Joseph Smith, and the Great West

JOSEPH SMITH, AND THE GREAT WEST Some Odd British Spies in the Rockies, and One Who Learned From the Mormon Battalion That His Game Was Up By I. K. Russell, Author of "Hidden Heroes of the Rockies" IX A very recent newspaper dispatch tells of the raising of a large fund to work out certain gaps in American history. One of the most serious of such gaps we have dug into to get the material for the. previous articles in this series. They dealt with the pro-slave politics of the sixty-year period preceding the Civil War, and showed that Utah was- far from remote from that war. It seemed almost, in fact, that the coming of Utah, California, New Mexico and Oregon into the Union precipitated the war, for the question of whether this new country was going to be pro-slave or free state was what worked the pro-slave hatreds to the boiling point. It is well known that Brigham Young was advised from Wash- ington to apply for admission of the State of Deseret, and that with this advice came a suggestion that the South wanted him so to apply, in order to give the North a bit of a sop while they cut up Texas into six pro-slave states. While intrigue thus went on in America, it is becoming more and more known, England had a large stake in the outcome of affairs. We know that Jefferson Davis launched the Southern Confederacy in the hope that England would speedily intervene. The South hung on and on in the hope of British interference, — but it never material- ized. A deduction, poking straight through the facts of the case, suggests a second great gap in American history for scholars, to work out. The deduction is that if the Civil War had been launched at the time the Mormon Battalion was on its march to the west coast, England would have intervened. Men who appeared to be harmless travelers at the time now loom up as paid British £pies, looking for strategic points at which to make trouble. England then thought she wanted California and was sure she wanted Oregon. And when things were approaching very closely to the state of an open rupture, the Mormon Battalion was moving into position to strike at England's troops on the Northwest coast, as the main body of Kearny's 'Army of the West." I We know that these spies had been heading through the Rockies, from 1830 on, as the issue of America's far western border and north- west border grew in importance. Our own Cache valley echoes the British occupation of the

654 IMPROVEMENT ERA Rockies, for it was so named by British trappers, who used its dry, sandy soil, as a place in which to cache their furs until they got enough for one of their gigantic overland pack, trains, which — some- times more than a mile in length — carried these furs down to the Columbia river for shipment to England. Ogden, Utah, echoes, again, the name of the British leader in that part of the country. We know that in Mormon Battalion days this same good Peter Skene Ogden was called hastily to London, there consulted on war maneuvers, and then was sent hastily back to fortify positions on the Columbia and suggest forts for other sites. A British naval lieutenant and an army lieutenant accompanied him, and marines were ordered to the Columbia river. Also a slogan was raised that "Every damned Yankee must • be kept east of the Rocky Mountains." While preparing data for the pre-pioneer history of Utah, which was published under the name of Hidden Heroes of the Rockies, I encountered many evidences of these clashes" between British and American interests at the point where Rocky Mountain country became British country, according to their claim. And this point was at the Big Sandy, at the South Pass. As the Americans1 ordered co keep east of the Rockies, beat their retreat, I found they encountered American civilization first at Independence, Missouri. This was while Joseph Smith's people resided there. The American trap- pers came in with their furs every Summer from the first to the last of the "Mormon" occupation of Independence, and each year they re-outfitted at Independence to return to the mountains. They brought their cry for help with them. And of course it became of interest to see who would listen. Daniel Webster, the great statesman of New England, I found, was absorbed in the cod fish problems. Nova Scotia objected to American cod fishing boats drying their fish on the Nova Scotian sands. That was problem enough for Daniel. He ignored the cry coming to Independence out of the West. The Southern leaders were too engrossed in the problem of breaking the Mason and Dixon line to pay any attention to cries about Oregon from bloody handed trappers. They wanted pro-slave territory and had marked out a swath to the west coast in what was called "pro-slave climate." It took in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Nevada. But did not take in Oregon. About that country they had no care. Who then would care? A re-reading of the life of Joseph Smith became of absorbing interest. He had called upon the Government to take Oregon, had asked the Government to let him go take it. He had canvassed candidates for president on that issue, and found all defective in answer. Then he had proposed his own presidential campaign based on the Oregon issue. He had, in fact, in his proposal to stand for the presidency, launched the issue which was sloganized as "Fifty-four forty or fight," and in that sloganized form elected Polk to the presidency.

JOSEPH SMITH, AND THE GREAT WEST 655 Of the spies who ran hither and yon through the Rockies at that time, not all were British. Here we will introduce one of them. The others are Captain Stewart, who showed up at about every American camp in the Rockies, Lieutenant Ware and Lieutenant. Vavasouer, of the British army and navy respectively, — and Americans were not missing. Such roles alone explain the otherwise ridiculous conduct of our own John C. Fremont, and Captain Bonneville of cur own army, presumably on leave, and a fur hunter. In California there was Ermatinger, who made himself up to be such a perfect Spanish vaquero that Sir George Simpson, his own chief, did not know him when this chief arrived in California to take such steps that America could not grasp that country. This whole British enterprize beat a retreat out of California, Utah and Oregon just as the Mormon Battalion had carried an armed fringe for American progress into California. One of its important spies rode up through Mexico — made a forced Winter march to get into striking distance of the Oregon country— and then suddenly threw up all his interest in the Northwest. He encountered some Mormon Battalion detachments, and learned from them, near Pueblo, Colorado, that the British had given in without a fight. This British spy has never been written up as such, to my knowledge, and for that matter neither have Fremont and Bonneville; and until their accounts were discovered as paid by the British army and the British navy, neither were Lieutenants Ware and Vavasouer ever considered to be spies. They hunted around in the Rockies, posing as gentlemen sports. They carried fine liquors, tooth brushes, and corduroy suits which startled the natives, — but they passed as sports and nothing more. The particular spy whose journey we deal with here boasted the name of G. F. Ruxton. I bought a volume written by him merely because it carried the title "Esq." after his name. Knowing that no regular trapper and hunter ever would be guilty of using such a designation, I wondered why this one had. A very little reading convinced me the "Esq." was camouflage. For he landed in Vera Cruz on an interesting date, and immediately wrote down in a diary a small treatise on the Vera Cruz forts and their defendability. Like Kipling's soldier, who pretended to be a recruit but gave himself away by carrying his coat at once to the tailors to be refitted to his form; /so this "Esq." gave himself away at once. None but a seasoned soldier could ever have written what he did of the Vera Cruz forts. A little later he was writing of mules — what only an experienced cavalryman could write. So I was sure I was dealing with a soldier — and a cavalry soldier, at that. His voyage was simultaneous with our war with Mexico. I knew that at this same period there had been a general conference in L ondon of the British High Command, both army and navy, at which

65 6 IMPROVEMENT ERA men from America in the British service were present. The conference had sent a commission out to sec if Oregon was worth fighting for; to select fortification sites, and to open a trail for British settlers in Oregon. Sir George Simpson himself had rushed to Oregon, and then to California, as a result of that conference, and he had done his utmost to talk England into adopting his pro-war view. Sir George had tried in California to buy that country from Mexico. If the same conference had done what it could hardly resist doing at such a moment — dispatch another agent to Mexico, to work northward and test Mexican sentiment as to joining England in a war with the United States — then this "Ruxton, Esq." would just fit into the essential scheme of things. I read on from the first half dozen pages of his book, convinced that I was dealing with another of those British officers of whom Sir George Simpson, Ware, Vavasouer, Ermatinger, and our own Peter Skene Ogden, were the others just then most to the fore. With this much of an introduction we can turn to the narrative of this curious "Esq." in person. All he tells1 us about himself — intentionally — is this mysterious bit: "It is hardly necessary to explain the cause of my visiting Mexico at such an unsettled period; and I fear that circumstances will prevent my gratify- ing the curiosity of the reader, should he feel any on that point." Ruxton, Esq., then launches us into the story of a narrative that started in Vera Cruz; was aimed for Oregon by way of Santa Fe, and ended abruptly in a total loss of interest when he collided with a Mormon Battalion detachment in the snows of north Taos. He notes of Vera Cruz, and that hardly a civilian annotation: "The town still presents numerous souvenirs of the bombardment of De Joinvill-? in 1339. The church towers' are riddled with shot, and the destructive effects of shot are still visible in the heaps of ruins which are left untouched. The town was attacked by American troops under General Scott within ten months after my visit. I certainly left Vera Cruz under the impression that it was not a fortified place, with the exception of a paltry wall I have mentioned, which, if my. memory, serves me. was not even loop-holed for musketry. The castle could have been carried by a" frigate's boarders, having but 700 naked Indians to defend it." We can now go on through Mexico with Ruxton, Esq., sharing a confidence that we have a military man and not a civilian to deal with, for all his outward pretenses. We also sympathize with the other pretenses of the same crisis, — Fremont pretending to be a scientist, as Bonneville before him had pretended to be a fur hunter, Ware and Vavasouer to be sports, and Ermatinger to be a Spanish vaquero. "Nothing can, by any possibility, be conceived to be more like a soldier than a Mexican militarist," writes Ruxton of his meeting with the 11th Mexican regiment. He visits the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, but does not tell us the nature of the credentials that let him in. An aide-de-camp of the governor attended to that formality,

JOSEPH SMITH, AND THE GREAT WEST 65 7 too. The visit cnfuriated him with a sense of unpreparedness and he flayed all and sundry about it. He wrote: "I pointed out to one of the officers of the garrison, that not the slightest discipline was apparent, scarcely a sentinel was on the lookout, although the American squadron was in sight of the castle, and an attack was hourly threatened. On one side the defenses were very weak; indeed, I saw no obstruction of sufficient magnitude to prevent a dozen boats' crews making a dash in the dark at the water-batteries, where at this time were neither guns nor men, nor one sentry whose post would com- mand this exposed spot." Our curious Esq. belabored the Mexicans about operating forts — and was disgusted with their answers: "Never, never fear, we are very brave here. If the Americans like to try, let them come." He rushed on towards Mexico City, and noted every little military detail — almost nothing' else. Many of the military details' had to do with his own guns. For he entered a bandit-infested section and made note: "Before starting on this dangerous expedition, and particularly as I carried all my baggage with me, (being too old a soldier ever to part with that) made a minute inspection of arms and ammunition, all of which was put in perfect order. I took my seat in the diligencia with a formidable battery composed of a double barrel rifle, a ditto carbine, two brace of pistols, and a blunder buss. Blank were the faces of my four fellow passengers when I entered thus equipped. "They protested, they besought, — everybody's life would be sacrificed were one of the party to resist. It is not the custom, they said." Here we have the determined Britisher — dismayed by no danger, ready to fight it out. From first to last Ruxton, Esq., never lost that character. He pressed on, no matter who warned him of Comanche, Navajo, Aapache, or bandit. He always depended on his arms and cared for his mules, — and the pride of his life was that when he at last reached American people his mules were in better shape than when he started. Was it dangerous for an American to be seen in Mexico at that time? Ruxton, Esq., was seen, and he records of the Mexican City pulqueria district: "Cries of 'Estrangero, Tejano, Yanque, burro' saluted me; I was a Texan, a Yankee, and consequently a burro, — a jackass. The crowd sur- rounded me — aver el burro, — to see the jackass. Seeing that affairs began to look cloudy, I rose and placing my hand on my heart, assured los caballeros y las senioritas that they labored under a slight error; that although my face was white I was no Texan, neither was I a Yankee nor a jackass, but 'Yngles, muy amigo a la republica, — an Englishman very friendly to the republic. I told them that my affection for them and hatred for their enemies was too excessive to express; that to prove this my only hope was that they would do me the kindness to discuss at their leisure half an arroba of pulque." And whose money was it, thus spent to get Mexicans loose on an anti-American pulque drunk? Direct evidence is lacking, but is

658 IMPROVEMENT ERA almost impossible to doubt that it was that of Johnny Bull, himself, in person. "The tables were instantly turned," records Ruxton, Esq., "I was saluted with cries of 'Viva el Yngles! Que meaeren los Yanques,' — death to the Americans!" It was in giving parties like this that Ruxton spent his time in Mexico City. Finally he outfitted with mules and pressed on. As he rode, many fine adventures came his way — which only a soldier and a British soldier, could have discovered and enjoyed. Once he saw some young folks ahead. He deployed his mule packers — and charged as if in war. The males deserted the females who knelt down to implore him to save them. He found he had raised a picnic party, so he called to the men to come back — and enjoyed laughing at them for their valor. Again, he saw an antelope, and proudly spurred on his hunting horse. He chased it as a British fox hunter would. But at last when his horse came alongside of it he did not shoot it. The fun of the chase had been enough. He came upon the dead and scalped bodies of Americans — and saw wild Indians in the distance. He threw his horses, pegged them down by the legs, and in this tiny fort laid out all his guns for ready action. He kept a sight on the breast; of an Indiari chief who rode close by his fort. Noting that he had not been observed by the chief, he let him ride by — thus covered. Always where British and Indians have met, the Indians have survived, — as they do in Canada today. The British officer was trained to rule subordinate tribes — not to kill them. He was even shot at by his own servant who hoped to steal his goods. But he only slapped the servant's face in punish- ment, and so cowed him that he ever after faithfully followed on. In Guajoquilla the goods of Ruxton, Esq., were stolen. He immediately flashed upon the officials such,' strong credentials that they turned out the whole town to hunt for them. And all were soon returned. Mysterious references to credentials that brought officials to his feet in humility after challenging a supposed American '"burro," abound in the narrative. Often these same credentials brought him military escorts and reviews of local troops. Hardly any other credentials but those of the British government would have done this. At last he reached El Paso — under military escort. He found Colonel Doni- phan— the fine-hearted Southerner who had been so friendly towards Joseph Smith, encamped near that town, with a Missouri regiment. They were "buddies" of the Mormon Battalion, who had struck south from Santa Fe, and so had left the Battalion to complete the march to California alone, of all the large bodies of troops in the Army of the West. And this supposed civilian comments thus on the Missourian as a soldier: "The American never can be made a soldier; his constitution will not bear the restraint of discipline, neither will his mistaken notions about

JOSEPH SMITH, AND THE GREAT WEST 659 liberty allow him to subject himself to its necessary control. Of drill and maneuvers the volunteers have little or no idea." Ruxton, Esq., rode on to Santa Fe, and then proved he was merely keeping his civilian disguise to avoid formal acknowledgement, for he records that he met a deserter from the British army among General Kearny's troops. He writes: "I saw at once that some of Kearney's soldiers had once worn another uniform than the American blue. I was accosted by one whom I immediately recognized as a man named Herbert, a deserter from the regiment to which I had once belonged. He had imagined that, as several years had elapsed since I had seen him, his face would not be familiar to me. He inquired for his brother who was still in the regiment, denying at first that he had been in the British service." And on another occasion Ruxton also enjoyed hearing the stable- men at Fort Leavenworth discuss whether he was* Indian or Spaniard, since he still wore his Mexican disguise. He records with what glee he heard one of the American cavalrymen designate the regiment and troop of cavalry he belonged to in the British army — he recognizing this soldier, also, as a British deserter. Ruxton. heeded no warnings to turn east — to keep out of the mountains. Oregon was calling him — by way of the South Pass. He encountered blizzards that killed others. His tough and stubborn British constitution saw him through. He camped where massacres had just occurred, and heard himself called an American pig and burro, — and learned that host after host to him had been killed a few hours after his departure. Through snowdriftsi he plowed on — and so came upon "Mormons" of the Mormon Battalion. He was not glad to see them. Their going to California had meant death to whatever hopes England had of holding that country northward. For England had been thrifty and put 75,000 pounds as the total sum it wasi worth while rising in war for Oregon. He records: "These 'Mormons' had left Col. Cooke's command on their way to California, and were now about to cross the mountains to join a large body of their people who were wintering on the Arkansas, intending to proceed to California in the spring. There were some twelve or fifteen of them, raw boned fanatics, with four or five pack mules carrying their provisions, themselves on foot. They started several hours before me, but I overtook them before they had crossed the mountain, straggling along, some seated on top of the mules' packs, some sitting down every few hundred yards, and all looking tired and miserable. One of the party was an Englishman from Biddenden in Kent, and an old Peninsular soldier. I asked him what could have induced him to have undertaken such an expedition. He looked at me, and without answering the question, said, 'Dang it, if I only once get hoam!' " It is difficult to imagine worse traveling than Ruxton encountered on what he called the "Yuta trail." Deep snow and a wilderness of mountains were all he could see. He followed the "Mormons" on. He compared the cold to lower Canada, finding it worse than any

660 IMPROVEMENT ERA be had known there. A blizzard that gives one the shivers just to read about swept his camp. And next day he came upon the bodies of mules, — Mormon Battalion mules — frozen to death in the blast that had almost frozen him. And yet those brave "Mormons" had gone struggling on — muleless* — towards their Pueblo camp. As for Ruxton — he turned eastward toward Leavenworth with a farewell note about Oregon, which he now knows has come into America's possession by agreement. i Was our Mexican war, aimed partly at England? Listen to Ruxton's estimate of it: "The position taken up by Mr. Polk and his party with regard to Oregon involved, as a natural consequence, the probability of a war with England; nay more, if such position were persisted in, the certainty of war with that power. "That a majority of the people, and all right thinking and influential classes, were opposed to measures as would produce such a rupture, was palpable. "Therefore they looked about them for means of attaining their object, by blinding the eyes of the people as to their ulterior designs. Mexico was made the scape-goat. "To bring affairs to such a critical condition on the Texan frontier that a 'state of war' could at any time be assumed, was the stroke of policy by which Polk hoped to blind the people. Profiting by it he hoped to make such preparations as would enable them to carry out their plans in connection with the Oregon question, and a probable war with England. They thought that, even if hostilities broke out with Mexico, that power would at once succumb: and that in the meantime the war fever in the United States would spread, and the people sanction an increase in the army and navy to make it available for another purpose." He notes the sudden settlement of the Oregon question without war, and departs for Canada and home. Thus passed through the Rockies one of a group1 of spies*, which will have to be dealt with in detail to clarify the work for Oregon of Joseph Smith and his Nauvoo people. Chicago, III. For The Soul That Comprehends There's a promise with every dawning. For the soul that comprehends, As one by one, when night is done, The morn its gift extends. There's gold in each ray of sunshine, For the soul that comprehends, And gladsome cheer, with naught of fear, In the voices of its friends. There's peace in the calm of moonlight, For the soul that comprehends, As from the blue, to faith renew, It benediction sends, Provo, Utah GRACE INGLES FROST