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The Mormon Invasion of Russian America: Dynamics of a Potent Myth
The Mormon Invasion of Russian America:Dynamics of a Potent Myth
BY GENE A. SESSIONS AND STEPHEN W. STATHIS
SHORTLY AFTER HIS INAUGURATION in the spring of 1857, President James Buchanan decided to send a new governor and some other officials to Utah Territory under military escort. Portentously, the president chose not to announce his move in the hope that he could enforce it before opposition could rise among Brigham Young and the Mormons. On July 18 advance elements of the escort left Fort Leavenworth for Salt Lake City; inevitably, frantic Mormon scouts had within a few days informed Young that an army was en route to Utah. The prophet and his followers assumed the worst. The Great Basin was the fourth place in which the Saints had sought to establish their gathering place, and they quickly decided that this army was coming as a mob to drive them away once again, or even to exterminate them. Young and his lieutenants consequently launched into a campaign of belligerent oratory accompanied by urgent preparations for the defense of their promised valley. This unfortunate chain of events set into motion one of the strangest incidents in American history, variously known as the Utah Expedition, the Mormon War, the Utah War, Johnston's Army, the Contractor's War, and Buchanan's Blunder.
As with so many small but unique episodes in history, scholars have examined the subject of the Utah War very closely; but typically, a significant part of the story has received little attention. Once the possibility of actual war with the Mormons dawned upon the American public, a frenzy of rumors exploded into the press and even into official circles. In the context of the well-developed anti-Mormon propaganda of the age, it was not difficult for the nation to fear the noise of every wind that blew out of the Utah desert. And so it was in the fall of 1857 as Americans tried to discover what was happening and what would happen when those seemingly rebellious disciples of Joseph Smith's "great imposture" -rose to resist the authority of the federal government and its armed force.
At first, most seemed to believe that Brigham Young was only bluffing, that he was an inflated despot who would quickly shrink before the power of the United States Army and welcome it and the new territorial officers into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. A minority, on the other hand, thought a disastrous war was in the making. Out of this belief grew sturdy myths about Mormon strength of numbers, a great and diabolical union with the Indians, and even a "Mormon Infernal Machine" that could annihilate tens of thousands of troops with a mysterious and inextinguishable fire. Most Americans (including the administration in Washington), however, refused to believe that the dastardly shrewd Brigham Young would really fight; but as his bluster continued into the winter and as he began to call in outlying Mormon colonies, even these realists doubted that there could be peaceful coexistence with these sham Saints of the frontier.
A reasonable alternative quickly evolved — one the nation's newspapers in 1857 nurtured until it packed all the causal energy of a fullgrown myth. Its premise was simple: If the Mormons would not fight and would not give in, then they could only flee. This welcome thought satisfied nearly everyone — no bloodshed, no more Mormons. After this idea gained acceptance the rumors concentrated upon where the Mormons were going. Some suggested Russian America; others mentioned Vancouver Island, Washington Territory, Sonora, Lower California, and Ce itral or South America.
The first and most persistent of these rumored destinations is what makes this whole story worth telling, primarily because of its possible effects upon the future course of American expansion. On September 26, 1857, the Sacramento Daily Union reported that the Mormons were preparing to leave Utah for the Russian possessions (Alaska), where they had "already driven stakes for a new Zion." The Democratic State Journal picked up the story,' and it slowly spread east until by mid- November it had reached the ears of Russian Minister Edward de Stoeckl — with predictable results.
The first task in exposing the origins and consequences of this potent myth is to unravel its complex development; and by an examination of the seedbed of the Mormon-Alaska rumor, one may hope to write new chapters both to the Utah War and to the Alaska Purchase, two unlikely bedfellows of American history.
From the perspective of historiography, the traces of the story lead back to Frank A. Golder's work in the Russian Archives and to his subsequent landmark article in the 1920 American Historical Review on "The Purchase of Alaska" that provided the foundational work in Russian sources for every scholarly examination of the background of the American acquisition of Alaska. Golder picked up the threads of the Mormon-Alaska scare in the Russian Archives and passed them on to succeeding scholars who perpetuated the idea that the threat of a Mormon exodus to Alaska in 1857 had something to do with the czar's ultimate decision to sell the territory to the United States. Apparently, however, no one looked any further — not even students of Mormon history whose works on the Utah War and more general subjects would suggest by omission that at least within Utah and Mormon sources the rumor never existed. In examining that oversight, this paper proposes to probe the fertile minds of frightened Americans in 1857, to trace those peculiar events that became known as the Utah War, to find the ultimate origins of the rumor that the Mormons were going to invade Russian America, and to discover its meaning.
The first seed sown in the Mormon movement myth was probably Brigham Young's call in mid-August for the abandonment of the outlying Mormon colony in Carson Valley on the California border. This sudden recall corresponded with Mormon demonstratives to Capt. Stewart Van Vliet (who came to Utah ahead of the army to prepare for its reception) that the Saints were determined to stand and fight for Utah and if necessary to burn it and flee to the mountains. Following Young's subsequent proclamation of martial law, his order to the Carson settlement aroused no small amount of wonder in neighboring California. It is noteworthy, therefore, that the first report of the Carson abandonment to appear in a California newspaper told not only of Mormon plans to leave Carson Valley but also of preparations in Salt Lake for an exodus from Utah. That the Mormons' ultimate destination would be northwest into Alaska appeared in print a few days later.
As with most rumors, the certain origin of this idea — that Brigham Young planned a new hegira into Russian America, or anywhere else — remains in genuine obscurity. The rumor may have developed among the Mormons at Carson Valley as they attempted to grasp the final meaning of their recall or perhaps within the minds of suspicious Californians who worried continually over the activities of their peculiar neighbors in Utah Territory. On the other hand, it is relatively certain that the concept did not develop among the Mormon leaders at this point. Neither their speeches nor writings remotely suggested a plan whereby the Mormons might leave the Great Basin in 1857. It is possible that Brigham Young and his fellow r apostles did consider or even talk about such a move, but the historical documents that have been preserved are void of any such idea.' Young had threatened to destroy all improvements if the troops came into the valley, but he was talking only of a period of guerrilla warfare, a fleeing to the mountains, and not of any mass exodus to a new territory. Indeed, in September and October, when the Alaska story mushroomed, the hierarchy in Salt Lake City was vigorously affirming its belief in Utah as "the place to settle." The Saints returning from Carson Valley were merely welcome reinforcements for the fight ahead.
Through October at least, the Mormon leaders apparently believed that if they could hold out through the winter, the troops might give up or the United States might have too many troubles elsewhere to concern itself with Utah.
In the meantime, the advance elements of the Utah Expedition had stalled on Ham's Fork in the Rockies. Mormon units with orders to hinder the army had begun a campaign to deprive the expedition of all comfort and movement by destroying forage, driving off or killing stock, and burning supply wagons. By October 14 the Mormons had some eleven hundred men under arms and manning the mountain passes leading into the valley. Also, by the end of October, news of Brigham Young's statements to Van Vliet, his proclamation of martial law, and the movement rumor had reached the East Coast. The response was generally one of disbelief: Young was all talk. The press reported that Buchanan had no fear that the new governor and his escort would have trouble entering Utah and that Brigham and the Mormons would not dare to resist thepower of the United States. Then, in the first days of November, the movement rumor slowly gained acceptance as the answer to the Mormon question. After news of the burned wagons reached the Atlantic a few days later, few still doubted that Young planned to stall through the winter and then depart for a new land, probably the British and Russian possessions in the Northwest. The rumor had matured into a highly credible and potent myth.
Just when all of this amplification on the Mormon problem began to make headlines in eastern papers, Baron Edward de Stoeckl returned to the United States from a trip to Europe. The rumors in the press about a Mormon migration to Alaska undoubtedly caught his attention, but his understandable concern increased greatly when a representative of the Russian-American Company in San Francisco wrote asking him about a Mormon movement into its territory. By November 20 speculation on the Mormon move to Alaska had assumed such proportions that Stoeckl went to see Buchanan about it. The Russian asked the president if the Mormons would come peacefully or as conquerors. "It is up to you," said Buchanan, "to solve this problem; as for us, we will be most happy to be rid of them." Needless to say, the president's response provided Stoeckl with no small measure of consternation. Determined to bring the matter to the immediate attention of his government, he included it in a dispatch to Foreign Minister Aleksandr M. Gorchakov:
Stoeckl proceeded to demonstrate his ultimate concern over the story. "It goes without saying," he continued, "that this rumor is at present still premature, but should it come to pass, it would force us either to offer armed resistance or give up a part of our territory." Upon receipt of the dispatch, Gorchakov apparently transmitted it to the czar (Alexander II) himself, for the original bears his majesty's handwritten inscription on the cover sheet: "This supports the idea of settling right now the question of our American possessions." Thus from this curious source developed a very solid indication that the Russians would seek to dispose of Alaska, consummation of which came ten years later.
As the czar's statement suggested, the Russians had been concerned for some time over their tenuous position in America. Manifest Destiny could just as easily wrest Alaska from them as it had West Florida and Texas from Spain and Mexico should bumptious American expansion suddenly turn northward. The czar had seriously contemplated a sale of his American possessions during the Crimean War (1854-56), but the offer of the United States was either ill-timed or insufficient. There can be little doubt, however, that the Russians had decided that they would eventually sell Alaska-preferably to the United States. The 1857 Mormon incidence firmed their determination considerably, since to Stoeckl and his superiors the prolific Saints were merely a nasty manifestation of American dynamism. The myth's contribution to the final transaction a decade later is therefore undeniable, but the degree of its influence must remain an unknown.
Strangely enough, almost immediately after Stoeckl's apogee of worry over hordes of Mormons storming Alaska, the movement rumors began to shift, again coming from unidentifiable sources. On November 22, 1857, the New York Herald exclaimed that the Mormons were going to Sonora, and that the administration also believed this. So, for a few days in late November and into December, discussion of the Mormon War had the Saints leaving for Mexico in the spring. Some believed Young would go with Mexico's blessing, and others saw him allying himself with the Indians of the region to hold off both Mexico and the United States. The New York Times correspondent in Washington provided a clue to the origin of this rumor on November 25 when he reported that Buchanan wanted Sonora for the United States and to secure that hope wanted to keep the Mormons out. Moreover, the Boston Daily Journal claimed that the Mormon delegate to Congress, John Bernhisel, had admitted a planned exodus to Sonora in the spring.
These rumors also, despite Buchanan's fears, were apparently without foundation. The December 10 issue of the Millennial Star, the official organ of the Latter-day Saints in England, laughed off the Herald rumor about Sonora. And in Utah, the leaders continued to express their determination to remain in their Great Basin kingdom and made no mention at this point of any mass exodus such as the growing movement myth supposed. Nevertheless, one student of the Utah War believes that by the end of November, Brigham Young had mellowed his belligerency and had indeed resolved upon flight. The latter part of this judgment is subjective, however, since there is no evidence to support it. But even if some now-lost fragment of evidence of such intentions had escaped, it could not have been known in the East until some time later. A communication lag of from three to four weeks prevented any rapid dissemination of news from coast to coast.
Throughout December and into the new year, the Mormon movement myth thrived and changed shape daily — one paper believed in Alaska, another Sonora, and so on. By Christmas 1857 it had reached inevitable absurdities. For example, the Sonora version, upon reaching the Pacific, called for the complete devastation of California as part of Young's plan. The San Francisco Herald, still clinging to the Alaska version, merely incorporated the Sonora rumor by declaring that the Mormons now planned to occupy through immigration the entire western region of the continent from Alaska into Mexico. Credibility had traveled its full course.
The end of this odd story issomewhat anticlimactic. In the spring, after a respected and longtime friend of the Saints (Thomas L. Kane) mediated and Buchanan sent peace commissioners to Utah, Brigham Young reluctantly agreed to allow the troops and the new federal officers to pass peacefully into the valley. On June 26, 1858, the army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston marched throughSalt Lake City and camped some distance west. The City of the Saints was silent and empty, the houses filled with straw ready to burn. But the rumors about a new exodus had not been fulfilled; for the Mormons, having restricted their flight to a few miles, were merely in self-imposed exile in the central valleys of the territory. Within a few weeks, after Brigham became convinced that the army was not another mob come to destroy or expel, most of his followers returned to their homes, and the hopes and beliefs of the nation that the Mormon problem would simply move away ended.
Viewed in retrospect, the origins of the Mormon movement myth of 1857 lie buried within the complicated mind of late antebellum America and its conception of the "Mormon problem." The nation was fast coming apart at the seams, and the scourge of Mormonism was a welcome issue upon which everyone could agree. Additionally, the burden of national troubles naturally encouraged a quick-solution mentality. The "Impending Crisis" of late 1857 (Helper's book, the Kansas-Lecompton Corstitution business, the August panic, and Walker's filibustering expedition of November) seemed to crush in on the psyche of America. By the end of November 1857 people were ready to welcome a final solution to any problem as a breath of fresh air, and the Mormon situation seemed to be the most readily solvable difficulty. The prospect of smashing Mormonism and hanging Brigham Young, however, would only be one more trauma to afflict the nation — it was much more pleasant to contemplate the painless removal of this one perplexing thorn by means of a new Mormon hegira beyond the borders of the United States, The seed for the movement myth fell into fertile soil.
The foregoing might suggest a generality concerning the American mood of the time which is not entirely accurate; nevertheless, the development of the movement myth argues forcefully that the search for a final solution to the Mormon problem intensified in 1857 because there seemed to be no compromise answer to the coming confrontation. Americans therefore visualized just three possible results: 1) a bloody and prolonged war with the Saints that would certainly result in the annihilation of Mormonism, 2) a forceful subjugation of the Mormons, or 3) their exit from the country. Plainly, the latter outcome offered the least anxiety for a troubled nation. The country wanted to believe the Mormons planned to leave and would gladly let them do so. Some editors and others even suggested offering inducements — transportation, etc. — if the Saints were reluctant to go. The apocalyptic vision of rebellion and war was far too prevalent in the 1857 set of fears for Americans to hope for any other outcome of the Mormon War. The rumor was destined to success before it was born.
An additional reason for hoping that the Mormons would leave was in the common belief that they were 90 percent foreigners, the residue of lower-class Europe. In the context of the nativism of the age, this factor — grossly exaggerated as it was — loomed large in the cultivation of the movement myth. In 1856 the Know-Nothing party candidate for the presidency, Millard Fillmore, garnered some 22 percent of the vote running on a radically nativist platform. The decade of the 1850s saw r a high-point in anti-immigration and naturalization sentiment in America. To many people in 1857, the Mormons were unwanted foreigners, and it was easy to believe in the ultimate deportation of these deluded aliens.
One of the most durable beliefs about the Mormons, particularly among their western neighbors, was that they had formed an evil combination with savage Indians within their vast and forbidding territory, and that they would quickly ally themselves with tribes outside their realm if the need presented itself. This concept had some foundation in fact. Brigham Young had maintained a consistent policy of feeding rather than fighting the Indians, and general good feeling between the tribes and the Mormon settlements was a reality. Also, it was well known that Mormons believed the "Lamanites" to be a remnant of the house of Israel and a chosen people like themselves. But that Young had any power to call upon large numbers of them for assistance against the army is at best doubtful. Nevertheless, rumors persisted through 1857 that the Saints had a force of twenty thousand Indians under arms and prepared to pounce upon the enemies of Brigham Young. Following word of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, in which Mormons and Indians had indeed allied to destroy an immigrant party, the fear of a great and demoniacal alliance between the two benighted peoples doubled. It became common thereafter to see news about the great collusion between the Indians and the Saints, while Brigham himself sought to neutralize those tribes whose friendship he doubted. So it became almost irresistible for Americans, and especially westerners, to hope for the expeditious removal of such an insidious influence upon the aboriginal occupants — one more element in the healthy growth of the Mormon exodus myth.
Another factor that helped make a peaceful physical withdrawal of the Mormons attractive was belief in their almost magical strength. In addition to their supposed unholy control over the Indians, the Saints were thought to be extremely powerful strategically and in terms of numbers and determination. With regard to the strategic advantages of the Saints, the supposition was well founded, their isolation and mountain and desert environment making conventional attack impossible. A handful of men, occupying key passes, could wreak much havoc upon an army advancing upon Salt Lake City. But even so, the Mormons could not have hoped to keep out invaders once winter snows had melted. Fears arose! concerning Mormon strength of numbers and weaponry. Although never more than two thousand poorly trained and equipped Saints were in the mountains to meet the federal forces, rumor saw upwards of fifteen thousand crack soldiers with great and dreadful weapons ready to wage a bloody war of annihilation against the Gentiles. Of the Mormon fanatical determination there could be no doubt either. Every word from the Mormon leaders sounded like a treasonous threat and a sample of their insane decision to resist at all cost subjection to the federal government. All of this, combined with rumors concerning the miserable plight of the stalled expedition and the probability of its merciless slaughter at the hands of the Mormons, gave the Utah Expedition potential as a firstclass war. And as in all wars, each side hoped for the retreat of the other.
Another, more encompassing element of mythology surely contributed to the confusion and plethora of rumors surrounding the Utah War: Americans, from the beginnings of Mormonism, had "projected onto the hapless Saints the great mosaic of human hopes and terrors which occupied mid-nineteenth-century minds." ' Mormonism was habitually identified with every evil imaginable. Even the Indians were incapable of the degradation of the Mormons who were adulterous, murderous, and dishonest — especially their leaders. They despised democracy and civilization and compared favorably to the mutinous sepoys of India. All of these ideas concerning the Mormons, and particularly the movement story, were symptomatic of the uncertain times and general beliefs about the Saints derived from fiction writers, indignant moralists, and apostate Mormons. As these rumors fed upon each other, every minor word from the West became "Important from Utah."
Yet, the most important fuel for the movement myth probably came from the Mormons themselves. First, Brigham threatened to burn the valley and leave nothing but desolation if the troops pushed their way in. Few questioned that he w^as sincere, but it was easy to misconstrue his intentions. The burning would precede a flight to the mountains and not to a new and distant gathering place. Through 1857 Young and his lieutenants consistently affirmed their belief that they should stay indefinitely in Utah. A careful search of pertinent Mormon documents reveals not a single mention of exodus to Alaska, Sonora, or anywhere else during 1857. Second, the recalls from outlying settlements in the early fall suggested a general consolidation that could easily imply a new exodus. From this source the Alaska rumor apparently sprang full-blown and probably gave birth to the others. Third, the idea of the Mormons moving was a familiar one. The peculiar and clannish people had moved from New York to Ohio in 1831, to Missouri through the thirties, to Illinois in 1839, and finally to Utah beginning in 1847. And, prior to the Utah move, the Mormons had openly considered Vancouver Island, at least for the coming British Saints. Even though that plan never developed and the Great Basin became "the place," it was precisely that kind of past news from the Mormons that gave the movement rumors of 1857, and particularly those pointing toward the Pacific, a flavor of truth. A decade before, similar fears of a Mormon invasion of Upper California had added considerably to the excitement over the impending American acquisition of that territory from Mexico. Finally, Young's far-ranging explorations and colonizations, such as his Fort Lemhi experiment on the Salmon River (1855-58), seemed to spell conquest or an intention to seek more room for his fast-growing people and greater isolation.
So by their own displays, the Mormons unwittingly cultivated the movement rumor, making it at least plausible. Some evidence exists that Brigham Young enjoyed the movement myth in his typically shrewd manner. For example, on November 3, 1857, he requested that as many newspapers as possible covering the period from July 1 be brought from California by two returning Saints. i! In these he certainly perused the varous developments of the myth, and as if consciously to add a final irony to the story, on March 5, 1858, weeks after the Alaska rumor had died a natural death, Young inserted the following at the close of a letter to John Bernhisel in Washington: "We have our eyes on the Russian possessions." He had written nothing about Alaska before, and he apparently wrote nothing about it afterwards, and what he meant, or why he attached this isolated sentence to his letter to Bernhisel, only Brother Brigham could know.
What we do know is that historians have been conscious for some fifty years of the Stoeckl letter expressing concern over a rumored Mormon invasion of Alaska. Although none of them has bothered to explore the origins of the incident, they have passed its contents around freely, mentioning in passing the 1857 Mormon exodus rumor in background inti oductions to the Alaska Purchase. Perhaps even more important, professors of diplomatic history and American expansion have continued to give the Mormons nebulous credit for some stimulus to the acquisition of Alaska, often without knowing the first thing about it. Historians of Utah and the Mormons, moreover, have completely ignored the question, or have decided that it is far too obscure a topic to concern them. Nevertheless, one fact is clear: during 1857, while the Mormon- Alaska rumor was expanding and causing the persistent waves that it did, Brigham Young and his followers were still clinging to a vision of Utah as the place where Mormonism could flourish in peace and in preparation for its millennial destiny.
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