Chapter XI: "in the Valley or Hell"

The details of that peculiar and providential winter of 1857-8 are written in lines of vivid interest and incident through the pages of recorded history. The pen would fain linger to describe how Lot Smith and his brave companions followed up their arranged course, burning grass and trees, tearing up bridges, and demolishing houses or huts of shelter everywhere along the road.

Fort Bridger, the point to which the army of Utah had made its slow, plainful way, was a mass of ruins when entered by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston and his half-frozen soldiers and the remnants of his trains and stock. I cannot refrain from giving the words of the report of this awful march, made to Congress by the two commanding officers, Colonel Johnston and Colonel St. George Cooke.

The condition of the main division is thus stated by Colonel Johnston:

"The expedition was now ordered to Fort Bridger, and at every step
the difficulties increased. There were only thirty-five miles to be
traversed, but excepting on the margin of a few slender streams,
the country through which our route lay is the barest of desert
land. There is no shelter from the chilly blasts of this mountain
solitude, where even in November, the thermometer sometimes sinks
to 16 degrees below zero. There is no fuel but the wild sage and
willow; and there is little pasture for the half-frozen cattle. Our
march commenced on the sixth of November, and on the previous night
five hundred of our strongest cattle were taken by the 'Mormons.'
The trains extended over six miles, and all day long sleet and snow
fell on the retreating column. Some of the men were frost bitten,
and the exhausted animals were goaded by their drivers, until many
of them fell dead in their traces. At sunset the troops camped
wherever they could find a particle of shelter, some under bluffs,
and some in the willow copses. At daybreak the camp was surrounded
by the carcasses of frozen cattle, of which several hundred had
perished during the night. Still, as the trains arrived from the
rear, each one halted for a day or more, giving time for the cattle
to graze and rest on such scant herbage as they could find. To
press forward more rapidly was impossible, for it would have cost
the lives of most of the draft animals; to find shelter was equally
impossible, there was none. There was no alternative but to proceed
slowly and persistently, saving as many as possible of the horses,
mules and oxen. Fifteen days were required for this difficult
operation."

Arrived at Fort Bridger, though they found the whole place in ruins, the camp was struck, and tents were erected. Here the army of the United States wintered, calling the camp Fort Scott.

A fine commentary on the foolish extravagance and thoughtless waste of money involved in the fitting out of this disastrous campaign was furnished by the opening of the few supply wagons left them by their relentless pursuers. The wagons loaded with provisions had been burned; the wagons that survived were filled with bedticks and camp kettles. For two thousand six hundred men, wintering in a region seven thousand feet above the sea level, where at night the thermometer always sank below zero, there were three thousand one hundred and fifty bedticks, and only seven hundred and twenty-three blankets; there were one thousand five hundred pairs of epaulettes and metallic scales, but only nine hundred coats and six hundred overcoats; there were three hundred and seven cap-covers, and only one hundred and ninety caps; there were one thousand and ninety military stocks; some of the men were already barefooted and others had no covering for their feet but moccasins, while there were only eight hundred and twenty-three pairs of boots and six hundred pairs of stockings. One wagon was entirely freighted with camp-kettles; with nothing to cook, and no salt with which to season their nothingness.

An extract from Colonel St. George Cooke's report gives quite a dismal picture of his own division. He says:

"The north wind and drifting snow became severe; the air seemed
turned to frozen fog, nothing could be seen; we were struggling in
a freezing cloud. The lofty wall of Three Crossings was a happy
relief; but the guide who had lately passed there was relentless in
pronouncing that there was no grass at that point. As he promised
grass and shelter two miles further, we marched on, crossing twice
more the rocky stream, half-choked with snow and ice; finally he
led us behind a great granite rock, but all too small for the
promised shelter. Only a part of the regiment could huddle there in
the deep snow; whilst the long night through the storm continued,
and fearful eddies, above, below and behind, drove the falling and
drifting snow. Meanwhile the animals were driven once more across
the stream, to the base of the granite ridge, which faced the
storm, but where there was grass. They refused to eat; the mules
huddled together, moaning piteously, while some of the horses broke
from the guard and went back to the ford. The next day, better
camping ground was reached ten miles farther on. On the morning of
the eighth, the thermometer marked 44 degrees below the freezing
point; but in this weather and through deep snow, the men made
eighteen miles, and the following day nineteen miles, to the next
camping ground on Bitter Creek, on the Sweetwater. On the 10th,
matters were still worse. Herders, left to bring up the rear, with
the stray mules, could not force them from the valley, and they
were left to perish. Nine horses were also abandoned. At night the
thermometer marked twenty-five degrees below zero; nearly all the
tent pins were broken, and nearly forty soldiers and teamsters were
on the sick list, most of them being frost-bitten. The earth has
no more lifeless, treeless, grassless desert; it contains scarcely
a wolf to glut itself on the hundreds of dead and frozen animals
which, for thirty miles, nearly blocked the road."

Such was the condition in which this flower of the American army found itself when about ready, as they supposed, to enter the Valley of the Great Salt Lake and subdue a handful of unoffending and simple-hearted people. Something was certainly done by the small band of hardy men who followed and surrounded the army with harassing circumstances; but they did little compared with the forces which were brought to bear by the God of nature, who undertook to fight this battle according to His own good pleasure and plan.