By hiking about 14½ miles a To sign up for Meridian’s Free Newsletter, please CLICK HERE. One of the Mormon Battalion's greatest accomplishments was to open a southern wagon route to California. This part of the westward march was a learning period that greatly influenced Mormon history long afterward. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saints men led by Mormon company officers, commanded by regular U.S. Army officers. See Fleek, History May Be Searched in Vain: A Military History of the Mormon Battalion (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2006), 324–27. On July 16, 1846, 500 soldiers in the U.S. Army’s segregated Mormon Battalion set out from Iowa on what would become a six-month, 2,000-mile march to the Mission San Diego de Alcala. They completed what remains as one of the longest infantry marches in US military history. A – We want to… Draw attention to the Mormon Battalion’s legacy using a “living history” reenactment. Cadre members will pitch a replica tent and will eat and sleep as a group, with meals and tents provided by trek leaders. On March 20, 2004, the battalion re-enactors paraded into San Juan Capistrano as part of the Swallows Day Parade. The Mormon Battalion March, 1846-47 By Stanley B. Kimball (July 1979 Ensign) (Route maps located at bottom) What has been called the longest infantry march in history—approximately 1,850 miles—began 20 July 1846 on the Little Pony River in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Planned stops along the trail include Council Bluffs, Iowa; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tucson and Yuma, Arizona and San Diego, California. The first part of this trail hugged the river bluffs. Brigham Young said, “The Mormon Battalion will be held in honorable remembrance to the latest generation; and I will prophesy that the children of those who have been in the army, in defense of their country, will grow up and bless their fathers for what they did at that time.”[2] For me, the process of making this map has been a fulfillment of Brigham Young’s prophecy. At its completion, Col. Cooke declared “we have discovered and … The Mormon Battalion also opened a southern wagon route to California. He was not a Latter-day Saint, but many credit Cooke’s leadership with the fact that the lives of Battalion members were preserved in their difficult march across the desert. On 21 January, the Battalion reached Warner Ranch (now in the Cleveland National Forest, northeast of Escondido), Mormon Battalion route into the San Diego area where one Anglo man and three hundred Indians lived. I told him I was a cartographer by trade and I would love to make a map about the Battalion, especially one that the visitors’ center might be able to use. The Mexicans retreated as the US battalion approached. The first, Samuel Boly, expired only twenty-eight miles from Council Bluffs. “We are excited to be joined in this trek by people who want to pay tribute to the original Battalion members. The trail map showing the route of the Mormon Battalion. The Battalion's 2,000 mile journey from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, to San Diego, California, then the longest march by infantry in U.S. military history, traversed for a lengthy distance the Santa Fe Trail. Cope, New Era, Jul 2009, https://www.lds.org/new-era/2009/07/marching-with-the-battalion?lang=eng. One of the Mormon Battalion's greatest accomplishments was to open a southern wagon route to California. So if my dates and numbers are a little different from something else you’ve seen, that’s why. Daily news, articles, videos and podcasts sent straight to your inbox. Click Here To 'Like' Meridian Magazine on Facebook, How social media fuels attacks on sacred spaces, Latter-day Saint Fiction: A Step Into Another Time, Elect Ladies: Why Moms Might Not Be Elected, Come, Follow Me for Individuals and Families: Joseph Smith—Matthew 1; Matthew 25; Mark 12–13; Luke 21, Photo Essay: Come with Young Joseph into the Sacred Grove, https://www.lds.org/new-era/2009/07/marching-with-the-battalion?lang=eng, Five Secrets the Book of Mormon Reveals about the Rise and Fall of Nations. This road opened California to colonization by the United Statas, bringing Once word of my plans got out, many descendants of Battalion soldiers and other interested people started asking to accompany me. Together, they made the 1,000-mile journey to the Salt Lake Valley in 1850. That’s more than $1,100 in today’s money (sounds generous to me)! [2] As quoted in “Marching with the Battalion” by Arianne B. It will take the modern-day trekkers about as long as the original trek, and the planned route actually is considerably longer than the 1846 route, due to property lines and farms being in place now, versus a wide-open prairie. See: Sergeant Daniel Tyler, A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War 1846–1848 (1969); Philip St. George Cooke, et. July 20 is the 170th anniversary of the Battalion’s departure from Council Bluffs, Iowa. What Is The Mormon Battalion Trek? So the plan is to have hikers join the trek anywhere along the way for as long as they can. Create a map of a 2,000-mile march through heat, battling malaria-infested mosquitoes, sand, and stampeding longhorn cattle with little water, ragged clothes, and an inaccurate 30-year-old rifle. BYU Studies 47:2 (2008):161-165. The local O'odham and other Piman tribes along the march route were helpful and charitable to the American soldiers. As it turned out, they did not have to do any actual fighting, but they did endure many hardships and harrowing experiences. The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego on January 29, 1847 after a march of some 1,900 miles from Iowa. He was finally reunited with his wife and family a year and a half after he left. Directions to the marker include: 35° 27.098′ N, 106° 21.231′ W. Marker is near Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico, in Sandoval County. Mormon Battalion. Mormon Battalion Trail is one of the Historic Trails of America. To order maps and brochures, please contact us. There will be a fee involved for participants ranging from $15 per day for day-trekkers to $50 per day for Cooke’s Cadre, and online reservations are required.
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