Alexander William Doniphan: A Biography

ALEXANDER WILLIAM DONIPHAN. BY JUNIUS F. WELLS.

When the history of Joseph Smith shall come to be written dispassionately by the competent arid fearless — the true philos- ophers of life, who alone are capable of doing such world- characters justice — they will be much influenced by the testimony of the lawyers and judges with whom the Prophet came in contact. This testimony will undoubtedly redound greatly to his credit; for, in the more than fifty lawsuits to which he was summoned, he was in every action acquitted. This uniform result of facing the facts and the law, in the courts of the land, was due primarily to the innocence of the man whom his enemies pursued so relentlessly. It was also due, in no small degree, to his management of the de- fense, and the aid he commandedfrom the legal profession. He was fortunate in securing attorneys of character and ability to represent him, men who, by their ability and eloquence, or, quite as frequently, by their sturdy sense of justice and boldness in de- fending it, compelled even unwilling judges to acquit their client. Then, Joseph Smith understood the constitution and laws of his country. I have heard my father, who was a Justice of the Peace

when the "Mormons" came to Nauvoo, say that the first thing which made the impression upon him that Joseph Smith had a divine gift and power above other men, was his marvelous understand- ing of the principles of law and jurisprudence. He said that no man, not a student of years, could possibly know what Joseph Smith knew about law, except by the inspiration of the Almighty. Among the earliest associations of the Prophet with attorneys of character was that with Atchison & Doniphan, at Liberty, Clay

county, Missouri, and after Atchison retired and Baldwin became Doniphan's partner, Joseph studied law in the latter's office. He respected and trusted Doniphan, and for over five years they were friends, and had much to do with each other. While others fell away from the Prophet, even Atchison joined Lucas and Bogg8 in the expulsion from Missouri, it is not anywhere shown that Doniphan abandoned his old client, or lost sympathy and respect for him at any time. And his testimony concerning Joseph has come down through the years with that of Browning, Douglas, Josiah Quincy, and others, to the eifect that he was*a wonderful man — such indeed as none of them had ever seen or known. While they were loth to admit that he was a servant of God, and that "Mormonism" is true, it stands everlastingly to the credit and honor of Alexander W. Doniphan that he lived to bear witness and to testify that he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet; for he heard him make a wonderful prediction, and saw for himself its literal fulfilment.

The following biographical sketch from the facile pen of Col. Thomas L, Snead is especially interesting in its account of Col. Doniphan's career after the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri. It was published in the Magazine of American History, in 1885.

In 1790, two years before Kentucky was severed from Vir- ginia and admitted into the Union as a separate state, Joseph Doniphan and his wife migrated thither from Eastern Virginia, and made for themselves a home in Mason county, on the banks of the Ohio, and there on the ninth of July, 1808, was born Alexander William, the youngest of their ten children. Joseph Doniphan died in 1813, and the boy fell to the sole care of his mother. In due time, he was sent to the school of Richard Keene, a scholarly but eccentric Irishman, who prepared him for Augusta college, where, under the teachings of those eminent divines, Dr. Durbin and Dr. Bascom, he learned rapidly, and graduated with distinction at the age of eighteen. He devoted the next year to miscellaneous reading, and then began the study of law. On being admitted to the bar in 1830, he moved to Lex- ington, Missouri, and began the practice of his profession there. In 1833, he moved still farther west, to the villiage of Liberty in Clay county, on the then verge of civilization, and there he con-

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tinued to reside for thirty years, quickly winning: for himself a foremost place among the lawyers of Missouri by his eloquence, his forensic ability and his exalted character. These qualities, enhanced as they were by a singular charm of manner, made him very popular wherever he was known, and the pathway to political distinction and power lay temptingly before him; but office holding had no attraction for Doniphan; the dull routine of legislation was always unspeakably irksome to him, and the devious ways of politi- cians he abhored. It was, therefore, only during the exciting Presidential canvass of 1836, and when the political storm of 1840 was sweeping over the country, and once again the baleful year of 1854, when the border land of Missouri was agitated by the passions provoked by the fierce conflict then waging between freedom and slavery for the possession of Kansas and the control — of the Union that bloody prelude to the war of the Rebellion that he ever consented to be a candidate before the people for a political office. On each of these occasions he was elected, almost without opposition, to represent the people of Clay county in the General Assembly of Missouri. When Doniphan first went to Liberty, and for many years afterwards, the neighboring post, Fort Leavenworth, was an im- portant military station, occupied by a considerable body of troops, whose officers were wont to make frequent visits to the hospitable homes of Clay county. Among these officers were Riley, Kearney, and Albert Sidney Johnston, with all of whom Doniphan formed friendly relations; and it is perhaps to this fact that he owed the early development of that martial disposition, which afterwards made him so conspicuous a figure in the war with Mexico. Men were indeed quick to recognize his soldierly qualities, and he was already a brigadier-general, in command of the first brigade of the State Militia when, in 1838, the Governor of Missouri ordered out the militia of the western counties to drive the "Mor- mons" out of the State. In obedience to these orders, Doniphan marched with a part of his brigade to Far West, where the main body of the "Mormons" lay encamped, under the command of Joseph Smith, in person. The "Mormons," seeing that resistance would be useless, acceded to Doniphan's terms, which were that

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the "Mormons" should give up their arms, surrender their leaders for trial and quit the State forever. How ruthlessly these terms were enforced; with what wanton cruelty the unhappy outcasts were driven from the land, which they had subdued by their labors and made fruitful by their toil, and what terrible scenes were enacted, Missourians blush to relate. In none of this shameful work, however, did Doniphan take part,

but, soldier-like, he used all his influence as a man, and all his skill as a lawyer, to protect not only the followers of the Prophet, but the Prophet himself, whose counsel he was, from the fury^ of foes, whose religious zeal and virtuous indignation were greatly inten- sified by a very human desire to possess themselves without cost of the cultivated fields, with which the hard-working "Mormons'^ had gardened the prairie wilderness of western Missouri. When, in 1846, war with Mexico was brought on by the an- nexation of Texas, the President of the United States at once decided ^th statesmanlike precision to send into northern Mexico a force competent to conquer and holl all the part of the Republic, while three armies under Wool, Taylor and Scott were to approach the city oi' Mexico by converginglines, and there dictate the

terms of peace. To carry this decision into effect, the President called upon Missouri for volunteers, to rendezvous at Fort Leaven, worth, where Col. Stephen W. Kearney, who was already there with six companies of his regiment (the 1st Dragoons), would organ- ize and take command of the expedition. The hardy and adventurous young men of the Missouri frontier responded so eagerly to their country's call, that within barely a month, (on the 18th of June, 1846) the First Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers was organized at Fort Leavenworth, with Doniphan as its colonel. The regiment, together with two com- panis of infantry, one company of Missouri Rangers, a battalion of Missouri artillery, and six troops of U. S. Dragoons, aggregating 1658 men, constituted "The Army of the West" under command of Col. Stephen W. Kearney, U. S. A. Orders to move were given without delay, and on the twenty- sixth of June the army took up its line of march. For nearly nine hun- dred miles it moved under a summer sun; first through a treeless desert, and then over lofty mountain ranges, and then dispersing the

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troops, that had been gathered for the defense of Santa Fe, entered that ancient city and took peaceable possession of all New Mexico. On the twenty-fifth of September, General Kearney, having turned over the command of the U. S. forces in New Mexico to Col. Doniphan, himself set out for California with several companies of his Dragoons. Before leaving, however, he ordered Doniphan, at the urgent request of the latter, to move with his own regiment, and such other troops as could be spared from New Mexico, to the city of Chihuahua, and report there to Gen. Wool, as soon as Col, Sterling Price, then on the march to New Mexico with another regiment of Missourians, should reach Santa Fe and relieve him (Doniphan). Price reached Santa Fe early in October, but the movement to Chihuahua had been meanwhile unexpectedly delayed. For Gen. Kearney, having learned on his way to California that the Navajos (a warlike tribe on the western slope of the Rocky Moun- tains) were committing grievous depredations on the Mexican set- telments in their vicinity, had sent back orders to Doniphan to reduce these savages to submission before moving southward. As winter was fast appoaching,Doniphan set out at once with a part, of his regiment for the Navajos country. His line of march lay over an unknown and trackless mountain range, deep covered with snow. His men had neither winter clothing nor suf- ficient food; his horses and mules, ill fed and unused to the hard- ships of such a march, gave out by the way; and half of them per- ished. Rut in spite of all these difficulties, he accomplished success- fully the object of the expedition, and returned to the valley of the Rio Grande, hastened the preparations for the march toward Cen- tral Mexico, where dangers were to be sought and honors to be won. By the twelfth of December, his force was concentrated at Val- verde, and on the fourteenth it began its memorable march. It con-

sisted of Doniphan's regiment, and one hundred and three men of Price's regiment, and was subsequently reinforced by two batteries — one hundred and ten men with ten pieces of artillery. They had to pass, almost at the very outset, through a dreary desert, throughout whose dreadful length of ninety miles, neither wood nor water was to be found. The weather, too, was bitter cold, and

the men suffered terribly from hunger, thirst and frost. But fatigue and suffering were alike forgotten when.as the little

column was about going into camp on Christmas day, the cry ran through their ranks that the enemy was advancing. Doniphan quickly formed his line of battle and awaited the attack. At this moment a Mexican officer, bearing a black flag, approached and summoned him to appear instantly before the Mexican general. "If you do not obey this order without delay,' said he, "we will charge forthwith and give no quarter." Charge and be damned," was Doniphan's prompt response. In a few minutes the enemy advanced, opening fire when within four hundred yards of the Missourians. Doniphan had ordered his men to lie down and reserve their fire till the Mexicans were within sixty paces. The latter had already delivered four volleys, when the Missiourians rose with a yell, and poured a deadly fire into their ranks. In thirty minutes, the Mexicans, were put to flight, leaving sixty-three dead upon the field, and one hundred and fifty wounded. Not a single Missourian was killed. Seven were wounded. In this battle of the Bracito, (so called after the name of the stream on whose banks it was fought,) about five hundred Missouri- ans were engaged, the rest of them not reaching the field until the enemy had fled. The Mexicans were about twelve hundred strong, a part of them regulars. The victory so completely demoralized the Mexicans that they made no further opposition to the American advance; and on the twenty-seventh of December, Doniphan entered El Paso. The Miss- ourians were now far in the enemy's country, three hundred and fifty miles from Santa Fe, and more than twelve hundred from Fort Lea- venworth. Chihuahua was still two hundred and fifty miles distant, and between them and that city lay a wild and desolate region, through whose arid deserts and precipitous canyons they would have to toil, only to confront a greater danger when, upon emerg- ing from them, i:hey would find themselves, all of a sudden, in the midst of a rich and populous country, where an army, many times more numerous, was already gathering to meet and diive them back into the desert, or utterly destroy them. Little, however, did Doniphan or his men fear dangers or dif- ficulties of any kind. He had been ordered to Chihuahua, and he

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meant to go there, despite the fact that he had now learned that General Wool, to whom he had been ordered to report at that city, had turned southward with his army to reinforce Taylor, against whom Santa Anna was marching, with an overwhelming force. If

Wool was not in Chihuahua, Chihuahua was nevertheless on the way to the spot where fighting was to be done, and that was the spot which Doniphan and his Missourians were eager to reach. He therefore hastened to make ready for an advance, while waiting for the artillery which Price had been ordered to push forward to him. On the eighth of February (1847) everything was in readiness, and on that day the Missourians — nine hundred and fifty-four officers

and men —moved out of El Paso. On the fourteenth, they en- tered a sandy desert through which they toiled sixty-five miles without finding a drop of water. A few days later they encount- ered another desert forty-five miles wide. Their sufferings were terrible, and many of their horses and mules and oxen died of ex- haustion. But all of these difficulties were finally overcome, and on the twenty-fifth of February the little army saw before it the fertile fields in the midst of which the city of Chihuahua rose. After two days rest, it again advanced, but on Sunday, (the twenty- eighth of February, 1847) Doniphan found himself, when within seventeen miles of the city, confronted by a largely superior force strongly posted and intrenched at the pass of the Sacramento. He attacked without delay, and, after three hcurs of the hardest fight- ing, routed the Mexicans completely. In this battle, nine hundred and twenty- four Missourians whipped over four thousand six hundred Mexicans. The latter left three hundred and four dead upon the field, while their wounded amounted to nearly five hundred. They also lost all of their artillery and many wagons and large supplies of ammunition and subsistence. Only one Missourian was killed, and only eleven were wounded. This brilliant victory of the Sacramento laid the whole State of Chihuahua at the feet of the conqueror, and on the next day, (March 1, 1847,) Doniphan entered and took possession of its capi- tal, an opulent city with thirty thousand inhabitants. Here he was compelled to halt till he could obtain orders from General Wool, to whom he had been directed to report. To find that officer was his first duty. He accordingly dispatched fourteen volunteers,

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hardy and fearless men, in quest of General Wool. They left at once, and on the second of April found him at Saltillo, nearly seven hundred miles away. Wool ordered them to report to General Taylor and get their instructions from him. Taylor sent them back to Doniphan with orders for him to march forthwith to Saltillo. These orders Doniphan received on the twenty-third of April, and on the twenty-fifth, the Missourians were on the march to Saltillo. On the twenty-first of May they were bivouacked near the battle field of Buena Vista, and were reviewed the next day by General Wool. Col. Doniphan reported straightway to General Taylor, and said that though the term of service of his men was about to ex- pire, they greatly desired to serve under his command, and were ready to march anywhere that he might send them, no matter how arduous the duty, or how distant the field of operations. Unfor- tunately for the Missourians' hopes of glory, Taylor's campaign was at an end, and there was nothing for his army to do but to hold the unresisting country, which it had conquered, while awaiting the result of Scott's advance upon the city of Mexico. General Taylor, therefore, ordered Doniphan to march his command to Brazos Santiago, where it would take shipping for New Orleans. There the Missourians were paid off, and honorably mustered out of the service, and thence they returned to their homes. At St. Louis, they were given a public reception, on which oc- casion Missouri's great Senator, Col. Benton, welcomed them back to the State in an eloquent speech, wherein, after recounting the chief incidents of their marvelous march, he said: "You arrive here today, absent one year, marching and fighting all the time, bringing trophies of cannon and standards from fields whose very names were unknown to you when you set out. Nobly and man- fully have you made one of the most remarkable expeditions in history, worthy to be studied by statesmen, and showing what vol- unteer soldiers can do — for the crowning glory is that you were all volunteers — not a regular among you. officer If there had been one, with power to control you, you could never have done what you did." Even Benton, far sighted as he was, did not then perceive that this conquest of New Mexico was about to add to the territory of

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the Union over five hundred thousand square miles of soil,embracing all of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and a part of Colorado, with their countless treasures of gold and silver. Laying aside his sword, Doniphan returned to Liberty and re- sumed the practice of law. Though often urged to take an active part in politics, he still shunned the cares of office, preferring the serene happiness of home, made dear to him by the presence of a wife to whom he was fondly attached, and of the two bright boys that had been born to them, to all the glittering bubbles which ambition bestows on her devotees. Twice only has the gravity of public events drawn him out of his seclusion, as has been told, in 1854, when the struggle for Kansas was kindling the flames of civil war, and again in 1861, when these flames were about to sweep over and desolate Missouri. No man in the States strove more earnestly than he to avert that great calamity, and in the Peace Convention at Washington, (to which he was sent by the General Assembly as one of the Mis-

souri commissioners) he labored with such zeal and eloquence and power as to command the respect and admiration of even that grave body of statesmen and patriots. From that convention, he returned to Missouri satisfied that war was inevitable. When it came, he retired to his home, unwil- ling to take part in the horrible strife, and awaited the result in the deepest sorrow. He still lives (1884) in Western Missouri, a stately, manly, figure, loved and honored by all who know him, for his vigorous intellect, his eloquence, his flashing wit and genial humor, his splendid courage and kindly heart, his charming man- ners and his blameless life.

A portrait of General Doniphan is presented in this issue of the Era. He died in Missouri, in August, 1887.