Utah War (1857–1858)

The Utah War was a confrontation between the federal government of the United States and a Mormon militia commanded by Utah governor and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young. The conflict began in May 1857, when US president James Buchanan moved to replace Young as governor of the Utah Territory and deployed federal troops to maintain peace during the transition. Young, unaware of Buchanan's decision, rallied a Mormon militia to defend Utah after learning that troops were marching on the territory. The two sides engaged in a nonviolent standoff until Young ceded the Utah governorship to Alfred Cumming in April 1858.

Although the Utah War did not result in any battlefield casualties, historians generally agree that the episode had the potential to turn far more violent than it proved to be. Historians also note that the entire conflict could likely have been avoided if Buchanan had been more communicative about his decision to replace Young. For these reasons, the Utah War is sometimes referred to as "Buchanan's Blunder."

Background

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the Mormon church, was founded in New York State in 1830 by Joseph Smith. The Mormon church quickly drew thousands of followers, but tensions between the fledgling faith community and its nonbelieving neighbors mounted, in large part because of Smith's open endorsement of polygamy. As a result, the Mormons were displaced on several occasions, moving from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois. Smith was murdered in Illinois in 1844, and Brigham Young took over leadership of the Mormon church. Seeking religious freedom, Young led the Mormons to an unsettled expanse of land in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Three years later, the US Congress officially established the Utah Territory, and Young was installed as its governor.

Within a few years, Utah's Mormon population had grown to about forty thousand people. Young dissuaded nonbelievers from moving to the territory and led a theocratic government that operated under his full control. Political affairs in Utah became a topic of national debate in 1856, when Utah first applied for statehood. However, the antidemocratic nature of Young's leadership, along with the Mormons' continued practice of polygamy and persistent reports of violence, turned public sentiment against the faith community. Historians have noted that the North and South were united in their negative opinions of Utah and the Mormons; this was noteworthy because tensions between the North and South had been increasing during the lead-up to the American Civil War (1861–1865).

In December 1856, Mormon activists ransacked the workplace of a federal judge appointed to office in Utah, and a second federal judge assigned to the territory claimed that members of the Mormon church had poisoned the magistrate who had previously held his position. Believing that Mormon community members were interfering with the official duties of both judges, President Buchanan decided to intervene, and he moved to replace Young with Cumming, a non-Mormon, in May 1857.

Overview

Anticipating that the Mormons might resist the installation of Cumming as Utah's new governor, Buchanan ordered a military unit of about two thousand men to accompany Cumming on his westward voyage. The government soldiers were tasked with upholding law and order, protecting Cumming and his entourage, and ensuring power changed hands peacefully. However, neither Young nor the Mormon faith community received any notification that Buchanan had ordered a change in Utah's governorship. When they learned that thousands of federal soldiers were marching on Utah, Young and his Mormon followers assumed they were once again under religious persecution. Young rallied a Mormon militia into action, and they launched a raid on the military procession.

During the raid, Mormon militia members demolished a reported seventy-four military wagons, depleting the soldiers of vital supplies and sending their cattle and horses into a wild stampede. Mormon fighters also set large swaths of grassland on fire to impede the federal soldiers' forward progress. Bereft of necessities, the federal soldiers had no choice but to spend a difficult winter at Fort Bridger, where several of them died. These deaths would prove to be the only direct casualties of the Utah War, as the two sides did not meet in another hostile confrontation. However, in September 1857, Mormon militia members launched a series of violent attacks that killed more than one hundred members of a non-Mormon migrant party traveling through Utah to California. In response, the US Congress authorized the deployment of another three thousand troops along with two regiments of volunteer soldiers to Utah.

With federal reinforcements on the way to support the government action against the Mormons, Young mobilized another one thousand militiamen. Young contemplated burning the Mormons' established communities and relocating yet again, but he was ultimately dissuaded from this course of action. Instead, thirty thousand Mormons moved from northern Utah to temporary homes about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south, in the city of Provo. Meanwhile, the military officer and statesman Thomas L. Kane petitioned Buchanan to send him to Utah to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Mormon leaders. In April 1858, Kane convinced Young to cede the governorship to Cumming in exchange for a promise of amnesty, which Buchanan granted. Federal soldiers remained stationed in Utah to maintain order until they were summoned east at the outbreak of the Civil War.

The Utah War had a lasting effect on the Mormon community and played a major role in shaping the Utah Territory's early history. Mutual distrust between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the US federal government persisted for many years afterward, intensifying when Congress formally prohibited polygamy in 1862 and stripped polygamists of the right to vote twenty years later. However, in 1890, some thirteen years after Young's death, the Mormon church adopted reforms that officially discouraged the practice of polygamy and ultimately led to Utah's 1896 ascent to statehood.

Bibliography

"Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Utah War." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003, www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-twenty-nine-the-utah-war?lang=eng. Accessed 14 Nov. 2017.

"1857–58: Utah War." Utah Division of State History, ilovehistory.utah.gov/time/stories/utah‗war.html. Accessed 14 Nov. 2017.

MacKinnon, William P. At Sword's Point, Part 2: A Documentary History of the Utah War, 1858–1859. U of Oklahoma P, 2016.

"On This Day: November 28, 1857." New York Times, 28 Nov. 2001, www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/1128.html. Accessed 14 Nov. 2017.

Poll, Richard D. "The Utah War." Utah History Encyclopedia, www.uen.org/utah‗history‗encyclopedia/u/UTAH‗WAR.shtml. Accessed 14 Nov. 2017.

Reeve, W. Paul. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 14–52.

Roberts, David. "The Brink of War." Smithsonian, June 2008, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-brink-of-war-48447228/. Accessed 14 Nov. 2017.

Rogers, Brent M. Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of the Early Utah Territory. U of Nebraska P, 2016.