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Hating America?
S2E47 · Mormon Battalion Part 3
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 47 · 54:19

Mormon Battalion Part 3

Within weeks, Brigham Young went from hearing that the president wanted the Saints destroyed to hearing that the same president called them good citizens and wanted a battalion of their men.

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The question ·

How did President Polk and the Latter-day Saints end up agreeing to raise the Mormon Battalion?

Richard

Richard opens the Joseph L. Heywood mailbag with Eric's mock lawsuit on behalf of thrash metal bands, then reads Brandon's tender email about years of infertility he had blamed on his own unworthiness. Gerrit answers with his ancestor Jonathan Harriman Hale, a faithful bishop who died at Winter Quarters leaving four young children, as proof that suffering isn't punishment. Back in 1846, the Saints vow to move beyond the United States as they cross a muddy Iowa, and Captain Allen's arrival at Mount Pisgah sets the camp on edge. Gerrit explains how Jesse Little and Thomas Kane met President Polk, and how Polk, fearing the Saints would join the British, praised them and asked them to raise a battalion for the Mexican War.

Who comes upJames K. PolkJesse C. LittleThomas L. KaneBrigham YoungWilford WoodruffJames AllenSamuel BrannanJonathan Harriman HaleOlive Boynton HaleJohn F. BoyntonAmos KendallJoseph L. Heywood
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Hating America?

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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 be talking more about the Mormon Battalion. When last we left you, Gerrit was talking about how much we hate the United States.
Gerrit I don't, I wasn't talking in the present tense.
Richard That's not what I heard.
Gerrit I feel like I'm being misrepresented.
Richard So this is coming out just after Veterans Day and just before Christmas. And so we'll be talking about the Saints' hatred for America.
Gerrit No, no. At the time, they're being driven from the country.
Richard At the time.
Gerrit They feel very passionately that they are being exterminated from the country.
Richard But before we get to the thrilling potential conclusion, even though this is likely several more episodes of James K. Polk and his hijinks with the Mormons, we'll start off with the Joseph L. Haywood, or Haywood, pardon me, to the Haywood family, Joseph L. Haywood mailbag. And of course, he was appointed Postmaster of Salt Lake City in March of 1849 and also was a member of the Council of 50.
Gerrit Yeah, this is pretty good, a Joseph L. Haywood. Yeah, we got our first Latter-day Saint Postmaster mailbag.
Richard That's right, we had to go to Salt Lake to get it. But so we have an email coming to us, Dear Sirs. It has come to my attention that you have caused significant and irreparable damage to my clients, the Thrash Metal Band's Apocrypha and Satan's Molecules.
Gerrit When did we mention Satan's Molecules?
Richard I don't remember.
Gerrit I feel like there's a lot of things we say on here that I forget that we say. I kind of think I'd remember if I said Satan and Molecule in the same sentence.
Richard First of all, that reminds me, do you remember the ESPN commercial with John Clayton where he does the bit and then listens to like hard rock metal and his mom's yelling? Ah, forget it. Yeah, I do remember that. Okay, it's great. None of our listeners, the few that we have left. No, Satan's Molecules.
Gerrit If we had a counter for our listeners, it would be going backwards because I started doing the Mormon Battalion. I need to go back to things that people care about, like polygamy.
Richard By using their names in connection with your commercial enterprise, which that's the funniest part of the entire email here. Without fair compensation, if you do not cease and desist from this wrongful activity, I shall have to sue you for a portion of your podcast earnings, which are undoubtedly a magnificent sum. Rest assured, my clients are earning plenty of scratch. Now that made me question where this actually was an attorney. Plenty of scratch playing Monday nights at bowling alleys for seniors on the outskirts of this city. Now I will say, if that's got to be a rocking bowling alley, if they're listening to Apocrypha and Satan's Molecule. Here's what's crazy.
Gerrit This person looked up where Apocrypha was based out of in Vitter, Texas.
Richard This, yeah, no, yeah, a lot of times. So if they do not need your lucre, but they're willing to bring litigation to help protect other potential victims of your abusive tactics, who may be less well off than they, yours, yours, Melville Dewey III of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, Attorneys at Law. So thank you very much for that episode. We very much appreciate it.
Gerrit Eric, thank you for bringing this potential lawsuit to our attention.
Richard PS. I enjoyed the episode on the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Gerrit We haven't done that yet.
Richard What? Yeah, well, you've mentioned it.
Gerrit Well, I've mentioned it so many times. It just keeps coming back.
Richard So thank you, Eric, for that email. We also received another one, this one, a little bit more serious in nature. I will say, it's interesting, of all of the episodes that we have done over the past almost year and a half or so, we have not received greater response to any of them than the prosperity theology and this idea of prosperity gospel. And some of the emails have been just incredibly-
Gerrit Honestly devastating.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit I mean, we've received some emails that have left me in tears and wishing there were things I could do to help, aside from putting out a podcast, but-
Richard But they've been so heartfelt and so kind and just so, as many of them, like you say, very difficult to even get through because of the sad nature of them. We received one here, it was also very, very sweet. Dear Dr. LeDuc, oh no, sorry. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat.
Gerrit Boy, that guy gets ABD and he just starts putting doctor in front of everything. The moment he turned ABD, he started talking down to me. He was like, well, you'll understand if you were almost dissertation.
Richard Oh, I see, very nice. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor LeDuc, normally I would start off an email with a sarcastic comment about not answering my previous emails or saying that you did talk about the topic I asked about.
Gerrit Actually, we did respond to one of his emails at one point, but then, I mean, you emailed back, but I don't know that we talked about it.
Richard Yeah, this is coming to us from Brandon from Arizona, our lone listener in Arizona.
Gerrit My brother lives in Arizona, and he sometimes listens.
Richard I stand by it, Brandon, our only listener. I'm sorry, I'm just kidding down. I won't do that today. All joking aside, I finished your episodes about the idea of the prosperity gospel. I admit that I have listened to it over and over again. They were so profound to me. Years ago, my wife and I had a son. We wanted another baby about a year or so afterwards, wanting the kids close in age. No baby came. We went to doctors and had tests and all the good stuff. No baby. I thought I was being punished for past sins. Maybe I hadn't repented enough or maybe I had, or maybe I hadn't, so simply judgment from previous actions. Or maybe I wasn't being righteous enough. Later, as I was talking to my wife and she expressed the same feelings, that she felt like maybe it was her and that wasn't righteous enough. We saw people blessed with children that complained about it and a blessing that I would give anything for. We eventually reached the conclusion that we were just going to have the one boy, and that would be enough and that he would be our blessing.
Richard Five years later, we were blessed with another baby boy. And I don't know why it took that long for us to have another baby, but we got another blessing. And I know my trials are not anything compared to others, but it was hard for us regardless. But it was so revealing to hear your testimony of quote, prosperity, your Arizona listener, Brandon.
Gerrit Yeah, that is, it's so heart rending in the sense that the painful aspect of this is knowing that there are people, people apparently listening that have spent years of their life beating themselves up for the fact that things did not turn out the way that they've wanted them to turn out. I mean, that, that's tough for me. It's tough. It's emotional to even think about those, you know, how many tears and how many prayers.
Richard Because it's hard enough going through the things. It's something different to think that you're also, that that's happening because you're, you're not right with God.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, we received another email from a listener who talked about a very recent tragedy in his life that was just too personal to even share. And, um, you know, one of the things he said was, you know, I, I've already had the thought a couple of times, well, maybe if I would have done something different, I think that we are victims of, of this because a, we live in this, you know, if you live in the United States or Western Europe, not everyone does, but if you live in places affected by Western culture, it is so heavily imbued with this idea of, of Calvinist theology that, you know, things happen to you as rewards or punishments and that God is sovereign over literally everything. Everything happens at God's will, will and God's whim. And you mix that with our Latter-day Saint devotion to the idea of agency.
Gerrit And the recipe, the resulting goulash that you get when those things are mixed together is you get this just horrific questioning of self that leads to many long dark nights of the soul, where when horrible things happen, we love God too much that we could blame God, and we know that agency is a thing. So really, there's only one person left to blame.
Richard But I know that I find myself even saying this, my wife and I, we almost catch ourselves saying this from time to time. Why did this happen to me? Why would this happen to me? And when you're saying that, there's almost...
Gerrit The implied...
Richard Yeah, the implication is why would God do this?
Gerrit The implication, and that comes from, as we talked about in that first episode of The Prosperity, that universal... I mean, it's a ubiquitous statement in our culture. You hear people say constantly, every single thing happens for a reason. Unless you're saying that reason is because this world is terrible and we chose to come here, we just don't believe God is the one inflicting everything that happens to us. And when we say, well, maybe he could intervene sooner, obviously he could. And those are the questions that we don't really have answered. But look, I very much believe and understand that that there are consequences for sins. And if you're a guy who's lost his wife, who's left him because you were cheating on her for 20 years, well, you know what?
Gerrit That may be a consequence that you have to suffer. But a lot of the horrible, negative, difficult things that happen to us, there isn't that easy explanation. And the reality is, because we wouldn't be able to discern it, because we wouldn't be able to determine, is this a blessing or is this a, you know, is this a punishment from God for something that I did? The second guessing of ourselves, I mean, none of us are perfect, but I'm pretty sure that none of us are living a life so, you know, debauched in the sight of God that it warrants one of our children dying. I mean, that just the very reality of, of that, um, of that, that mentality is the reason why it gives me pain is I can almost feel the tears of so many people who have, who've cried themselves to sleep at night, not just because something horrible happened in their family or the, you know, issues with infertility or loss of a job, but also because somewhere in the deep recesses of their soul, they say, I know this is actually my fault.
Gerrit I was never a good enough person. I, I think about my great, great, great grandparents, Jonathan Harriman Hale. He, he marries, uh, all of Boyington. Now you might have heard the name Boyington before, because John Boyington was one of the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. You might not remember him that well, because he's also one of the people that apostatizes in Kirtland. He's actually one of the ones who's, who says, you know, he's brought up on a public trial because he's speaking out against Joseph for his excommunication hearing. And he says, I thought that God would, that God had established the Kirtland Safety Society, that he'd established the bank and God would not let it fail. And Joseph's response to him is, who told you that? I never said that. At any rate, his sister, Olive, marries, you know, my, like I said, my fourth great-grandfather or third, if my mom's listening, she's, she's yelling at the podcast right now telling me what it is.
Gerrit We really need to have Renee in studio a lot more because then she could correct us instantly, just like when I was a child. Anyway, these are faithful people. They, Jonathan and, and, and all of, they don't apostatize, even though all his family apostatizes. And, and they go to Nauvoo and, and Jonathan, after he served a mission with Wilford Woodruff and, and one of the last letters I have from him is he is sent to Carthage as kind of a spy to watch and make sure that the Latter-day Saints who are going there and being put on trial or going to fill out deeds and stuff to make sure there weren't any plans to kill anyone else. This is in 1845. Again, back to our theme that we'll get back to that when we leave the United States, we are not leaving with a fond farewell and champagne glasses. We are leaving with bitterness as if we're being chased out.
Gerrit Anyway, Hale is, he's made one of the bishops of Nauvoo and he's appointed, you know, look at how I'm working this back around here. He's actually appointed by Brigham Young to go to Fort Leavenworth to collect all of the income from the Mormon Battalion.
Richard That was masterfully done.
Gerrit It's only years and years and years of telling stories no one wants to hear, trying to find meaning in things that no one wants meeting out of. Only Rachel's mom is appreciating this. And I can only assume as a Brazilian, she couldn't care less about the Mormon Battalion. So he goes down to do that. Well, he and Olive both die in winter quarters. So here are people that have been incredibly faithful and they leave their four little kids, like nine and under, both of them die. Maybe there's some haunting sin in both of their lives that I'm not able to find through any historical efforts. In fact, all I find is this guy is willing to give up everything for the kingdom. And people he loves apostatize, I'm still in the kingdom. People he loves dies, I'm still in the kingdom.
Gerrit You need somebody, I'll go do whatever you need me to do. You need someone to go to Carthage and they might kill me because that's the whole reason you're sent to me? Fine, I'll go. And that didn't stop the tragic deaths of Jonathan and Olive. And and it didn't prevent their children from having to walk across the plains as orphans. I mean, that it is hard to to to when you start trying to assign sinfulness to the reasons why things don't happen. Boy, there are just so many examples of incredibly faithful people who are suffering. So I would just my my I implore everyone who's listening. Please give yourself a break. Yeah, we're all sinners. Every one of us is a sinner. But unless you are well aware of a specific instance in which your sin specifically caused whatever suffering is going on, just know that your Heavenly Father loves you, that Jesus died for you, and that somehow in the next life, all of this unfair stuff will somehow be made up.
Gerrit And I hope that now we can drift back into the ether of talking about early 19th century politics, which is whatever one wants anyway.
Richard Well, we have received many, many emails asking for more details about my dissertation, but we just don't have time to get to it.
Gerrit In our emails, there was an email asking specifically about it. But I also noticed that the email appeared to originate from inside of our email.
Richard That's weird.
Gerrit Kind of like the weird story that the calls are coming from inside the house. So can you explain how it is that an email sent internally is also from someone asking about your dissertation?
Richard You know, I don't know. I'm going to look into it. I'm going to get to the bottom of it and see, but we just don't have time to get into it now. So on with the show.
Gerrit Well, if for any of you who are interested in learning about Richard's dissertation that he hasn't written yet, though he's still calling himself a doctor, please send us emails and we'll get to that. Now, when last we left you, I feel like this is like a serial radio story. Yeah. Like, then the long range came over the mountain. I used to listen to those old tapes when I was a kid. Yeah. You know, you'd have a little cassette tape.
Richard My wife did too. They would listen to old, timey radios.
Gerrit We're from Idaho.
Richard Well, I'm also from Idaho and I watched Sanford and Son.
Gerrit I'm coming to listen to them. That's it.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Okay. Yeah, you bet. Anyway.
Richard So they were in Iowa. So they just crossed and-
Gerrit So when last we left you, as Richard said, we were talking about how much they, there was some bitter feelings towards the United States. I don't want to use the term hate, but it's a really weird thing that we don't really spend enough time trying to understand that, you know, I read that last excerpt from Orson Pratt where he laid down the law about how gratefully was to just get out of this place because of how murderous it was. But, you know, he's not alone in that. And so this is that part, this inflection point of our Latter-day Saint history that's so odd to us today. But they are so worried about a Federal Government intervention. They are so disgusted with the fact that the United States government not only has refused to help them, but now is threatening to send an army to stop them. That, you know, Brigham Young is going to express as they're leaving, he says, when we leave here, my mind is to go just beyond the Rocky Mountains, somewhere on the Mexican claim, and the United States will have no business to come there.
Gerrit And if they do, we will treat them as enemies. That gives you an idea of right where they're at. I mean, they are fleeing in the middle of winter. People are going to be dying along that trail. They are struggling to get everyone out because they think an army is coming because they've been lied to. And so when they leave, as they cross that river, boy, it really is like a Rubicon for these Latter-day Saints. If you ever hear someone say cross the Rubicon, sorry for... Again, if...
Richard You're mixing your Roman... No, that is Roman, yeah.
Gerrit I'm mixing my Roman and Mormon history. What?
Richard No, nothing.
Gerrit Well, I mean, obviously some of you know the story, but if you don't, that's the inflection point for Caesar. There was a law or at least tradition in Rome that you'd never march your legions across the Little River, the Rubicon, which kind of was the main entrance into where Roman territory was in Italy. And so that's why they always talk about, oh, he crossed the Rubicon. What it means is once Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he'd already made the decision that he was going to ignite a civil war essentially, right? That he'd made his decision. And for the Latter-day Saints, as they are crossing the Mississippi River, they know that they are leaving a place that sees them as enemies and that right now they see as enemies. As Brigham Young says, he says, they're going to go to the Mexican territory and find places, suitable places, where we can locate and fortify ourselves and so too bid defiance to the enemy.
Gerrit When we start to move, we will move in a solid body until we get beyond the limits of the United States so that we can protect ourselves. So you can see that they see the United States itself as actually a threat because that's what they've been told. Now, of course, while they're moving, there's a lot of geopolitical things that are going on. As I said, the United States nearly goes to war with Great Britain in 1845. That's averted, and there's a negotiation that's made that splits Oregon territory. But now things are coming to a head with Mexico. Mexico had never recognized the independence of the Republic of Texas. But just before James Polk was elected, John Tyler, the president before him, had essentially unilaterally annexed the Texan Republic. And then that had gone with it, but he had done it by executive order basically, to start with, and then it was approved by the Senate.
Gerrit And Mexico had long said, if you annex Texas, that's war. One of the reasons why the Latter-day Saints had been looking at possibly going to Texas was President Sam Houston of Texas was very willing. Texas at the time had around maybe 100,000 settlers. And he sees in his mind's eye 20, 30, 40, maybe 50,000 Mormons eventually moving to Texas. Well, we would become a speed bump on Santa Ana's route to Houston essentially. But it shows how desperate the Latter-day Saints are to get outside of the United States because once Mexico, once Texas is annexed by the United States, they no longer consider going to Texas because now that is the United States. So even though Sam Houston is still willing to have them, they aren't willing to go.
Gerrit And so as they're crossing Iowa, it is in this kind of very difficult circumstance. They didn't get to sell their property, so they're leaving very poor. They left in the middle of winter instead of in spring and in summer, which means they're now crossing the horrible parts of Iowa in the spring through all the mud and the difficult tracks. And they're unsure what's going to happen. And it's at this point that Wilfred Woodruff is going to record in his journal this very interesting experience that takes place. So at this point, he is not with the remainder of the group. Brigham Young is with the advanced group all the way up to Council Bluffs. But there are multiple different way stations that are created along the way. Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah. And Wilfred Woodruff is with the group there at Mount Pisgah. And as he writes in his journal, all of a sudden on June 26th of 1846, the camp has some commotion.
Gerrit It kind of gives you an idea of just how terrified the Latter-day Saints are because all of a sudden over the hill comes riding several US cavalrymen. Now they didn't see those guys coming over the hill and say, oh, thank goodness. You know, we were a little bit worried about the Native Americans in the area, so we're glad that they're here to protect us. No, apparently women and children run screaming basically. They believe that they were fleeing the US. Army trying to kill them. Well, here's the US. Army. And so as Wilford Woodruff writes in his journal, he says, the camp was flung into some excitement this morning by the appearance of Captain Allen with three dragoons of the US. Army, a dragoon, a mounted soldier. And I soon met with Brother Huntington and his council with Captain Allen to inquire into his business.
Gerrit Sorry, I'm reading this from the original. This is actually some of the worst handwriting that Wilford Woodruff has in his journal on this page. So maybe he was really angry when he wrote this, I don't know. To inquire into his business. And he informed us that he was sent by order of Captain Carney. Now, when you read his name in history books, I can only assume that everyone listening is reading multiple books about the Mexican War.
Richard Absolutely. We've received a lot of emails about it.
Gerrit I think seven or even eight emails today were like, Oh, have you read this book on the Mexican War? Oh, you haven't. Anyway, you'll see his name spelled K-E-A-R-N-E-Y. And so you'll think it's Carney because that's how it should be pronounced. But the way that that name is usually pronounced with when there's a lot of Irish in America is actually Carney. And one way that we know that that's how Woodruff is pronouncing it is he spells it into his journal absolutely phonetically. So instead of Kearney, he doesn't write K-E-A-R-N-E-Y. He writes C-A-R-N-E-Y, Carney, which makes it sound like he works in an amusement park, but that's how he's pronouncing it. He was sent by order of Captain Carney, who had received word, so he said, by President Polk to give the Mormons an invitation to raise 500 volunteers to assist the United States in the Mexican War.
Gerrit This was his pretensions. I had some reasons to believe them to be spies and that the president had no hand in it. We, however, treated them with civility and directed them on to Council Bluffs to lay the case before the president. Now, if that doesn't give you an actual, on-the-ground, day-to-day insight into how the Latter-day Saints felt about this, I mean, almost nothing does, right? I mean, it is very clear that everyone's terrified at first. Alan, Captain Alan, says, hey, guys, don't worry, you know, I'm not here to kill anybody. And their response is, I'm sure you're not.
Richard That's what people who are here to kill people would say.
Gerrit You know, anyone who's here to kill someone is going to say, like, no, no, things are fine. They're fine. And so he actually thinks they are spies who are trying to find where the Mormon group was and that then they can bring up the regular army. So you can tell how stunned Woodruff is by this. Let me get this straight. We left because the president was sending an army to kill us. The president is now asking for our help to fight in the Mexican War. Yeah, that sounds exactly right. In hindsight, it's super easy to be critical of Wilford Woodruff and say, well, he should have known. How could he possibly have known? The easiest thing in the world to do is to be an arrogant historian. It just is, have you ever talked to any? Listen to me. The reality is, why? Because you always know the right answer. I mean, if you want to study history to make yourself feel better, boy, it is easy.
Gerrit You can just slap yourself on the back all day long about how you wouldn't have done what so-and-so did and that you never would have thought the way that this person did. And I never would have done what she did here. And it can make you feel great. But the problem is, when you're actually living life, you don't know what's going to happen next. You don't know the end results of your actions. And in this case, the Latter-day Saints had no reason to believe that this was a legitimate offer from the United States government. And in point of fact, it's not exactly an offer that is as legitimate as we often think that it is as Latter-day Saints. So here's what's going on on the other part of our story. The Latter-day Saints, Samuel Brannon had been the eyes and ears in Washington, right? Well, he's getting ready to leave with his group of people that are going to ship around to San Francisco.
Gerrit And a man by the name of Jesse Little takes his place. Little also starts meeting with some of the same casted characters of people that are trying to defraud the Mormons or at the very least deceive them. And so Little also receives from Brigham Young a request to go to the, you know, look, the United States wants us out of here. Why don't you go to the president and ask for some kind of relief? If you want us out, send some money and some wagons to get us out of here. So Little is going to go try to meet with President Polk for the express purpose of trying to raise some kind of relief funds for the struggling poor. Again, the Latter-day Saints are leaving months before they thought they were going to have to leave. And as someone who plans pretty heavily for a trip, if you wanted me to leave two hours before I was ready to leave, I would not have everything that I need, right? Because it's a process and because I have kids.
Gerrit And so anyone who has kids knows that it literally doesn't matter. I told you to pack that like 17 times. Where is it? I didn't bring it. Okay, I said I need you to go put that in your suitcase right now. I know. Did you go do that? No. You went downstairs to where your suitcase was. I know. I just didn't put it in there. What did you do when you went down there? Okay, I feel like this is maybe...
Richard No, that's on the nose. Well, look, all I know is my children and your children, and that's exactly how every trip ever has always gone.
Gerrit So we don't know how your children are when you ask them to pack literally anything, but for ours, they don't do it. So when Little meets with Polk, he actually finds that the demeanor of Polk is very different than he expects, because what he expects is, you know, at best, this kind of angry president who's planning to send an army out there to them. Amos Kendall, the same postmaster general which we have hated on in the past, remember, he's the one feeding false information to Samuel Brandon. Well, he tries to continue that with Jesse Little. He tells Jesse Little, Amos Kendall tells Jesse Little, quote, that the president had determined to take possession of California and also employ the Mormon men who would receive orders to push through and fortify the country.
Gerrit So we don't know whether or not Amos Kendall actually had that meeting with Polk because it's not recorded in Polk's Journal. But we know that they do have a meeting. We just don't know the context of that. In either way, when Polk talks about his meeting with Kendall in his Journal, he says that he was the one pitching the invasion of California and that both Kendall and Yale, the Arkansas leader, they were both in favor of this invasion of California. Now enter into this equation, someone who's going to become very famous in Latter-day Saint history who's not a Latter-day Saint, Thomas Kane. Thomas Kane is going to hear Jesse Little speak in Philadelphia in May of 1846, so right as hostilities are breaking out with Mexico. And Kane's going to go up to Little, he's going to meet him, he's going to be like, hey, how's it going?
Gerrit Well, Kane goes and meets with President Polk. Now Kane's going to become a great friend of the Latter-day Saints, but at this particular time, I don't think he was a great friend of the Latter-day Saints. I think he saw them, he was a military guy, I think he saw what other people saw, and that is you have this gigantic group of people. Now I realize that 10,000 to 12,000 people isn't that big by our standards. Well, it's really big when you're talking about the American West in the mid-19th century. It's really big when the standing army of the United States is 8,000 men. So if there's 12,000 to 20,000 people moving somewhere, that's bigger than your entire army that the country has. Now the Mexican War is going to be fought almost entirely on the basis of volunteers. Yes, the regular army is going to supply some officers and things like that, but the bulk of the fighting is going to come from people who volunteer to go fight.
Gerrit Kane is going to represent his meeting with Jesse Little when Little is speaking in Philadelphia as a kind of serendipitous affair. You know, hey, I was just so curious and I heard you Mormons talk. But what Thomas Kane tells his wife, well, they aren't married yet. When he's engaged, he writes to his wife-to-be and this is later on, tells them that he was actually on a mission from President Polk to go meet with the Mormon leaders. He said, it was thus after wasting no more time than was absolutely necessary to ingratiate myself with some Mormons in Philadelphia and procure my purposes to be misrepresented. Invested with amazingly plentiful potentiary powers, civil and military, I went among the Mormons.
Gerrit Bessie, this is a little state secret. Mr. Polk knew it. General Carney knew it. One Colonel Allen detailed by Carney to march off the battalion knew it, but probably no one else. And they are all dead and can tell no tales, and I shall tell none. So he's obviously writing this later in life. He was actually a bachelor during all of this, and he marries late in life.
Richard Obviously trying to really get Bessie excited by his...
Gerrit He is certainly...
Richard He's laying it on pretty thick.
Gerrit He is presenting how important he was. He is fluffing out his peacock feathers, hoping that Bessie is attracted to...
Richard Classic Colonel Kane, right?
Gerrit The plenipotential powers that... I just love the word plenipotential. Yeah, it's great. It's often how I describe our friendship. So there's these machinations going on. Kane is going to go meet with Polk, and Polk is going to go meet with these various actors as well, and then Little is going to go meet with them. Jesse Little is going to write a letter to President Polk in which he's going to try to argue that you need to do something. There might be a little bit of an implied threat in it. He writes, first of all, tells President Polk that Mormons are true-hearted Americans, true to our country, true to its laws, true to its glorious institutions. Now, hopefully they haven't read Orson Pratt's last homage to the nation, but he says that they have a desire to go out under the outstretched wings of the American Eagle.
Gerrit But interestingly, Little, frustrated, essentially says, look, we need help, and if you're not going to help us, then we might have to go try to see if someone else can help us. In fact, he says the Mormons might have to have no choice but to accept assistance from a different government. It might, quote, compel us to be foreigners. Little said, if I cannot get aid in the land of my fathers, I will cross the trackless ocean where I trust I will find some friend to help. Now, this is obviously, Little is doing what Brigham told him, that you need to try to secure some kind of resources for us. And if you remember in our last episode, when President Polk was first confronted with the Mormon issue because Thomas Ford tried to get him involved, Polk's response was as beautiful as you could ever expect a president to say, well, I can't interfere with them even though they're Mormons.
Gerrit If I interfered with them, I'd be interfering with Baptist and all other kinds of people. But oh, how things change. Now again, it's going to be really hard to believe that a politician might say one thing at one moment and then because things change, moments later go completely against what they said. That's exactly what happens here. At first, when there was a threat of war with Great Britain and the Latter Day Saints seem to be going to Oregon territory, well, that sounds like that will work out pretty well for us, right? We get them out of this country and then we can use the fact that they're American citizens to kind of bolster our claims there. Even if they go to Mexican territory, we're right now trying to negotiate with Mexico to try to buy some of California or maybe even all of the West from them. So if the Mormons go there, we'll call them American citizens, we'll treat them as American citizens even though we don't treat them like that here, and they'll help bolster our claims to that territory.
Gerrit But once the war broke out, one of the greatest fears that the American government had was that the British who had just almost gone to war with the United States is that they would side with Mexico. Again, you think of a war between the United States and Mexico as some kind of fiat accompli, a foregone conclusion, and everybody knows what's going to happen in that war. But that's because you know the end result of the war and you're thinking of the military difference between Mexico and the United States today. Yes, Mexico was a smaller country back then and didn't have the same population as the United States, but it had a very large professional standing army trained and equipped with European weapons. The Americans are going to be relying on hastily recruited volunteers who might be great at shooting squirrels in Tennessee, but may not be as good against a Mexican lancer charge.
Gerrit And then there's the issue of the one great advantage that the Americans have. One of their great advantages over Mexico is they have a Navy, and Mexico doesn't really have much of one to speak of, which means the Americans are going to be able to move their troops around. They're going to be able to do what the British did in the Revolutionary War, pick up troops, land them wherever they want. And in fact, the Americans are eventually going to land and take Vera Cruz and then march on Mexico City from there. So one of the great advantages that the Americans have is even though an invasion into Mexico is a nightmare across a northern Sonora desert of hundreds of miles of terrible roads and no settlements, which means how are you going to get the food there? Well, as long as we stick relatively close to the coast, we're fine unless Great Britain goes to wars with you as well. In fact, Mexico as a last ditch effort, as they kind of saw the war coming with the United States, they actually offered to sell California, Upper California.
Gerrit Remember, whenever I say that, I mean California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, you know, half of New Mexico, all of that was considered Upper California. They offered to sell that to Great Britain in order to settle some debts. And Britain considered it but didn't follow through on it. So now President Polk is in a completely different geopolitical reality. His nation is actually at war with Mexico. And there's at least been overtures by Mexico to say, hey, if you come fight for us against the Americans, we'll give you California, rather than lose it to the Americans. The British Navy is, I don't know, a hundred times the size of the American Navy. The British Navy to the United States Navy then is essentially what the American Navy is today to the Iranian Navy. I mean, yes, the Iranians have some speed boats.
Gerrit And here comes the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group. I mean, the reality is that while the Americans have some ships, and they certainly, one of the reasons why Great Britain decides not to go to war with the United States is the War of 1812 had proved to Great Britain that while we didn't have a big, powerful Navy, what we did have was a gigantic coastline and a bunch of citizens who are absolutely willing to become pirates. I mean, we, we, we, I mean, this is why I'm a Raiders fan, right? I mean, they became, we were able to outfit privateers in the War of 1812 like crazy. It was a huge investment to do it. And, and the British whose, whose empires all over the world as many ships as they had, they could not protect all of their shipping lanes all at the same time. And so American privateers, the fear of American privateers is really one of the things that causes the British to take a step back from the war.
Gerrit Plus they, they, they realized it was a similar issue. I mean, always the problem with going to war with the United States for Great Britain, it was the problem in Revolutionary War. It was the problem in the War of 1812 is how do you win the war? I know how to win multiple battles. I know how to crush them here and take whatever city I want. I can, I can humiliate them on the seas. I can do this. I can do that. But how do I make them stop? This is really the question even 20th and 21st century military planners deal with right now. Winning battles is relatively easy compared to the gargantuan task of trying to win the peace and end the war. How do you end the war? So now that Little has said, Hey, look, we need help. We've got people starving. You are our president. We are American citizens.
Gerrit I would hope that you'd be willing to help us get out of the country because that's what you want us to do. But if you're not going to help us, then I guess I'll go ask Britain and France if they're willing to help us. And that sets some alarm bells off in James Polk. He is thinking to himself, I know he says they're true hearted American citizens, but what if they go to California and they, you know, there's a bunch of Mormons who are British, right? What if they go to California? And Britain uses that as an excuse to say, oh, we're declaring a protectorate over California because it's mainly filled with our British citizens, those Mormons. Now, most Mormons aren't British at that point, but enough of them are that the British could make that claim. So Polk goes from not caring at all what the Mormons are going to do to appointing Kane as someone to kind of spy on them and try to figure out what they're going to do.
Gerrit Now, when Little, Polk invites Little to come meet with him, and he does this because he wants to make sure that the Mormons stay in the American camp. It's such an amazing thing when you think about it. Here you have these Latter Day Saints who are essentially being forced out of the United States. They believe at the point of a bayonet, at the very least they're kind of at the point of a mob bayonet. And for the Mormons who do stay behind in Nauvoo, they'll find out the Battle of Nauvoo is all about the mobs massing around Nauvoo and shooting cannons into the town, you know, and killing people while they're doing it. So this odd experience here where the United States has done nothing to assure Latter-day Saint loyalty.
Gerrit They've done nothing to protect the Mormons while they're being murdered, killed and driven. They've done nothing to get their lands back. They've been stolen from them in two successive states now at this point. But once they're outside of the country, well, we still want them to be American citizens because it helps us geopolitically. Again, hard to believe that politicians are cynical, but this is a world that we don't understand. A world where that could happen. So on June 3rd, Amos Kendall and this former Postmaster General, he will go with Jesse Little to go meet with James Polk. They go in there to meet with President Polk, and President Polk flatters Jesse Little in a way that he, frankly, no Latter-day Saint thought the President of the United States was capable of doing. Remember, he's thinking that the President is essentially an enemy. And what does the President say to him? Polk says that the Mormons are to be treated as all other American citizens are, without regard to sect to which they belonged or what religious creed they professed.
Gerrit Polk then tells Little that he had no prejudices towards the Mormons that could induce a different course of treatment. He told Little that he believed us to be good citizens and was willing to do us all the good that was in his power consistently. Even further, Polk tells Little that he thought the Mormons should be protected. Now, Little's response to this is he's stunned. He fires off a letter to Brigham Young where he's like, I met with President Polk and he totally trusts us as American citizens. He's on our side. So he just got letters from Brannon saying, the president's considering killing us. And now he's getting letters from Jesse Little saying, I just met with the president and he not only isn't considering killing us, he's telling me what great citizens we are and then says, do you think that the Mormons would be willing to raise a battalion of troops to fight in the war?
Gerrit Well, Little's, he's gone from this defensive posture to all of a sudden, wait a minute, so you're treating us as a man? And in fact, Little goes on, Little tells Brigham Young that Polk lays it on pretty thick. He says to Little that if he had confidence in our people as true American citizens, and if he had not, he would not make such proposals, you know, to call them into the military during the time of war. So what James Polk tells Jesse Little is, you know what? Would your people be willing to raise a battalion of troops to fight in the war? And obviously, I trust you as good. If I didn't trust you, would I call troops into the war if I didn't trust them? No one wants an army made up of people who hate you, right? So for Little, it sounds very convincing. And James Polk, you know, he does a great cell job.
Gerrit Hey, this is 5440 or fight guy, right? He's literally the president who got elected on a campaign slogan that he immediately discarded as soon as he was elected. Again, unlike any other president in American history, but you have to imagine a world back when this was available. And so what you have is Jesse Little excitedly riding to Brigham Young. Now, the problem is Brigham Young isn't in Nauvoo anymore. He's in the middle of trackless Iowa and on his way to Council Bluffs area. So it's going to take a really long time for that letter to get there. From Little's perspective, he met with Thomas Kane, who sounded like he wanted to help them. He's met with Amos Kendall, who, you know, Kendall still worried his scheme to defraud Mormons out of their property might not go through, so he's trying to keep greasing the wheels. And then Kendall actually, Amos Kendall actually meets with President Polk, with Jesse Little, and President Polk just showers it on Jesse Little, and Jesse Little buys it hook, line and sinker.
Gerrit Again, it is the president of the United States. Look, if I met with the president of the United States today, and he was like, I just want to tell you how great your podcast is, I would be grateful that we have a listener in the Maryland DC area, because I don't know that we have one right now. Do we have one? No. Yeah, of course we don't. But I'd be grateful that we have the listener, but I would also, I would probably just be so glad that the president's listening, that I probably wouldn't say something like, wait a minute, this isn't even a Catholic broadcast. What's going on here? And for Jesse Little and for the Mormons generally, they had received such negative word out of Washington ever since Joseph went there and got told, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. But in the end, I think for Little, he kind of drops his critical mindset. In some ways, he's being played. He's being played by Thomas Kane and he's being played by President Polk.
Gerrit And the actual thing that they are up to, will be something that we discuss in next week's episode. So if you want to hear that exciting conclusion, you're going to have to tune in. Thanks, everyone.
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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I don't, I wasn't talking in the present tense.

GerritBanter

I kind of think I'd remember if I said Satan and Molecule in the same sentence.

GerritBanter

Boy, that guy gets ABD and he just starts putting doctor in front of everything.

GerritBanter

Where when horrible things happen, we love God too much that we could blame God, and we know that agency is a thing. So really, there's only one person left to blame.

GerritInsight

Please give yourself a break. Yeah, we're all sinners. Every one of us is a sinner.

GerritInsight

But unless you are well aware of a specific instance in which your sin specifically caused whatever suffering is going on, just know that your Heavenly Father loves you, that Jesus died for you, and that somehow in the next life, all of this unfair stuff will somehow be made up.

GerritInsight

That's what people who are here to kill people would say.

RichardBanter

The easiest thing in the world to do is to be an arrogant historian.

GerritInsight

But the problem is, when you're actually living life, you don't know what's going to happen next.

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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
When the government asked for the Mormon Battalion, the Saints saw it as a friendly offer.
Infertility or other trials mean a person isn't righteous enough.
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

Unless you know a specific sin caused your suffering, give yourself a break. Heavenly Father loves you, Jesus died for you, and the unfair things will be made up in the next life.

Jonathan Harriman Hale stayed when his family left the Church and went wherever he was sent, and he still died at Winter Quarters. Faithful people suffer too.

It's easy to be an arrogant historian. The Saints in 1846 couldn't know how the story ended, and they had good reason to fear the army.

President Polk praised the Saints as good citizens once he worried they might side with Britain; politics changed his tone, not his view of their rights.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
How much we hate the United StatesRichard's recap, which Gerrit insists was in the past tense; it's coming out after Veterans Day (0:39, 0:59).
Joseph L. Heywood mailbagThe first Latter-day Saint postmaster mailbag (1:17).
Satan's MoleculesThe Satan molecules from Prosperity Theology Part 1 return as a thrash metal band with Apocrypha, plus Dewey, Cheatham and Howe (1:52, 3:31).
Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoEric enjoyed the episode on it, which hasn't been made (4:01).
Our lone listener in ArizonaBrandon, plus Gerrit's brother sometimes (5:46, 5:50).
Doctor inflationRichard is ABD and suddenly puts "doctor" in front of everything (5:10, 17:56).
The call is coming from inside the houseEmails asking about Richard's dissertation come from their own account (17:24).
Renee in studioGerrit's mom would correct his genealogy instantly (12:17, 13:23).
Captain CarneyWoodruff spells Kearny the way it sounds, like he works at an amusement park (26:36).
PlenipotentialHow Gerrit describes their friendship (37:08).
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.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Wilford Woodruff's journal entry for June 26, 1846 at Mount Pisgah (25:00).
Thomas L. Kane, from secret agent for Polk to lifelong friend of the Saints (34:21).
Jesse C. Little's 1846 meetings with President Polk and his letters to Brigham Young (47:09).
Mount Pisgah and Garden Grove, the way stations across Iowa (23:48).
SOT Litner · S2E47.