The army occupied the fort until 1890. Bridger tried to deal with the army regarding leasing the fort under the premise that the Mormons had forced him out and stolen it from him. During the 1870s and early 1880s, Bridger inquired about the army's lease, but without success.
Bridger died in July 1881. After his death, the government paid his widow for the improvements of the post, which consisted of thirteen log structures and the eighteen-foot-high cobblestone wall, which, ironically, were built by the Mormons.
See: Cecil J. Alter, Jim Bridger: A Historical Narrative (1986); Fred R. Gowans and Eugene E. Campbell, Fort Bridger, Island in the Wilderness (1975); LeRoy R. Hafen and Harvey L. Carter, eds., Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West (1982); and Dale L. Morgan, ed., The West of William H. Ashley (1964).
Whenever you get back on the Internet and you return to a web page, you're supposed to get an updated version of that web page.
Well on my second trip to the Internet this morning, I got the same verion of a couple of web pages that I saw before I logged off. needless to say I had to hit the refresh button to update the pages.
This seems like something that happens every once in awhile but in any event.....
You are much warmer than we are here in Texas! It's -1C right now.
Ice storms are the worst. Give me a foot of snow any day instead of ice. Stay warm!
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