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We won't get to the Battalion
S2E46 · Mormon Battalion Part 2
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 46 · 1:02:21

Mormon Battalion Part 2

In 1845 Samuel Brannan warned Brigham Young that the Secretary of War wanted the Mormons "obliterated from the face of the earth," and the sources feeding him were lying.

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The question ·

What news was Brigham Young receiving from Washington that made the Saints' situation seem even worse?

Richard

After a mailbag where Brad asks for a simple list for getting into heaven and the hosts end up ranking Christian hells, plus Sally's offer to help with a YouTube channel, Richard and Gerrit return to the Mormon Battalion story. Gerrit introduces Samuel Brannan, leader of the ship Brooklyn and the Church's man in the East, who warned Brigham Young that the federal government planned to stop or destroy the Saints. He explains the tangle of 1845 and 1846: Oregon disputed with Britain, Texas and California with Mexico, and President Polk weighing whether the Saints might side with the British. Governor Thomas Ford later bragged that he made the Saints believe an army was coming, and the episode ends with Orson Pratt's farewell to the "wicked nation" and D&C 136's "even the nation has driven you out."

Who comes upSamuel BrannanBrigham YoungJames K. PolkWilliam MarcyThomas FordOrson PrattThurlow WeedE. B. GrandinUlysses S. GrantGordon B. HinckleyAlma the Younger
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We won't get to the Battalion

Richard predicts they still won't reach the Mormon Battalion this episode.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we're going to continue the discussion of the Mormon Battalion by continuate. I mean, we might actually get to it. It was a lot of setting the table.
Gerrit I feel like this is a veiled criticism. No, no, no, no, no.
Richard It's important to have the context. And we're, yeah. Actually, I don't think, actually, I don't think we will get to the Mormon Battalion in this.
Gerrit We might.
Richard We won't. We might.
Gerrit You know what? We may.
Richard So, but we'd like to start off with a couple of emails as we generally do. This is an unsponsored segment as Spain has reached out to us and asked us to.
Gerrit Never take their name.
Richard Again. But, so this email comes to us from Brad. He says, I don't have a question, but I found your podcast and I am enjoying it. Growing up, I've been pretty lazy. It just wanted a list of what to do to get to heaven. And I've learned, I need to learn and grow and I'm enjoying your podcast.
Gerrit So thank you, Brad. Oh, I love Brad. I mean, were we not all lazy? I'm lazy now.
Richard Well, I mean, yeah. It reminds me of the lessons about Sabbath day observance. And just look, just give me a list. No, things that bring the spirit. Look, just tell me exactly what, we want to be Israelites so bad sometimes.
Gerrit If we could only be Pharisees. I mean, because it is tough. I mean, honestly, you know, I feel for you, Brad, because being a Latter-day Saint is a difficult place to be. Because look, if you're an evangelical Christian.
Richard Pretty straightforward.
Gerrit Then as long as you've accepted Jesus, you are saved and you're going to heaven no matter what. Now, of course you're going to strive to live the way Jesus wants you to live because you have faith, but you never have any ultimate anxiety that you aren't doing enough to be saved because that's not even part of the equation. So you might be disappointed in yourself, like well, I guess I shouldn't have beaten up that bookie when he didn't take my bet on the Notre Dame BYU game. But the idea of your ultimate salvation is assured, that's where that anxiety comes from. For Latter-day Saints, you've all been in the very uncomfortable situation where someone says to you something of the effect of, so do you Mormons believe that you're saved? And then you start to do the hemming and hawing dance.
Richard Well, as long as, for all we can do.
Gerrit We try to, if I can endure to the end. Which by the way is a very similar response that you'll get from any other Arminian, someone who believes that salvation is a lifelong process, like a Methodist or Nazarene or someone from that faith group is going to say salvation is not a one time thing, it's a lifelong thing. So I've always joked around with Richard though, you know, and I apologize for all the people that I'm about to offend. You doesn't even know what I'm about to say.
Richard I don't.
Gerrit He's looking at me with eyes wide saying, don't say whatever you're about to say, I'm just gonna offend everyone. But I mean, we love to create lists. We love it. It's like the standard practice of going to any, you know, Sunday school class or an elders quorum or Relief Society class. And I realize why teachers do it. You're bringing in a visual and, you know, you're getting class participation. So what are some things we can do on the Sabbath, right? And you start writing them down on one side of the board and let's write on the other side, the things we shouldn't do or whatever. But the reality is, when lists are created, they are always incomplete and they don't allow for the room of this kind of gray area. So we feel for you, Brad, and the reality is we want to be living our lives so that we are trying to do what the Savior wants us to do. And that will always leave us with this kind of anxiety of, well, maybe I should be doing more.
Gerrit I think that's part of being a Latter-day Saint.
Richard But one of the things, if I was to make a list of things to get into heaven, would be listening to the Standard of Truth podcast. I think that it's high on the rankings. It's on most lists.
Gerrit I like how we've just flirted with Blast From Me up till now. And then we just say, you know what? We're all in on it. Disclaimer, listening to this podcast not only doesn't get you into heaven, it likely prohibits it.
Richard Well, you know, but there is actually an interesting point on that, though, in terms of, and I know that you've tackled aspects of this in previous podcasts, but our previous episodes, the idea of, this idea of salvation as an evangelical would think of salvation, that salvation was assured when we chose Christ in the pre-mortal existence, at least as it relates to.
Gerrit Salvation is salvation from hell fire, right? And when Christians talk about hell, they are not talking about Mormon hell, which is like hell light.
Richard It's the best, the best hell. Mormons have the best. It's not even close, really.
Gerrit Never mind the fact that Alma the Younger is talking about how exquisite the babes are.
Richard Hold on, just real quick, let's rank hells. If we were to say, okay, the best Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Saint was the best.
Gerrit Well, frankly-
Richard Then Jehovah's Witness hell?
Gerrit No, I would think Buddhist hell is probably better than Latter-day Saint hell. Because there's no suffering at all.
Richard Well, okay, but so let's just stick to-
Gerrit Oh, Christianity? You're painting me into a corner. Well, then you can't talk about Mormons because we're not Christians.
Richard Yeah, all right, people that claim to worship Jesus.
Gerrit People who claim to be Christians, but aren't recognized as Christians by other Christians.
Richard Well, so Jehovah's Witness has been one of them, right? Okay, so Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, where do you go next in terms of ranking best hells?
Gerrit I think probably, well, I mean, you go to Catholicism because there's a purgatory, right?
Richard Oh, yeah, purgatory is the best.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, it's not the best.
Richard Well, no, it's- It's not the worst either. That's why it's right there in the middle. Yeah, that's right.
Gerrit But then, yeah, when you get to fundamentally for Christians, right, the whole point of hell is that it's an eternal place of suffering. So that doesn't mean, again, we've talked about Latter-day Saints believe that we're going to suffer for the sins that we commit that we don't repent for. I mean, and how great a suffering you know not. I mean, the reality is, if we are sinners and we refuse to avail ourselves of the atonement of Jesus Christ, we are going to suffer greatly in that interim time period before the Resurrection. But, as Joseph Smith taught, eventually everyone is going to have suffered enough to where they'll be resurrected and they'll inherit a kingdom of glory outside of the Sons of Perdition. Which means that Latter-day Saints don't believe in an eternal hellfire. Now, again, I guess if you want to call Outer Darkness that for the very few people that are Sons of Perdition, fine. But it's not even a helpful denominator, right?
Gerrit Because, you know, talking about how horrible a place is that almost no one goes to and that you can only go to if you've had the heavens open to you and you've seen Jesus and you know Jesus and you're aware of everything Jesus did for you and you say, I would if I could crucify Jesus again, that's not a contingency most of us have to plan for. So anyway, the reality is that Latter-day Saints' salvation from hellfire is a temporary hellfire and that then obviously much greater than the idea of exaltation.
Richard So great question, Brad. Thanks for asking us to rank the different hells in Christianity. We really appreciate it.
Gerrit We need to get that on a t-shirt. Who's got a better hell?
Richard I actually don't even think it's close. So we have another email from Sally. Hello, Gerrit and Richard. I love your content and your playful banter. I've been a Standard. Of Truth listener for a while now. You've got at least one adult woman named Sally and a half-listening, zero understanding, seven-month-old named Lottie. She is listening against her will. Most of our listeners actually are in Lottie's camp, by the way, against the will.
Gerrit We have a really good friend, and he only listens to this podcast because his wife forces him to on road trips.
Richard Oh, it is actually...
Gerrit She likes to send us clips of him listening against his will, whatever they drive somewhere. But you know, Mike is... he's a great guy that just doesn't want to listen to anything we have to say.
Richard And honestly, who can blame him? No joke. He doesn't want to listen to us when we're in person talking to him.
Gerrit Do we get to count a seven-month-old as a listener?
Richard Absolutely, we do. Well, that's actually our demo.
Gerrit We try to get people that have no agency. It's a modified Satan plan, actually. We want people to listen who have no choice. If we can just get put on the airport, like the CNN channel, the airport, that's where our ultimate goal.
Richard Well, so they're tuning in from Rochester, New York.
Gerrit That's awesome.
Richard It's very exciting.
Gerrit The home of Thurlow Weed.
Richard That's what people think of.
Gerrit Everyone who thinks of Rochester thinks of Thurlow Weed and Elihu Marshall.
Richard So that's a bit of a deep cut in terms of a reference. Who's Thurlow Weed?
Gerrit Thurlow Weed was one of the people that Joseph Smith approached to publish the Book of Mormon after EB. Grandin told him that he wouldn't publish it. And when they go to Weed, Weed is a politician, so you get multiple different answers about why he didn't publish it throughout his life. At first he just says, well, we don't publish books. And then it eventually became like, I told them that I couldn't allow this moral outrage to be perpetrated upon this country. I mean, again, it's a different world, it's a different time, back when politicians overclaimed what they'd done to protect people in order to gain votes. So you'll have to just imagine that world.
Richard And then Marshall.
Gerrit Oh, Marshall was the Hicksite Quaker printer in Rochester who actually does agree to...
Richard No, that's what Rochester is known for.
Gerrit I said Hicksite Quaker, Richard grabbed, he put his head in his hands in a disappointed way. Like, okay, all right, my, I apologize. Anyway, he's another printer in Rochester who agrees to publish the Book of Mormon. And so they go back to Grandin in Palmyra and they say, look, Elihu Marshall is going to publish this if you don't. And that's why Grandin finally relents and publishes it.
Richard So she goes on in her email to talk a lot about setting up a YouTube channel for Standard of Truth Podcast as another place for people to be able to listen to it. We don't do video as people say, you know, I've got a face for radio. I have a face for the written word actually, so not even radio.
Gerrit Yeah, I have a face for imagination. I mean, part of the problem is, of course, we are a low budget affair if you haven't already determined that listening. Like, hey, I feel like these guys aren't putting a ton of money into this.
Richard Well, the investment was in education. So we're a half a million in.
Gerrit And, you know, so far the return on our investment is a lot of interest rates on student loan debt. But we don't do video in part because it just requires so much. I mean, maybe someday we would do video. But the editing of video. Now, we don't do a whole lot of edits. I mean, spoiler alert for those of you listening.
Richard Oh, no, this seems like really high, really high quality content.
Gerrit It's only like four minutes about a Hicksite Quaker printer in Rochester.
Richard Oh, you don't say.
Gerrit No, you don't do any edits. I get that. But video is just much. It's a much harder medium to work in and requires much more equipment and things like that. But and look, Sally, super aside from forcing her daughter to listen to our podcast to drive our numbers up, she she also incredibly graciously offered to like help us set that up. And I just want to say there are so many people that listen that are just such good people that that are so willing to try to help us. And, you know, my wife has actually been, you know, Angie's actually been working on the YouTube. Unfortunately, there's already a YouTube channel. And I've been evangelical pastor standard of truth, which is not us. If you're wondering, especially since we rated their hell at the bottom.
Richard And it is better than us. I mean, it's great. Yeah.
Gerrit I mean, it's sure it's better than us. But we've started uploading to standard of truth LLC so that it was different.
Richard It's very important that there's a limited liability situation for anything we say. That's right.
Gerrit We need, we need cover. Um, but, uh, that, that, uh, we have been loading, um, you know, some of the earlier clips and where it takes, you know, quite some time to do it. But, but Angie has been rendering them and then, and then loading them without any video. You just have a picture of our ugly mugs and then us talking the whole time. And, um, so we will get more content on there. We do know that some people like to listen that way.
Richard And we'll put the link to this, to that on the, uh, on the description here for this, for this particular episode. Richard says that, but we will not do that.
Gerrit There's a lot of things we promised that we haven't delivered, like talking about the Mormon Battalion.
Richard And what a perfect segue as when, when last we left, uh, you were talking about Brigham Young, uh, getting news from Washington as they are looking for a place to live, or to move to.
Gerrit Yeah, looking for a place to escape. So this, uh, story now comes to a man by the name of Samuel Brannan. Now you might have heard of Samuel Brannan. The primary way that most people know him is he is the person who led the Saints on the ship Brooklyn, which is of course famous because almost all Latter-day Saint settlement to Utah comes through this overland, you know, hand cards and all that, that we, you know, we go and recreate in Trek. If you're unfortunate enough, the soul to have to participate in that.
Richard So my son informed me, so he's a senior this year. He informed me that he's putting in his, his missionary paperwork, his availability is going to be before Trek in hopes to avoid, to avoid going on Trek.
Gerrit Yeah, his son so badly doesn't want to go on Trek. He's going on a mission to avoid it. His son doesn't even want to go on a mission. Like son, if you're living in my house, you're going on Trek. What if I went on a mission? If that's what you're going to do, then fine. Rigdon won't ever listen to this.
Richard No, no. And we're kidding about him not wanting to go on a mission, but I'm not kidding about him not wanting to go on Trek.
Gerrit Well, I've always respected Rigdon and I respect him even more now knowing that he understands how terrible Trek is. We expect an inundation of emails from people who tell us that we're wrong about that.
Richard Yeah, no, I expect it, too. There are generally very strong feelings to Trek or not to Trek. People are not usually lukewarm on Trekking, but people have strong feelings and I expect to be absolutely crushed by people saying, how dare you say...
Gerrit I also hope there's at least one or two people who say, we desperately tried to get through Wyoming without dying. Why are we going back there to recreate this?
Richard Well, and it's important also to understand Gerrit's general hatred toward camping in general.
Gerrit It's, yeah, it's a real problem.
Richard And so, I mean, Trek isn't just, you know, some sort of commemoration of pioneer experience. For Gerrit, Trek is camping.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard And so, that's, that's the majority of the hatred.
Gerrit Whether I'm wearing pioneer clothing or not, I grew up camping a lot. I don't know what happened. I got to the point where I was like, you know what? I don't like eating burnt food with dirt in it while I sleep on a rock outside, get bitten by bugs, and I'm dirty all the time. Somewhere along the line, I just thought, you know what? Showers matter. You know, I keep hoping for my children to come to that same conclusion. But the reality of the ship Brooklyn with Brannan is that you have these several hundred Latter-day Saints who are actually going to skip the overland journey part. They're going to sail, and it's a long voyage, and there's all kinds of things that happen on the ship as well, and they're going to sail around and land in Yerba Buena, which, you know, essentially San Francisco Harbor, and they're going to come to Utah from the west rather than from the east. And so that's how most people know Samuel Brannan. Well, prior to that, while he's still in the process of trying to secure a ship and get people on it to make that trip, he is essentially the president of the Eastern States Mission.
Gerrit So he's kind of the head of the church in Washington DC which comes with some political responsibilities as well as the religious ones. He has a newspaper that he publishes there, The Prophet, which shares Latter-day Saint beliefs and ideas. And while he's there, he, of course, is trying to mingle with some of the political bigwigs to try to secure for the Latter-day Saints some kind of patronage from these politicians in Washington DC. Up to this point, essentially all the Latter-day Saints have gotten from Washington DC is at best, yeah, I'm really so sorry you guys are getting murdered. To a, well, guess you guys shouldn't have been there. That's why you're getting murdered. I mean, you're not really getting any support at all. Well, he's going to write to Brigham Young and tell him, I now have in my power to learn every movement of the government in relation to us.
Gerrit Now, he's claiming that he's got some high-placed, close friends. The problem is, what the movement of the government in relation to us is, is a very negative plan. Brannan's going to tell Brigham Young that the Secretary of War, William Marcy, he was the Secretary of War at the time, and other members of the cabinet were laying plans to prevent the Mormons from moving west. He said that, quote, they say it will not do to let the Mormons go to California nor Oregon, these places that are being considered. Neither will it do to let them tarry in the states, and they must be obliterated from the face of the earth. So Brigham Young's receiving a letter from Samuel Brannan, the trusted leader of the church in DC, where Brannan is saying, the Secretary of War says the Latter-day Saints have to be obliterated from the face of the earth. Well, that's an escalation of things, right?
Gerrit The reality is now Brigham Young is faced with something that's actually worse. There's one thing worse than a biased, politically driven, apathetic federal government that refuses to do anything to intervene in the thefts and murders and rapes and loss of life that's going on in the violence against Latter-day Saints. The one thing worse than an apathetic and impotent federal government is one that's now taking an active side looking to destroy you. So this letter engenders a great, it's a whole other problem that Brigham Young now has to deal with. Now, I'm not just trying to dodge anti-Mormon mobs in Illinois. There's an army coming? Brannan tells them that the federal government is preparing to send forces to intercept the Mormons as they left the city of Nauvoo to prevent them from going to another nation. Think about the exasperation on the part of Brigham Young. We are trying to leave.
Gerrit If you guys would stop burning our houses down long enough, we could actually get out. And now you're saying you're not even going to let us leave.
Richard What's the reason that you think that Brannan thinks that or that Brigham Young thinks that? Is it going to a place without any people and maybe they're siding with Mexico?
Gerrit The United States has an anti-filibustering law that is a way to... Part of the problem when you have pretty unpopulated borders between Canada and Mexico is how do you control your people from crossing these borders that are completely unguarded? Well, you have laws that try to prevent you going as an armed group to another nation, either to threaten that nation or to join that nation. In this case, the places where the Latter-day Saints might go are all places that are hotly contested places with the United States. When he's writing this letter, the rhetoric over Oregon territory has gotten to a fever pitch. If you don't know what I mean about Oregon territory, you've got to go back to... I neglected to say that Oregon territory back then actually included even part of Wyoming and part of Montana. But go back to last week's podcast and we talk all about it. Well, James Polk, the person who actually ends up running for president on the Democratic side instead of Van Buren, he is running on a platform of no compromise at all with the British government on Oregon territory.
Gerrit So this treaty is coming up for renewal. For the past 30 years, it's been a jointly occupied territory. Both Britain and the United States claim it, neither one of them is saying that they own all of it. There's been proposals by the United States, you know what? Let's just split it at the 49th parallel, which is the same place we cut things off when it came to North Dakota and Minnesota, save the angled notch there, right? And just extend that line. Well, the British are uncertain what to do. The American settlers, they're obviously above that line, not happy about what to do. But Polk captures this American sentiment that is really growing in the 1840s of manifest destiny. Manifest destiny is the idea that it is actually the destiny and in fact sovereign design of God that the United States expand from east to west.
Gerrit Now there's a little bit of a problem there, and that is that Mexico and Britain exist in between the two places, at least British territories. But many Americans do see that, you know, the United States has something that Mexico and Great Britain doesn't have, people. Great Britain certainly has a large population in Great Britain, but as we talked about, there's only about 5,000 total settlers between Americans and the British in all of Oregon territory. So there's more people arriving, you know, every month in New York basically as immigrants, as there is population in these areas, and these Mexican territories, Upper California, is very sparsely populated by Mexican or even American settlers. There's probably 500 American settlers already in that Mexican area. And so you think about this, the tensions with Mexico have been running high ever since Texas seceded from Mexico.
Gerrit And Texas fights a civil war against Mexico for its independence. And many Americans go to join them. You only have to sing the ballad of Davy Crockett a little bit to know that even though the United States didn't go to war with Mexico, there's a reason why Davy Crockett's down at the Alamo. And it's because he's among these many volunteers that, well, he'd already moved to Texas, but there's many volunteers who choose to go help fight with the Texans for their independence. But among many Americans, especially the Democratic Party of the mid-19th century, there is this idea that US sovereignty needs to expand from ocean to ocean. And it's in 1845, actually, that the term Manifest Destiny gets coined by John O'Sullivan, who's a newspaper editor and also will become a diplomat. But the idea is that the eventual design of God is that the United States stretches from east all the way to west.
Gerrit And there's certainly opposition to this idea of imperialism. I mean, Ulysses S. Grant, who's going to fight in the Mexican War, will very famously in his memoirs castigate it. He will say, For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure and to this day regard the war, which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. How do you really feel, Ulysses S. Grant? I mean, that is a pretty bold position to take. So I don't want to give the idea that it's a universally accepted thing. Many people are opposed to American expansion across North America. But they are also the minority. And Polk is running on two parts of his campaign. One, that all of Oregon territory should belong to the United States. He's running on the All Oregon Platform.
Gerrit In fact, instead of the 49th parallel, they actually adopt a different slogan. We love campaign slogans, right? We did the Rumps and Dumpsy. His campaign slogan is 54-40 or fight. It sounds like you're talking about how much alcohol is in what you just consumed. But 54-40 is the parallel at the very top of the disputed Oregon territory, which would take you all the way up into British Columbia today, the end of British Columbia today. So there was a huge segment of both Americans and primarily Democrats arguing that they should take all of Oregon, the All Oregon campaign. The British, who have been a part of this joint occupation of this area, and they are still getting a considerable amount of trade and furs from this area, they signaled that an attempt to annex all of the Oregon territory is going to lead to war.
Gerrit So in 1844 and 1845, the fear is actually that the war with Great Britain is in the often. War with Mexico has been threatened multiple times, especially by Mexico. Mexico never accepts that Texas is independent, and Mexico has signaled multiple times. If the United States were to annex this renegade republic, well, the Mexico would go to war. Now, again, in today's terms, you think of a war between Mexico and the United States, and obviously the United States is a superpower, and while Mexico has a strong military and is a regional power, most Americans don't think of that like, oh, of course America is going to win a war against Mexico. But you also need to think about things in terms of the 19th century. The standing army of the United States in 1844 has about 8,000 people in it.
Gerrit You could add another, others on garrison, maybe it's around 10,000. The standing army of Mexico at the time is well over 100,000. Mexican presidents kept their position entirely at the behest of the control of the military. You actually find this in lots of places where even a place that might have a less strong economy might have a very powerful military. Why? Because it's the military that decides who the president is. Mexico had gone through a string of presidents. In the 20 years that they had been independent from Spain, they had had dozens of presidents because they only served for a few months before they'd be deposed and another president would come in, and then another president would come in. So there was a lot of political instability. But militarily, the things that those presidents spent money on was that military. So it wasn't a foregone conclusion. There were people who spoke out against the annexation of Texas specifically because if you annex Texas, it will mean war with Mexico, and we don't want to go to war with Mexico.
Gerrit Either for the cost or there are many people that are free soilers who know that Texas, if it becomes a state of the United States, is going to bring another slave state into the Union. And so there's a fear of that as well. The 54-40 or fight, Polk's very hard-line stance he takes on Oregon to get elected. Now, what I'm going to tell you is something that is incredibly surprising. And again, you have to imagine a world where this could be the case. That Polk is going to run on a campaign of, I will take a hard-line stance against the British. I will demand all of Oregon territory, 54-40 or fight. It's very clear. We will go to war if we don't get all of Oregon territory. Now, Britain, of course, is the superpower of the world at the time. The United States has 8,000 men in their army. So, yes, we fought the British a couple of times at this point, but it's not like the War of 1812 went super well for us.
Gerrit I mean, we were able to pretend it went well because of Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, but the reality is that the war was touch-and-go for Americans. But the stunning thing that I have to relate is that in one of the very few times in American history, Polk ran on a campaign promise that got him elected and then didn't follow through on the promise. It's what makes Polk a despicable human being.
Richard That is disappointing.
Gerrit It's not that he's a slave owner and wants to expand slavery all over North America. It's the real despised, despicable fact of his presidency is he promised 54-40 or fight. So he gets elected almost entirely on the basis, we will get all of Oregon or I will go to war. And gets elected and immediately begins negotiations with the British in which they cut Oregon territory in half at the 49th parallel, which was always the proposal in the first place. So you will have to imagine a world where a politician promises they will do something when they get elected, but then after they are elected, doesn't do what they promised. The lead up to Polk's election caused a lot of fears of war both in Britain and in the United States because this hard line stance was such that the British actually get to a point where they actually sortie their fleet.
Gerrit They actually send their fleet to battle stations because they believe, all right, war with America is about to happen because Polk's going to declare the annexation of Oregon territory. Now in point of fact, as so often happens with foreign relations, the problem that you think is going to be the problem ends up not actually being the problem. It's a different problem. Mexico had kind of been a lesser issue with the Texas issue over the past several years. The United States had sent negotiators to Mexico to try to negotiate issues surrounding the Texas independence. And in fact, the United States was seeking to purchase from Mexico, they were at least feeling out Mexico, what if we purchased California from you? Or at least the coastal part of California, and even the Whigs who are desperately opposed to this kind of imperial expansion, at least for the most part, even they are like, well, yeah, it'd be pretty good to have San Francisco.
Gerrit What if we bought that port? Because it's this great port there on the western coast. So it seemed like in 1845, that war with Britain was entirely possible, war with Mexico was much less possible. In a year, all of those things flip. And a settlement is reached with Great Britain, where we don't go to a third war with Great Britain. We divide Oregon territory, Polk breaks his campaign promises, but not to be outdone, then starts a war with someone else, and that's with Mexico.
Richard So maybe you isn't... Look, we're going to fight somebody.
Gerrit Yeah, look, I'm primed, I'm ready to go.
Richard 54-40 or I'm going to punch someone.
Gerrit Yeah, 54-40 or we're invading Mexico City. What? Yeah, no, if you don't give us the Oregon line, we're going to Chapultepec. At any rate, why I'm even spending time on this is you can't understand what's driving Brigham Young and what's driving the calling of the Mormon Battalion without realizing the incredibly tenuous geopolitical situation the United States is in at the time. The Latter-day Saints are leaving it because the question Richard asked that you forgot that he asked because I spent so much time talking about this and other unrelated things.
Richard It's like, what are we talking about, Samuel Brannan?
Gerrit What's happened? Are we on the air or is this just us talking over lunch? All of our podcasts, you at some point have to say, do they know that they're recording right now? One of the criticisms slash tongue in cheek, positive criticism we received from someone online was that you have to wade through 45 minutes to get the five minutes that's actually helpful to you.
Richard Well, that's the standard of truth promise.
Gerrit Yeah, the standard of truth promise.
Richard Fitting five minutes of content into an hour.
Gerrit No one does it better. We promise to tell you something that you don't care about over the course of an hour and that when we're done, you'll care less about it and know less about. It. We do talk about different things on here. And so I realize that sometimes it might be boring for you. I'm sure Richard's falling asleep. He's checking the betting lines on the games right now. I'm pretty sure he's a degenerate gambler at this point. I need his bishop to intervene. Anyway, the question was why would they? Well, the reality is the Latter-day Saints are kind of a problem. Why would the federal government intervene to prevent them from leaving to go to either Mexico or Oregon? Well, it's not like the Latter-day Saints are exactly super pro-American at this point.
Gerrit They are being literally driven from the United States. They are being forcibly removed from where they're at. Brigham Young writes letters to every governor in every state of the United States, asking them, can we have refuge in your state? We're being driven out of Illinois. Now, Brigham Young says, I know they're not going to help us, but we're writing these letters so that the judgments of God can come upon them. Meaning, we're writing these because we can't have people later at the judgment bar say, oh, I would have let the Mormons stay if I hadn't. We would have been humanitarian if we could. Well, you could, and you weren't. And that's part of what they, when they see themselves leaving the United States and burning the bridge behind them as they go.
Richard Well, so isn't there a tip of the cap to Arkansas or what was the state?
Gerrit Yes, Arkansas Governor Drew, he actually does write back and says, you know, I wish I could help you. If I had the control of the state legislature, which I don't, I would offer to let you come here. So I do want to say that. If any of you are descendants of the Arkansas Governor, Thomas S. Drew, or if you just happen to be a listener in Arkansas, do we have any listeners in Arkansas?
Richard We're huge in Fayetteville, not Denton, that's Texas, Bentonville. All the villas.
Gerrit We have so few listeners in Arkansas that Richard is assigning them to living in Texas. I'm sure the few listeners we do have in Arkansas will be very happy to find out that they're living in Texas.
Richard Well, they will be happy to hear that their governor at least gave it the old college try.
Gerrit Yeah, he at least did try to provide some. He said, I would if I could, but I don't control the legislature and that there's too much negative sentiment towards you. But he then goes on to encourage them, you know what, but if you do go to Oregon territory, you will have the philanthropic spirit of everyone going with you. And so his response actually is something that's an important thing that's going on here. While Brannan is saying, hey, I'm hearing that they're going to actually try to stop us, that they're going to try to obliterate us. There are other people like Stephen Douglas and, you know, this Arkansas Governor Drew, who are trying to point the Latter Day Saints to a very specific destination. And that destination is Oregon territory. The Latter Day Saints will actually eventually pick up on this and even say, you know, they will even tell people, well, we are going to Oregon territory, even after they've long decided that they're not going there.
Gerrit Why? Because this is in the midst of a border and boundary dispute. As I said, there are fewer than 5000 British or Americans living in all of what is today British Columbia, part of Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, part of Colorado, all of the, sorry, part of Wyoming, all of that area. There are fewer than 5000 British or Americans living in it. Now, the United States has certainly rejected Latter Day Saints as being like other Americans, but they, like a can opener, can still be a very useful tool. Because if these 20,000 plus, because the reports are certainly that there's over 100,000 Latter Day Saints in the world. Now, those are exaggerations, but it doesn't actually matter, because however many members there were of the church in 1844 and 1845, all that matters is what the public perception of how many members there were.
Gerrit And you have regular reports from newspapers that there's 50, 60, 70, 80,000 Mormons, you know, in all over the different parts of America and in Britain and other places. Well, what happens now if at least 20,000 of them move to Oregon country? While you've rejected them as citizens in protecting their rights, suddenly they serve a very strategic role for you. Now you're able to go back to the British in your negotiations and say, there's 25,000 Americans living in Oregon country and 2,000 British. So who do you think should get the territory? Demography is destiny, is often what people say. If once there's this many Americans there, and again, the huge irony, the reason why they're leaving the country is they are not having their rights as American citizens respected and they're told you have to leave the country.
Gerrit But if they happen to go somewhere that serves the US interests, well then okay, they're actually Americans again. At least until we get enough settlement there to drive them out of there, and then we'll take their rights away again. That's probably the plan. And so Brannan is expressing this, but for Brigham Young's perspective, he kind of has to take this seriously. Brigham Young actually wrote after this, he said that the government intended to intercept our movements by placing strong forces in the way to take away from us firearms on the grounds that we were going to another nation. Because the flip side of this argument, that the Mormons all move to Oregon and then say, you know, we're American citizens, this should be part of America. What if the very disgruntled Mormons, who've been treated like garbage and who, by the way, have a very sizable British contingent in their number, what if they move to Oregon country and they repudiate their American citizenship? Hey, you know the nation that drove us out and murdered our prophet and said that we couldn't stay here and then let a bunch of us die along the way and did nothing for us?
Gerrit Yeah, we're not part of them anymore. Suddenly, that Latter-day Saint force could throw their weight on the British side and give the British the argument, right? So Americans, President Polk in particular, are in this very interesting situation where I certainly don't want the Mormons to stay inside the rest of the United States, inside the established United States, because it's such a problem. But I also don't want to alienate them to the point where they go and join the British. Because if I do that, well then I'm going to lose these territories I'm trying to get. So Brannan is sending these communications to Brigham Young. Now the flip side, the other side of that, the Brigham Young side of that, is while Brannan is receiving it, and you know this is a little bit of a spoiler alert, Brannan is getting this information from a source, several sources, that are deliberately deceiving him.
Gerrit They are lying to him about the intentions of the federal government to interfere with the Latter Day Saints. They're telling him, oh yeah, yeah, William RC says he's going to exterminate every last Mormon. Now that is a shocking thing, and if you're a Latter Day Saint who's lived through the extermination order of Missouri, or you watch with impunity as no one does anything with the burning of Latter Day Saints settlements and the murder of people like Edmund Duffy or of the Prophet, you're willing to believe that maybe that really is the case. But the reality is, he was being deliberately lied to. And we'll get back to that story in a minute. On Brigham Young's side, he also has a despicable liar that he's dealing with. That despicable liar is Thomas Ford. Now, we covered a self-published book a few weeks ago where someone was making all kinds of claims to historicity that weren't actually history.
Gerrit And one of the claims made by that author was that, you know, Thomas Ford's really gotten a raw deal. I mean, if it weren't for him, there would have been a lot more violence. I mean, he did everything he really could, and it's unfair that he's criticized for the things that happened with the Mormons. That was her conclusion. I don't know what role Thomas Ford had in the murder of Joseph Smith. I mean, there's certainly conspiracy theorists who will say things like, oh, he actually planned it. It doesn't seem like that. The reality is he seems stunned and surprised and worried when it happened. But he had pledged his faith to defend the Prophet Joseph Smith, and there are some facts that are in evidence. Joseph Smith was not protected by Thomas Ford, right? So however involved he was, I mean, it could rise to the level of something that he contrived. I don't believe that, and I don't think there's any really credible historians who do. But at the very least, he's guilty of just, I mean, he's guilty of being inept, right?
Gerrit I promise I'll protect you. I'll use the entire force of the state to protect you. I'm going to protect you. Oh, he was killed. I guess I didn't protect you.
Richard President Hinckley seemed to have very strong feelings on the matter.
Gerrit Yeah. Honestly, one of the greatest talks I ever heard was President Hinckley talking about the rebuilding of the Nauvoo Temple and waving that book, History of Illinois, around. I love President Hinckley. Much better communicator than myself as you're thinking, you know what, why don't I just listen to President Hinckley?
Richard You should.
Gerrit Go listen to the President Hinckley conference talks. And when you get through those, when you get to season 38, then you can come back and listen to us. But regardless of how culpable Ford is in Joseph's murder, regardless of what he could or couldn't have done to prevent the anti-Mormon mobbings and burnings that were going on in Illinois, the reality is there's at least one part of Thomas Ford that is absolutely inexcusable and that is completely definitive. And that is in his own book, History of Illinois, that President Hinckley was waving around at that temple announcement. He brags about the fact that he lies to the Latter-day Saints in order to get them to leave the country sooner. Again, I've talked about this before, but if you've ever gone to Nauvoo and you walk down the Trail of Hope, as you're getting closer and closer and closer to where the Mississippi River is, if you ever go in the wintertime, which no one has, but if any of you listening go, you might have served a mission there, and you know that Nauvoo in February is giving Siberia a run for its money, right?
Gerrit There are Russians who come to Nauvoo in February that are like, well, I'm glad it's not this. I mean, it is very cold and it is kind of wind swept and lots of snow. And so it's a natural question I would often get asked by my students. Well, why didn't they just wait until spring to go? Well, the reason why they didn't wait until spring to go is Thomas Ford said, told Brigham Young that the army was coming to destroy them, and then bragged about it later in his book. With a view to hasten their removal, he writes, they were made to believe that the president would order the regular army to Nauvoo as soon as navigation opened in the spring. This had the desired effect. The 12 with about 2,000 of their followers immediately crossed the Mississippi before the breaking up of the ice. Now, that's a pretty horrible thing. I want you to think about all of the Latter Day Saints who die from exposure, who die from disease, who leave not ready as they try to cross Iowa, who are crossing this horrible muddy landscape because they are crossing at the beginning of spring as they're walking across the state rather than in the middle of summer.
Gerrit Thomas Ford's bragging about that. Again, this is not me putting words in Thomas Ford's mouth. That's not me castigating Thomas Ford, although I am castigating Thomas Ford. It's Thomas Ford saying, I lied to them. I lied to them and told them that an army was coming. And surprisingly, they ran. Now there's a second part to that duplicitous nature of Ford though that makes what he said even worse. The second part is that actually Thomas Ford himself had been the person who had requested federal intervention. I think Ford started to worry as he saw how many Mormons there were that if they were going to leave from Illinois, let's say that they do go to Oregon territory and say, you know what, we're British now. Well, who do you think is going to get blamed for that? The state they left from. Why didn't you stop them from going and joining the British?
Gerrit So he actually sends a letter with the Illinois senators, James Semple and Sidney Brees. And in the letter, he tries to convince Polk to intervene, to stop the Mormons from just going, at least going armed to Oregon or Mexico or wherever they're going to go. Here, James Polk is presented with this information. We know this from James Polk's journal, from his diary that he keeps. He meets with them, and the concerns are expressed, Thomas Ford's letter is expressed. And at this point, though, for Polk, he sees this very differently. We're in two separate disputes. We're in a dispute with Mexico, we're in a dispute with Britain, and we also have the problem with the Mormons being in Illinois. Well, if the Mormons leave and they go to Oregon territory, well, that's just going to bolster the claims of Mormons in Oregon territory.
Gerrit If they leave and they go to Mexico, well, we've got some land claims against Mexico as well, so that will bolster American claims against Mexico for those territories that the United States wants to get from Mexico. And so Polk in a very magnanimous entry into his journal, he writes that he told these two senators from Illinois that as president of the United States, I possess no power to prevent or check their immigration. I told him that I could not interfere with them on the grounds of their religious faiths, however absurd it might be considered to be, that if I could interfere with the Mormons, then I could with the Baptists or any other religious sect, and that by the Constitution, any citizen had a right to adopt his own religious faith. Now that's something that Latter-day Saints have been wanting to hear forever. A president who acknowledges their right to believe whatever they want to believe and exist however they want.
Gerrit So this is the real duplicity of Thomas Ford. One, he knows an army isn't coming. Polk said he's not sending one. Two, if there was an army coming, it wasn't a kind of like, hey man, I like totally heard a rumor that they might be sending an army to like stop you, Brigham Young. If there were an army coming, the only reason why it was coming was because Ford himself had asked for it. But he knew that an army wasn't coming. But with a view to hasten their removal, they were made to believe the president would order the regular army to Nauvoo as soon as the navigation opened in the spring. So knowing that even if an army was coming, it would have been his fault. But secondly, that they weren't actually coming, he still lied. Now, between the people lying to Brannan, who was passing that information on, to Brigham Young, and the people lying to Brigham Young, like Thomas Ford, you can see the reason why by the time the Latter-day Saints leave the United States, they don't think they're leaving with a peaceful wind at their back and a jolly cheerio.
Gerrit They believe they are actually fleeing from an army that is coming to kill them. At best, that army is going to come and take their supplies and their weapons and arrest the leaders of the church, but possibly obliterate them from the face of the earth, at least according to the one source. So when they leave, they leave in haste, and they leave in fear. Yeah, they might look longingly back on their boyhood home in Maine as they look back, but they're actually afraid that the United States is going to militarily intervene to stop them. And that's part of the reason why you get these kinds of sentiments from Orson Pratt, which I've read before, but you know what? Orson Pratt has a scraggly enough, crazy enough beard. By the time he's in Utah, he's worth reading again. This is the last thing he publishes in The Times and Seasons before they leave, in December 31st of 1845. The time is at hand for me to take a long and lasting farewell to these Eastern countries, being included with my family among tens of thousands of American citizens who have the choice of death or banishment beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Gerrit I have preferred the latter. It is with the greatest joy that I forsake this republic and that all the saints have abundant reasons to rejoice that they are counted worthy to be cast out as exiles from this wicked nation. We have received nothing but one continual scene of the most horrid and unrelenting persecutions at their hands for the last 16 years. If our Heavenly Father will preserve us and deliver us out of the hands of bloodthirsty Christians of these United States and not suffer any more of us to be martyred to gratify their holy piety, I for one shall be very thankful. Perhaps we may have to suffer much in the land of our exile, but our sufferings will be from another cause. There will be no Christian banditi to afflict us all the day long, no holy pious priest to murder us by the scores, no editors to urge on house burnings, devastation and death. If we die in the dens and caves of the Rocky Mountains, we shall die where freedom reigns triumphantly.
Gerrit Liberty in a solitary place and in a desert is far more preferable than martyrdom in these pious states. How do you think Orson Pratt really feels?
Richard Yeah, he was not happy.
Gerrit He's literally saying if we die trying to live in a desert next to a giant salt lake, at least I'm not being killed by some anti-Mormon mob. I'd rather starve to death on the plains than be murdered by these people. When he says goodbye to the Republic, a lot of Latter-day Saints really feel like that. Of course, they still have family there. They have history there. Most of them were American citizens before they leave, but they have gotten to the point where the United States, they see the United States as an enemy. In fact, Doctrine and Covenants section 136 is going to speak directly to this, that they have been driven out by mobocracy. As they're suffering, traveling through Iowa, and many people are getting sick and many are dying, the estimate, pretty close count, but there's some things you just have to estimate on the tail end, is that around a thousand Latter-day Saints are going to die in winter quarters in Council Bluffs or crossing Iowa.
Gerrit More are going to die crossing the plains in Iowa than are going to die crossing from Iowa to Salt Lake, to give you an idea. It is a horrific time period and a terrible time of disease and sickness in winter quarters. And so when the Lord gives Doctrine and Covenants section 136 to Brigham Young, not only is it important because it's this first revelation to a not Joseph Smith that's included in the Doctrine and Covenants, but the Lord also speaks directly to their sufferings and to what's going on. This is verse 31 and on of D&C 136. My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion. And he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom. Let him that is ignorant learn wisdom by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord his God, that his eyes may be open that he may see and his ears open that he may hear.
Gerrit For my spirit is sent forth in the world to enlighten the humble and the contrite and to the condemnation of the ungodly. Then verse 34, thy brethren have rejected you and your testimony. Even the nation has driven you out. So then they even have revelatory confirmation of the feeling that they are being driven from the United States. The nation has driven you out. Why do I give all of this setup? I give all of this setup because the calling of the Mormon Battalion comes while the Saints are struggling and dying crossing Iowa. Why are they struggling and dying crossing Iowa? Because they believe a federal army is coming to kill them. Now, a federal army isn't, but thanks to Thomas Ford, thanks to the people lying to Samuel Brannan, in fact, they think that there is.
Gerrit And so the feelings towards the United States government could not be lower than they are in February, March and April of 1846 as they're leaving the country. So next week we'll talk about how that actual call came from Polk and the Latter-day Saints that he's negotiating with.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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So you might be disappointed in yourself, like well, I guess I shouldn't have beaten up that bookie when he didn't take my bet on the Notre Dame BYU game.

GerritBanter

But the reality is, when lists are created, they are always incomplete and they don't allow for the room of this kind of gray area.

GerritInsight

Disclaimer, listening to this podcast not only doesn't get you into heaven, it likely prohibits it.

GerritBanter

It's the best, the best hell. Mormons have the best. It's not even close, really.

RichardBanter

We try to get people that have no agency. It's a modified Satan plan, actually.

GerritBanter

Somewhere along the line, I just thought, you know what? Showers matter.

GerritBanter

The one thing worse than an apathetic and impotent federal government is one that's now taking an active side looking to destroy you.

GerritInsight

Fitting five minutes of content into an hour.

RichardBanter

So then they even have revelatory confirmation of the feeling that they are being driven from the United States.

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The Saints left Nauvoo in February because they were simply eager to get going.
President Polk wanted the federal government to stop or destroy the Mormons.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Lists of dos and don'ts are always incomplete. Being a Latter-day Saint means living with the question of whether we could do more.

In 1845 the Saints were trying to leave a country they believed was about to send an army after them. Governor Ford deliberately let them believe it.

Polk wrote that he could not interfere with the Mormons for their religion, "however absurd," because then he could interfere with any sect.

D&C 136 told the suffering Saints, "My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them."

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Will we get to the Battalion?Richard predicts they won't, and they don't (0:39, 15:11).
Spain unsponsors the mailbagAfter last week's Spanish postmaster, Spain asked them never to use its name again (1:04).
Ranking the hellsLatter-day Saint hell is the best, Buddhist hell is better, purgatory is in the middle, and evangelicals land at the bottom; it needs a t-shirt (5:58, 6:06, 8:41).
Listeners with no agencyLottie, seven months old, and Mike, who only listens on road trips because his wife makes him; the goal is the airport TV (9:19, 10:01).
Thurlow Weed and Elihu MarshallWhat Rochester is known for, plus a Hicksite Quaker printer that made Richard put his head in his hands (10:29, 11:39).
A face for imaginationNo video, but Standard of Truth LLC for limited liability (12:31, 14:30).
Gerrit hates camping, and TrekRichard's son plans his mission availability to dodge Trek; for Gerrit, Trek is just camping (16:05, 17:25, 17:46).
Degenerate gamblerRichard checks betting lines and needs his bishop to intervene (37:07).
We're huge in...Fayetteville, Bentonville, all the villes, which Richard briefly puts in Texas (39:38).
Imagine a worldA politician who breaks a campaign promise, a world listeners will have to imagine (32:20, 32:57).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites Alma 36The Gift of TestimonyElder Gérald CausséElder Caussé, recalling the scripture that comforted him at two calls to serve, teaches that bearing witness of Jesus Christ belongs not only to apostles but to every disciple who has taken His name by covenant.October 2026 General Conference · cites Alma 36Jesus Christ Is the Great Deliverer!Elder Kevin J. HathawayElder Hathaway testifies that Jesus Christ is the great deliverer and that the question for the faithful is not whether He will deliver, but how and when.October 2026 General Conference · cites Alma 36Jesus Lives to LiftElder Patrick KearonElder Kearon draws on learning to fly gliders as a teenager: pilots seek rising air called "lift" and turn decisively away from sinking air, and without climbing, a glider slowly descends.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The voyage of the ship Brooklyn and Samuel Brannan's time in Yerba Buena (17:46).
President Polk's diary entries about the Mormons in 1845 and 1846 (52:10).
Thomas Ford's History of Illinois and what it admits about the Nauvoo exodus (48:31).
D&C 136, the Word and Will of the Lord given to Brigham Young at Winter Quarters (59:24).
SOT Litner · S2E46.