By 1848 thousands of Mormons had followed the trail from Nauvoo, Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young and settled in the area by the Great Salt Lake. Under the diligent communal efforts of these hardworking people in "Deseret," this became their promised land.  In order to become self-sustaining and free of reliance on the unbelievers in the east, local industries were developed. With their efforts, the isolation, and the immigration they became virtually an independent commonwealth. The movement had a great impact upon the lives of thousands of heretofore poor and frequently lowly people who now prospered economically and developed a generally high state of morale. By dealing firmly but justly with the Indians they escaped some of the terror known elsewhere.

The Territory of Utah was established in 1850 with Brigham Young as its first governor, appointed by President Fillmore. The ties with Washington were quite fragile and there was little control by the United States Government. As time passed this situation degenerated into almost open rebellion. There was sharp disapproval of some of the Mormon practices. It was claimed that they drove the "gentiles" out and government officials performed their duties with difficulty. A conflict of jurisdiction developed between the Federal and local court systems. There was considerable Federal concern from the belief that the Mormons were inciting the Indians against the other settlers.

In 1857, President Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming of Augusta, Georgia, to the position of Governor of Utah Territory and an expeditionary force was sent with him in case help were needed. In addition, a new military Department of Utah was established which included all of the territory of that name lying east of 117 degrees west longitude.

The expedition left Fort Leavenworth in the summer of 1857 under the command of Colonel Edmund B. Alexander who knew that he would soon be superseded by a Secretary of War John B. Floyd favorite, Colonel Albert S. Johnston. Among many other difficulties, he had received almost no specific instructions as to what was to be accomplished, or how. As the expedition toiled westward, the Mormons put up considerable resistance, drove off or killed the army's cattle and pack animals, burned supply wagons and even seized some of the troops. Upon arriving at Fort Bridger they found that forage had been destroyed over a wide area and the buildings burned. The Mormons refused to sell the troops critically needed supplies so that, with poor quarters for the severe winter ahead, and the terrible shortage of supplies the very survival of the expedition was in grave danger.

Captain Randolph Marcy, the renowned explorer, set out with less than seventy-five men ranging over the thousand trackless miles and rugged mountains to obtain aid from distant New Mexico. Braving the unmarked wilderness they forced their way through deep snows and in the face of terrible blizzards suffering was intense. Most of their animals died from exposure, lack of food and exhaustion; with supplies almost gone they struggled into Fort Massachusetts in mid-January, fifty-one days later. Reinforced by Colonel John Garland, commander of this Department, they set out on the return journey with the critically needed supplies. Reinforcements also arrived from the east and now, with over five thousand men Colonel Johnston pressed on into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in June. A peaceful settlement of the difficulties was worked out, partly due, at least, to the temporizing policy of President Buchanan.

Before long relations between Governor Cumming and Colonel Johnston became strained. The former lacked the qualities necessary in his position at this time. His interest lay too much in the prerogatives of his office than maintaining the close cooperation necessary with the military.  President Buchanan did seem to have talent for the selection of lackluster officials!

By the middle of 1858 the situation had improved although the troops were much victimized by profiteering. By General Order No. 6, dated March 12, 1860, only three companies of each of the 2^nd Dragoons and the 4^th Artillery and four of the 10^th Infantry were retained in the Department. Some of the other troops set out on the 550 mile march to Fort Laramie where they arrived in June while others were sent to New Mexico. The troops that remained were distributed between two posts, Fort Bridger and Camp Floyd (later Fort Breckenridge). The headquarters of the Department were at the latter post that had been built by Colonel Johnston in the summer of 1858. In October 1860, Colonel Philip St. George Cooke succeeded Lieutenant Colonel Charles F. Smith who had been left in command when Colonel Johnston departed.

In Utah the men in Blue had the trouble common to all of the frontier departments. The natives aroused by the white squatters who violated all of the agreements and treaties, by preempting the lands promised to the Indians. When the Indians struck back in the only way they knew the settlers set up a howl for the Army to come in.

After all, the Indian was merely trying to hold on to what had been the habitat and the burial grounds of his fathers. It was said that the Indian did not mind the hunter but recognized that his doom was sealed by those who brought the plough. In the last analysis, the westward surge of population was not to be stayed; but there were other ways to effectuate it. There were many government agents who were honest and sincere in their dealings with the Indians but many were not. The office of Indian Agent was a bonanza for corrupt politicians or their wayward relatives, and between them on one side and the squatters on the other, the Army and the Indians were squarely in the middle.

The traders were often a sorry lot. With other whites they brought in smallpox and whiskey, they lied, cheated and stole. They traded horses, arms and whiskey to the Indians and by barter with both the Indians and other whites obtained Indian women and children for sale into slavery.

From Fort Laramie, the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express route, and that of the Central Overland Stage crossed into the Department of Utah, went through the South Pass of the Rockies and then swung northward and looped to the west to come into Fort Bridger in the southwest corner of present Wyoming. Another of the stations on the way to the west coast, it had been a supply depot since its establishment about 1843 for the fur trade. Named for Jim Bridger, one of the old mountain men famous in the legends of the west, it was at the site of his log trading post near the Green River. After the terrible winter of 1857-1858 the troops rebuilt the fort, erecting barracks of stone and wood. The stagecoach line Russell, Majors, and Waddell hauled supplies in.

When the telegraph line came through in 1861 the Pony Express was doomed, as was any other expensive form of message transmission. People sweeping by today on rail or highway little realize how rich the country is in historic lore, that many obscure sites they pass were way-stations in the westward march of the American Empire.

In December 1860, Fort Bridger was a small post due to the fact that the Indians of the Shoshone country were not considered particularly hostile. It was garrisoned by but four officers and 135 men of Companies B and G of the 10^th Infantry which had come over from Camp Floyd to take post there.

Command was held by Captain Franklin Gardner, a fun loving New Yorker whose father, Colonel Charles K. Gardner, had initiated the system of company designation by letters. While the Captain was a cadet at West Point he had an old fashioned silver watch that struck the hours. As it was passed from hand to hand one day, it happened to be in the possession of Cadet Ulysses S. Grant. While working a problem at the blackboard the watch chimed out the hour, much to the amusement of his classmates. By good fortune the instructor was an upper classmen who did not seem to realize what had occurred so there were no unpleasant repercussions. Despite his place of birth, Gardner would be in such haste to get away to the Confederacy that he would be dismissed for abandoning his post.

Present for duty was Lieutenant Frank S. Armistead whose father was so anxious to have his son come home at this time that he was writing the War Department, asking that he be granted leave. Captain Alfred Cumming, nephew and namesake of the Governor of Utah, and Lieutenant Lawrence A. Williams, son of Captain William A. Williams who had been killed at Monterey in the Mexican War, were away.

Leaving Fort Bridger and sweeping to the southwest, on to Salt Lake City and beyond by some forty or more miles, the routes of the Pony Express and the United States Mail took the traveler toward Camp Floyd, headquarters of the Department of Utah. Coming across the rather wide level road the coach swept into camp on a billowing cloud of dust which rolled over the broad sagebrush lined plain.

Another post established by Colonel Johnston while on the Utah Expedition, it was named for the Secretary of War. After that individual had done his worst for the Union and then decamped, the name was changed to Fort Crittenden. About midway between Provo and Salt Lake City it was strategically located at the northern end of the twenty-five or so mile long Cedar Valley.

There was but little recreation or social life on this post, or in fact in the entire department. So one of the most anticipated events was "Pony Express Day" or "pony day" when the express rider, covered with sweat and on a heavily lathered pony, came into town with the latest news and perhaps a harrowing story of narrow escapes from the Indians. On those eventful days all gathered around the post trader's store at the time his arrival was expected regardless of the hour or how late he was. Some of the hardier souls climbed to the roof of the store for a better view of the long road stretching out to the northeast for on clear, bright days one could see for miles. "Here he comes" rang out when a smoke like wisp could be seen far in the distance and all cheered when he swept into camp with a cloud of swirling dust around him.

Always among the treasures of his saddle bags was at least one copy of a newspaper and all gathered around to hear someone read of the latest events. In normal times even the most trivial details from home were of great importance but now, with the state of things so critical, it was hard to wait for the latest intelligence.

About 1,200 miles from Fort Leavenworth, the post was far from the stirring activities in the east. As the terrible panorama of events began to unfold the news was old when it arrived at Cedar Valley but was nevertheless eagerly seized upon. The story of the day to day happenings went by "magnetic telegraph" to Fort Kearny and thence by Pony Express on to California, being dropped off at way stations on the long and hard ridden route. By no means the least interested in the news were the twenty officers and 488 men at Camp Floyd. The commander and staff at the department's headquarters were in an uneasy position. They were far from support from either east or west, and much of their supplies came over a long and tortuous route. A force thrusting up from Texas or New Mexico, or the possession of Kansas or Missouri by hostile parties would make their situation most hazardous.

In command of the Department was Colonel Philip St. George Cook, 2^nd Dragoons, from Leesburg, Virginia. The secessionists were depending heavily upon him for he was considered one of the foremost officers of the mounted arm. On his staff were seven officers including a surgeon and a military storekeeper of ordnance. Captain Robert E. Clary, Chief Quartermaster, was the father-in-law of the unfortunate man who would become the victim of one of our several tragic Dreyfus-like cases, General Charles P. Stone. A scapegoat would be demanded for the death of the popular Oregon Senator, Colonel Edward D. Baker, in the ill-organized and poorly led movement at Ball's Bluff on October 1, 1861. To propitiate Congressional ire and popular clamor, Stone just happened to be the most available sacrifice upon whom the weight of public indignation, humiliation and political opportunism might bear down without reason. Dr. John B. Porter was the surgeon and Major Franklin Hunt the Paymaster. The Adjutant, young Lieutenant Beverly H. Robertson, of Amelia County, Virginia, had shown unending patience with awkward Dragoon recruits at the Carlisle Barracks. Gentle but firm, he accepted nothing but perfection. He viewed with grave concern the rising trouble between the sections. Not one to be swept along with any tide of emotionalism, he was now calmly and rationally doing a great deal of soul-searching. Here also, was Acting Commissary, Lieutenant John Greene, 2^nd Dragoons, who had risen from the ranks. He would be awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry at the Lava Beds in 1873.

There were only ten companies of troops in the Department. Thirty officers were present for duty, one in arrest and fourteen absent. Of the enlisted men, 624 were present with twenty absent. There were only six field guns at Camp Floyd and four mountain howitzers at Fort Bridger that, incidentally, did not have a horse for all 281 were at Floyd.

The post of Camp Floyd as distinguished from headquarters, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Charles F. Smith, 10^th Infantry, one of the fine old officers of the service. Tall and handsome, of commanding presence and martial bearing, with a long drooping mustache falling below his chin, he was as much the embodiment of the military leader of the day in appearance as he was in character and personality. A sword presented to him by his native Philadelphia was an honor in addition to three brevets for gallantry in the Mexican War. Some even believed him to be the Army's most competent officer. When the Civil War came he would, at least with outward equanimity, accept reality and serve loyally under officers returning from civil life who had had but brief military careers. On the faculty at West Point from 1831 and as Commandant of Cadets from 1838 to 1842, he had overseen the military training of many of the outstanding leaders of the coming civil war and of a number under whom he had served.

A driving leader, rough on volunteer troops, Smith soundly and lustily cursed and berated those not-well-trained boys and men to a higher degree of attainment than one might have expected of them in the early days of the war. By his part at Fort Donelson, where he was second in command to his former pupil, Ulysses S. Grant, who never felt entirely at ease as superior to this patriarchal officer and former teacher, he displayed those qualities which all had long known made up Charles F. Smith the soldier and the man. The Union was deprived of a great leader when he suffered a leg injury in 1862 that became infected and soon died.

The garrison was composed of twenty officers, 488 men of two companies of the 10^th Infantry, three each of the 2^nd Dragoons and the 4^th Artillery. In addition to the commanding officer, the post return for December 31, 1860 lists Dr. John Moore, Lieutenant Colonel Marshal S. Howe, who was in arrest and awaiting court martial, and twenty-eight company officers of whom eleven were not present.

Among the infantry officers were Captain Jesse A. Gove who was never reticent about criticizing his superior officers and who would die at Gaines' Mill as Colonel of the 22^nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and Lieutenant Nathan A. M. Dudley who had come into service from the famed Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. The dragoons were John Buford, George A. Gordon, John B. Villepigue, William P. Sanders and Wesley Merritt.

Captain John Buford was always well mounted on the fine Kentucky thoroughbred horses sent by his uncle from the Blue Grass State. A very fine Union cavalry officer, he would receive his Major General's commissions just before he died in 1863 as a result of excessive activities and exposure. At the start of the war he would march his men from Fort Leavenworth to Washington in sixty days. The genial and generous George A. Gordon, a man with an inexhaustible fund of amusing anecdotes would be another of the many Virginia legionnaires with the Union, and William P. Sanders one of the two Mississippi appointed officers to remain in the Blue, both of whom would die for it, would fall at Campbell's Station as Colonel of the 5^th Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry. Wesley Merritt, who had often dozed off while a member of the Cadet Choir at West Point was destined for high fame in the Phillippines, in the War with Spain and would receive the then seldom awarded grade of Major General. A Major General of Volunteers when he was scarcely thirty years of age, Merritt would be one of the three Union officers on the commission, with an equal number of Confederates, for implementing the surrender terms worked out between Grant and Lee on April 9, 1865. Lieutenant John Villepigue had been described by a discontented cadet as a clever person and a gentleman in every sense of the word, one of the few he believed, with such qualities at the Military Academy. He would become a Confederate brigadier and die before the war was barely half over.

Among those away were Captain Reuben P. Campbell once called "the bravest of the brave," who would fall in the same battle as Gove, but in Confederate Gray was Colonel of the 7^th North Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Also Lieutenant Henry B. Livingston, superb horseman, athlete and gentleman, namesake of a former member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Lieutenant Thomas Hight. Captain Alfred Pleasonton would return from Washington and lead a body of the 2^nd Dragoons on a cross country ride from Utah to Washington in the fall of 1861. He would later command the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac.

Posted here were Batteries A, C, and Light Battery B of the 4^th Artillery. Light Battery B had gained fame under the late Captain John M. Washington and was now under Captain John Gibbon who had three brothers who would soon don the Gray of the Confederacy. This was one of the very few artillery companies in the field that had its full complement of four officers present: Captain John Gibbon, First Lieutenants Edmund C. Bainbridge, Joseph B. Campbell, and John S. Hunt. In Batteries A and C there were Lieutenants Joseph C. Clark, Jr. and Stephen H. Weed. The latter would personally aim one of his guns and shoot off the legs of D.H. Hill's horse at Antietam. Lee and Longstreet warily moved out of range when Hill would not seek a less exposed position. Weed would die commanding a brigade holding against Longstreet's attack on the second day at Gettysburg. There was also Lieutenant Francis Beach who would become Colonel of the 16^th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry.

One enlisted man in Light Battery B is of some interest. Scotland born James Stewart, who had enlisted in 1851 and was now the unit's First Sergeant, would be commissioned from the ranks in November of 1861. Breveted Captain for gallantry at Spotsylvania and in the Richmond campaign, and Major for bravery at the Weldon Railroad, he was in virtually all of the many bitter engagements in which this outfit was engaged. Most of the time he rode his famous mount "Tartar." Abandoned in the Utah Expedition in 1857 because of illness, the steed had recovered and was turned in by the Indians for the thirty dollars reward paid for all branded army horses. The mount, wounded again, at Second Bull Run, it later recovered from another wound received at Gettysburg. He continued to serve as the faithful mount of Lieutenant Stewart.

Away at this time were Captain George W. Hazzard and Lieutenant William R. Terrill. The former was from Delaware and was destined to die in the steaming bogs of White Oak Swamp as Colonel of the 37^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. The latter, a Virginian, would fall at the head of a Union brigade at Perryville while his brother, Colonel James B. Terrill, of the 13^th Virginia Volunteer Infantry, would die at Bethesda Church the day of the confirmation of his appointment as a Confederate Brigadier General. Lieutenant Terrill had been the cadet sergeant whom Cadet Sheridan had attacked with a bayonet a few years before at West Point, and for which "Fighting Phil" had been suspended for a year. Lieutenant Marcus P. Miller became a Brigadier General after service in Manila in 1899.

There were strong undercurrents at work that would soon erupt to bring about a most unwholesome and perhaps dangerous situation at headquarters. Possibly from personal dislike or patriotism or for any of many possible reasons trouble was building up here. Major Hunt, Captain Clary and Dr. Porter were secretly meeting to discuss what they felt to be a most dangerous situation. They would violate regulations and secretly communicate directly with Washington to warn the authorities that they feared there was great disloyalty in high position in Utah.

From: Ness, Jr., George T.  The Regular Army on the Eve of the Civil War.  Baltimore, MD: Toomey Press, 1990.