Lest We Forget: Captain Lot Smith

Lest We Forget By Dr. Seymour B. Young, of the First Council of Seventy IX — Captain Lot Smith Captain Smith enlisted in the volunteer service to help win the war against Mexico in 1846-8. As is well known, this Bat- talion consisted of 500 volunteers from the ranks of the emi- grating companies of the "Miormon" people. Lot Smith was then only sixteen years of age, the limit for enlisting being from 18 to 45. It is said that when he stepped under the line to measure his height, he raised partly on his tip toes to make the proper measurement. However, he was admitted and reg- istered, and marched to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the Battalion. The hardships of the journey from Leavenworth to California have never been fully told, but its main points are a matter of history. The sufferings of the men from thirst and fatigue were intense. Lot Smith, though the youngest soldier in the camp, continued the march with those at the front. On one occasion when the company were almost famished for want of water, they dug a well, and found water. Lot wa9 selected to go back with canteens of water to help the men who had fallen on the trail. He had strict orders not to distribute any water until the hindmost of the thirsty and exhausted men was reached. The story is told of how the young soldier could not resist the pleadings of his comrades and listening to their appeals he relieved each with a few swallows of water until the last one was met and received his portion, when every drop was exhausted; with the now partly refreshed soldiers he reached camp where plenty of water was found in the newly-dug wells, now known as the Maricopa wells of Arizona. These supplied them with an abundance of water. Their location is to this day pointed out to travelers. The officer, learning of Lot's return from his journey with water to save his comrades, took Private Smith to task for disobeying orders. Lot's hands were ordered to be bound by the wrists and a cord fastened from them to the wagon rod at the hind end of the wagon, so that when the wagon should start, Lot would be compelled to walk behind it under the burning rays of the sun in the hot desert sand until the fore- noon march was ended. That was the sentence, but Colonel P. St. George Cooke, being advised of the situation, countermanded

LEST WE FORGET 901 the order of Lieutenant D., and Lot Smith was not subjected to this cruel and unjust punishment. Having been mustered out of the service in the winter of 1848, at San Diego, California, Lot Smith returned and identi- fied himself with the "Mormon" colony in Salt Lake City. Not long thereafter he located in Farmington. In the year 1857, President James Buchanan, through mis- information concerning conditions existing in Utah, ordered an army of soldiers against the "Mormon" people to set them in order, as it had been reported that they were in rebellion against the general government, that they had burned the United States court records. The result was the well-known expedition known as Johnston's army and frequently called Buchanan's Blunder. Among the friends of the Latter-day Saints who visited the President and conversed with him on affairs in Utah, was Colonel Thomas L. Kane. He besought the President to send to Utah responsible men to investigate the question and to prevent the army from driving the people from their homes. The presi- dent, at once, sent Thomas L. Kane as one of his representa- tives. Colonel Kane sailed on one of the ocean steamers from New York to California via Cape Horn, reaching the Pacific Coast in midwinter, and from there with a small company as escort, made the journey to Salt Lake City, where he visited President Brigham Young and the leading men of the com- munity. Colonel Kane was convinced of the great mistake of sending troops to Utah without investigating whether there was any reason for doing so, and soon learned that the "Mormons" were anxious that peace should be had without the shedding of blood. The message that the army was coming to Utah was earlier in the season delivered to President Brigham Young while he was with a large company of Saints celebrating Pioneer Day, July 24, 1857, the tenth anniversary of the entrance of the Pioneers into Salt Lake Valley. Taking up their line of march from St. Joseph, Missouri, early in May, 1857, the army proceeded across the plains, arriv- ing at Green River, Utah, early in November. Supply trains were camped early in November on the Big and Little Sandies, the one consisting of thirty wagons, on Big Sandy; and the other of twenty wagons, on Little Sandy. These trains were both heavily laden with flour, bacon, sugar, beans, dried fruit and molasses, also canned fruit and vegetables. Under the direction of Lot Smith, one train was surrounded early on the morning of the 5th of November. After dismissing the men with a heavily loaded wagon of provisions for their sustenance, and turning them back in the direction of the ap-

902 IMPROVEMENT ERA proaching army, the train was fired and all wagons and contents destroyed. The same treatment was accorded train no. two in the evening of that day. Soon thereafter, Captain Smith turned his attention to the third and largest train of supplies belonging to the approaching army and consisting of thirty-six wagons. He met this train at Ashhollow and succeeded, in capturing and burning it also. He did it all without the firing of a gun and not a single life was taken. This may well be considered as one of the ablest movements of the army of defense instituted by the "Mormon" people. Captain Lot Smith will ever stand out prominent as the one man who did more to check the army and prevent its ad- vance into Salt Lake valley during the winter of 1857 than any other man, save it be Brigham Young, under whose orders he was acting. The destruction of their supplies must have had a very depressing effect upon the officers of the advancing army, and by the time they had passed through a rigorous mountain winter, without the necessary supplies, they were perhaps willing and ready to accept the orders of President Buchanan, that peaceful measures should be adopted instead of force, in the settlement of the difficulties that had thus arisen between the "Mormons" and the general government. The whole thing resulted in the issuing of a peace and pardon proclamation by President James Buchanan for the "Mormon" people. Thereafter, Lot Smith retired to his home in Farmington, and engaged in the culti- vation of a small farm from 1859 to 1862, when he was placed in command of the Utah volunteers who enlisted in the war to save the Union. Early in the year 1864, President Young was impressed with the thought of colonizing the region south near where St. George is located, and also to place the colonies into southern and eastern Arizona. One of these companies of colonizers for Arizona was committed to Captain Lot Smith. He and his fam- ily took up their journey with a company of about thirty other families in wagons for the region near the Little Colorado River. Captain Lot Smith located his company in in a district better known as Sunset, and from this nucleus on the Colorado, sev- eral settlements were started. Here he became a permanent settler, cleared the land, and cultivated a large lucern farm. He gathered some choice dairy cows to his ranch, and after ten years of the hardships of a pioneer life, began to realize the comforts of a home, surrounded by plenty, as the result of hisi labors. It was the policy of President Brigham Young to cultivate the friendship qf the Indians, and the colony of Lot Smith was no exception to this rule. However, an evil genius made his appearance among the

LEST WE FORGET 903 Navajo and Mexican Indians. He was a padre, or a religious teacher and trader, who told the Indians that all the land in Arizona belonged to them, and wherever white people had set- tled and made homes, the Indians still owned the land, and had the right to pasture their sheep and ponies on the farms and lucern fields of the colony. Naturally, the Indians availed themselves of this suggestion, and undertook to pasture their sheep on the grain and hay fields of the colonists. One day Captain Lot Smith rode out to his meadow and grain fields and remonstrated with the Indians. He asked them to remove their sheep from his farm. They refused to do so, stating as a reason for their refusal what they had been told by the padre — that they had permission to turn their sheep into the fields of the "Mormon" colonies. Captain Smith became so enraged with this kind of treatment that he threatened to shoot the sheep if they were not removed. The Indians refused to remove them, and so Captain Smith shot several of their sheep. The Indians retaliated by shooting his dairy cows, grazing in a pasture nearby. Captain Smith immediately saw that he was losing ground in the quarrel, and started for home. As soon as he turned his back on the Indians, two or three of them fired at and shot him. He maintained his seat in the saddle, however, until he reached home, where he fell helpless from his horse and was carried into the house and laid upon his bed, where he soon after expired. Captain Smith was buried in the colony burial ground at Sunset, or Tuba. His body remained there for more than ten years, when it was exhumed by friends and comrades, and by consent of the Church authorities, returned to Farming- ton, Utah, his home town. There he was given the honor of a military burial. A brief account of his burial will appear as the concluding article of this series in the next number of the Improvement Era. A Lesson Good-nature, like the little bee That flits from bower to bower. Gathers honey everywhere, E'en from the lowliest flower. Ill-nature, like a spider cruel, Who lurks within his lair, Sucks poison from the sweetest things, And finds no honey there. Delta, Utah. H. L. Johnson