A LOCAL PAPER REPORTS O N THE U T A H WAR BY A. R. MORTENSEN*
times a hundred years ago were most exciting ones for •*• the citizenry of Utah. At the height of the summer, on the twenty-fourth of July, 1857, word was brought of the approach of a military force supposedly sent to chastize the Mormons who, it was said, were in rebellion. The long string of events, including a series of conflicts with the federal judiciary and a dispute over the eastern mail contract had caused President Buchanan to believe it necessary to appoint a new set of officials for the territory of Utah, including a new governor to replace Brigham Young, and to dispatch a large body of troops to escort these appointees to their new posts of duty in Mormon country. The first, and still published, Utah paper was born June 15, 1850, and now seven years later was still the only news organ in the territory. While it is difficult to follow the Utah War in its pages alone, the Deseret News undoubtedly does serve as the best single contemporary mirror of the Mormon position, and, when divorced from understandable emotion, quite accurately delineates the government activity and position in the affair. After some casting around during the spring and early summer for a candidate, Alfred Cumming, a Georgian but with recent service in Missouri, was appointed governor of Utah Territory.1 The military phase of the government's plan to solve the Utah problem got under way on May 28, 1857, when General Winfield Scott directed that certain units of the army were to assemble at Fort Leavenworth and proceed as soon as possible to Utah. 2 The troops were to number twenty-five hundred and were first put under the command of Brevet-Brigadier General W . S. Harney. On August 29, he was succeeded by Colonel, later Brevet-Brigadier 'T'HESE
*This article is a revision of a chapter from a larger work, "The Deseret News and Utah, 1850-186?." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1950. Warper's Weekly (New York), April 25, May 2, May 30, June 20, July 4, 1857. 2 House Executive Document No. 71, 35 Cong., 1 sess., 4-5.
