was appointed a general in the During the Civil War, Rufus Ingalls was appointed a major regular army and received a formal “” for his general in both the regular and volunteer Union forces. success in driving Confederate forces from in 1864. (Library of Congress) (Library of Congress)

P. G. T. (Pierre Gustave Toutant) Beauregard was one of only William Clarke Quantrill, in Confederate uniform, was not only seven “full” generals in the Confederate Army. a notorious Civil War guerrilla but a former civilian teamster, (National Archives) gambler, and camp cook with the Utah Expedition. ( Historical Society.) Appendix A

William P. MacKinnon

Rooted in Utah Civil War Strategy and Tactics, Generals and Guerrillas

n addition to chapter 1, another way to illus- officers—Thomas and Ingalls—displayed Itrate the connection between the Utah and some nervousness over the “irregular” nature Civil Wars (and the impact of the former on of their communications; the more flamboy- the latter) is to probe the extent to which three ant Beauregard was unabashedly assertive. very prominent West Point–trained Civil War It may be helpful to provide a brief biogra- generals had earlier tried to influence pros- phy for each of these three officers, though it ecution of the Utah campaign. They did so will not do justice to their distinguished and by gratuitously sending long memos to their varied service careers. General George Henry military superiors or, in one case, to influen- Thomas (July 31, 1816–March 28, 1870) was tial politicians. These documents contained one of the ’s principal command- information about alternate approaches to the ers in the Western Theater and won Union Great Basin accompanied by strategic recom- victories across and Tennessee. mendations for military action. All of these Because of his dogged, determined personality men—Major Generals George H. Thomas and and command style his nicknames included Rufus Ingalls of the Union Army and General “Slow Trot” as well as “Rock of Chickamauga.” Pierre G. T. Beauregard of the Confederate ser- He rose to major general, notwithstanding the vice—were valorous veterans of the Mexican doubts, if not prejudice, harbored by some War serving as mid-level U.S. Army officers northern politicians about his birth. during 1857–58, but in widely differing roles Union General Rufus Ingalls (August 23, and locations. Each attempted to influence 1818–January 15, 1893) began the Civil War the conduct of the Utah War for a variety of as a and ended the war as a brevet professional and personal reasons—a selfless major general; he is perhaps best remembered desire to contribute, anti-Mormon bias, and for his outstanding logistical skills. During unmistakable self-promotion. Two of the three the war he was quartermaster for the Army 386 Appendix A of Potomac under first McClellan and later the Confederacy’s most notorious guerrilla Grant; after the war he became the army’s as he scourged with impunity the Missouri- quartermaster general. Confederate General Kansas border and ranged from Kentucky to Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (May 28, . To him falls responsibility for leading 1818–February 20, 1893) was known as “The the Civil War’s worst atrocity, the August 21, Little Napoleon.” He commanded the artillery 1863, raid on Lawrence, Kansas, a slaughter units that opened fire on Fort Sumter in April of 150 largely unarmed civilians even more 1861 and served in important command destructive than the Mountain Meadows positions in both the western and eastern Massacre in Utah six years earlier. theaters during the Civil War. He became one of only seven full generals in the Confederate George H. Thomas Army, and while considered one of the keen- At the outbreak of the Utah War in the est minds in that service, he limited his effec- spring of 1857, Thomas was a thrice-brevet- tiveness with prickly and abrasive behavior ted, forty-one-year-old major serving at Fort that produced poor relations with President Mason, Texas, with the Second U.S. Cavalry.1 as well as a number of peer His was a regiment established two years and subordinate generals. earlier and led by an elite group of officers None of their reports have been published hand-picked by then Secretary of War Jeffer- and, because of space limitations, are only son Davis to include Albert Sidney excerpted here. Accordingly, this appendix Johnston as its commander and Lieutenant seeks to lay down “markers” by providing Colonel Robert E. Lee as its executive officer. scholars with a description of this material These were staffing appointments that served and where to find it. Armed with these memos the Second Cavalry well when Johnston, but and hindsight, it is possible to consider the not his regiment, was ordered north to lead linkages between the early strategic think- the Utah Expedition. ing of these three officers about a complex, On July 7, 1857, Thomas wrote to Colo- sprawling, multibrigade military campaign nel , the army’s adjutant gen- in Utah and about the campaign they would eral in , to share his knowledge soon encounter on a more daunting scale in of the Colorado River acquired during a Tennessee and Virginia. previous posting to , . Turning from generals to lowlifes, this Because of Colonel Cooper’s proximity to appendix then explores the notion that some Secretary of War John B. Floyd, Davis’s suc- of the guerrillas nominally under Confeder- cessor, Major Thomas probably hoped that ate and Union command, if not control, also his unsolicited memo would reach Floyd honed the most atrocious of their tactical and would prove useful either to the pros- skills during the Utah War. It does so by ecution of the Utah War or to the ascent of focusing on a single, admittedly spectacular the Colorado River about to be undertaken case, that of William Clarke Quantrill (July by army Joseph C. Ives, 31, 1837–June 6, 1865), a civilian Utah husband of the secretary’s niece. Thomas’s Expedition teamster, gambler, and camp cook tactic worked, and on September 2, during 1857–58. Later, Quantrill was easily 1857, after a delay attributable to Floyd’s Rooted in Utah 387 prolonged struggle with medical problems, not only the most direct but the most the secretary sent this memo to Ives en route convenient and safest route to convey to the Gulf of California. At this juncture, supplies to the troops [to be] stationed the Ives Expedition and the Utah Expedition in Utah Territory. Such being my belief were separate undertakings. They became I recommended its exploration to the linked when word reached Washington in Commanding Officer of the Dept of the mid-November of Lot Smith’s devastat- Pacific in 1854. The Hamok-an Indi- ing raid on the Utah Expedition’s supply ans . . . say there is no stream of any trains, an upset and threat that forced the size emptying into the Colorado from Buchanan administration to consider rein- the west, but one which comes in from forcing Johnston from the Pacific Coast. In the east, about the size of the Gila, far late November, Floyd rushed orders west to above. This I understood, from their Ives reorienting his mission from an expedi- description of it, to be the Little Colo- tion of exploration and scientific discovery rado. It is inhabited on its south bank to one tasked with determining whether the by a tribe which they call Huallo-pay river would facilitate the insertion of large or pine woods people. The Huallo- bodies of troops and supplies into southern pays are now at war with their neigh- Utah Territory. It is difficult to believe that bours on the north side of this small Major Thomas’s earlier recommendations stream. These they call Havisoh-pays about the navigability of the Colorado River or Blue people, because their favor- and the attitudes of adjacent tribes did not ite color is blue. The Havisoh-pays enter the discussions in Washington during are represented as being wealthy in the third week of November 1857 on how horses, sheep & goats and have fre- best to redirect Ives’s expedition.2 quent intercourse with the whites.4 Judging from this circumstance and Maj. George H. Thomas, from the similarity of sound I think Letter To Col. Samuel Cooper, the Navahoes and Havisoh-pays are July 7, 18573 the same people. When asked if they Whilst stationed at Fort Yuma I made knew of the Pay-Utahs they informed repeated inquiries of the Indians living me that they were the next tribe above on the Colorado river above the post them on the West bank of the river. as to the navigability of that stream, If this [Indian] story be true they are and am of the opinion from what they well acquainted with the Colorado have told me, and from what I could as far north as the Pay-Utah country, learn from other sources, that small and from their account of the river I steamers can ascend it very nearly to believe it will be found to be navigable the point where the whites suppose to within one or two hundred miles of the Rio Vergen [sic] empties into it. Salt Lake City.5 Believing this informa- If upon examination the Colorado tion of some importance at this time I proves to be navigable [up to the con- have taken the liberty of communicat- fluence with the Rio Virgin], it will be ing it in this irregular manner. 388 Appendix A

Rufus Ingalls Capt. Rufus Ingalls, Rufus Ingalls spent the Utah War posted to Letter to Lt. Col. Thomas Swords, 7 Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, a for- December 29, 1857 mer Hudson’s Bay Company installation on Events may render it necessary to the north bank of the Columbia River (oppo- dispatch troops in the early Spring site Portland). He was then a once-brevetted to Utah from this Military Depart- quartermaster captain, age thirty-nine. Dur- ment, and I trust you will not hold me ing the fall of 1857, as the Utah War unfolded as being too forward or officious if I to his southeast, Ingalls heard reports that enclose you descriptive lists of some of senior officers with western commands like the immigrants routes from this Coast Brevet Major General Persifor F. Smith and to the Great Salt Lake City as observed Brevet Brigadier General William S. Harney by us in 1855, and further give you were offering solicited and gratuitous military some hints of other routes . . . advice about a move on Utah from the Pacific The enclosed lists will be sufficiently Coast to James Buchanan. The president was explanatory.8 From them you will then grappling with what to say and recom- observe that it will be difficult to find mend to an ill-informed Congress about any road leading from California to the prosecution of the Utah War. At the end of Great Salt Lake of less than 900 or 1000 December 1857 Captain Ingalls seized the miles in length. I am of opinion that initiative and, without being requested to do quite all the routes that lead from Central so, sent a long memo addressing the rumored California are impracticable from the thrust against Utah from the Pacific Coast to Sierra Nevada across the [Great] Basin his superior at headquarters, Department of earlier than the middle of June for a the Pacific in San Francisco, Lieutenant Colo- column of troops. The Humbolt River nel Thomas Swords. Valley, I should say, would certainly be There is logic to Ingalls’s initiative, for so, and [wagon] trains cannot pass to he had spent the winter of 1854–55 in the the south of the Lake by Carson’s river Salt Lake Valley as the Steptoe Expedition’s earlier than July, unless a route has been quartermaster, and at that time had crossed discovered since we were there. . . . the plains to Utah from The [southern] route, via San as well as traversed a new route from Salt Bernardino and the Mohave is by no Lake Valley to San Francisco Bay. He knew means a short one. I do not believe it the region. What neither this record nor possesses rescources [sic] for animals in Ingalls’s memorandum to Swords indicated, any numbers. It answers well enough for however, was that he was grinding a sub- expresses &c for it is open all the year stantial anti-Mormon axe relating to his though the best season to pass over it April 1855 indictment in Salt Lake City for is in February and March. San Pedro attempting to abduct and impair the mor- [California] is the terminus on the als of a thirteen-year-old Mormon girl and Coast. Were it practicable, it [the road] related armed confrontation with an angry would answer well, for it touches the Mormon apostle.6 most southern Mormon settlements, Rooted in Utah 389

where I think there are more better dis- at Head Quarters) is the shortest, most posed people than nearer the chief city.9 open defensible, and practicable earlier Were the Colorado River already in spring than any other. That is the explored I think it would be found line of the Columbia River to Walla that it is navigable for small steamers Walla—thence by Boise and the south- to the Great Bend which is only some ern tributary of the Columbia—the 25 miles from Los Vegas, a Mormon Snake—to near Fort Hall—thence over town just south of the southern rim of the northern rim of the Basin (there the Basin, and about 500 miles from very low) to Bear River into the settle- Salt Lake City, over a good road. The ments of Utah. Walla Walla is about facts, however, cannot be made known 350 miles from Astoria, and I think, until Lt Ives has made explorations; not to exceed 600 miles, by a wagon but in any event, the route via the Gulf road practicable from March, or April, of California [and Colorado River] (dependant on the winter preceding) to would be a long and expensive one, Great Salt Lake City. The Hudson’s Bay answering perhaps the wants of com- Company people have usually called merce, but no way at all for troops.10 it 600 miles from Walla Walla to Fort [Brevet] Major [John S.] Hatheway Hall; but they think the distance much and myself sent a train in 1849 from the over estimated. But I see no reason for Umpqua Valley, , to Fort Hall, going as far north and east as Fort Hall. under Lieut [George W.] Hawkins—the I know of no obstacle in turning down distances, character of country &c are on the Humbolt road where it crosses not now with me but Genl [Joel] Palmer, Raft, or Cache river, though I am not per- late Superintendent of Indian Affairs sonally acquainted with this country. See here, was the guide, and in a few days descriptive list of my route. will furnish me notes of the route—It is With this point for a Deposit not, probably, worth attention for any [Depot], and the Dalles, Walla Walla purposes now under consideration.11 and (perhaps) Boise for Entrepots, the line would appear to be the most eli- The distance from Fort Leavenworth to gible in every point of view. By it Utah the Great Salt Lake City by the nearest can be more easily accessible, and the road is over 1200 miles—If the detour troops there more cheaply supplied than by Sublette’s cutt off, and Soda Springs from any other point. at the Great Bend of Bear River, is made, the distance must be over 1400 All supplies can be put at Walla Walla by miles—Soda Springs, you will observe, water, and from thence transported in ox is near (40 Miles) to Fort Hall, and the and mule trains, probably cheaper than latter place is 196 miles from Salt Lake by the South Pass, and more rapidly. City. This leads me, Colonel, to suggest In former years we had a monthly the line, that probably (and for aught mail from this point to Great Salt I know, the one already decided upon Lake City the year round, and were 390 Appendix A

it necessary communication might be by steamer to San Francisco, transferred to had with that City from this river any a packet boat destined for Panama’s Pacific month by expressmen who know the Coast, crossed the isthmus by rail, and then country. resumed a long, multi-leg journey north For all offensive operations, I regard by sea and rail to reach whichever officer the entrance into the Valley of the Salt Colonel Swords intended to share this memo Lake by Bear river on the north as far the at the war department in Washington or at most easy and eligible in every respect. either of the two seasonal headquarters that Should the Rebels attempt an escape to General Scott maintained in and British or Russian America, which, by West Point, . the way, I do not believe they think of, they might be cut off by a force from this Pierre G. T. Beauregard quarter.12 This force should be a regular At the onset of the Utah War, ­Beauregard one, if possible, though from the present was a twice-brevetted captain of engineers, prospect the regulars now in the Country age thirty-nine. In early February of 1858, will be required here to hold the Indians at about the time the Buchanan adminis- in check. If Volunteers are called upon tration was planning to pressure Brigham I have no doubt a good description of Young through a major thrust from the men could be raised in California. Pacific Coast, Beauregard wrote from New The Mormons, in my opinion, are Orleans to criticize this strategy. He ridi- mad and crazy with religious fanati- culed it as overly complex and risky. His cism. You mark if events do not show memo commenting on the administration’s it. Brigham Young does not see the end plans reflected Beauregard’s well-developed [consequences] of his insensate con- self-confidence, keen interest in strategy, duct. He believes he is right and that knowledge of European military history, the he is going to conquer by aid of God, strong French-Creole influence of his Loui- and he and his devotees will prob- siana plantation upbringing, and contempt ably fight with unexampled fierceness for Mormon Utah leavened with a shrewd and perseverance, unless something appreciation of its desperation and potential unforeseen shall arrest them. military capabilities in what was likely to become a guerrilla campaign. Also at work It is not clear what impact, if any, Ingalls’s was probably Beauregard’s boredom with his advice eventually had on the Utah War responsibility for a long-term, unglamorous because, unlike Major Thomas and Captain army engineering effort to rescue the sinking Beauregard, he communicated within the U.S. Custom House from the instability of the army’s tortuous chain of command instead of local soil. He wrote to John Slidell, who was using shortcuts to reach key decision makers. a U.S. senator from Louisiana as well as his Also, at Fort Vancouver, Rufus Ingalls was brother-in-law and James Buchanan’s 1856 located at the end of a daunting communica- presidential campaign manager. For good tions arrangement by which mail traveled for measure, Beauregard also sent a copy of this a month or more from the Columbia River document to Jefferson Davis and John A. Rooted in Utah 391

Quitman, both of Mississippi and chair- their forces in succession against each men of the senate and house committees on of said columns & crush them before military affairs, respectively. Not excerpted in they could unite—in other words, do Beauregard’s Utah-related passages presented what Napoleon the Great did so beauti- below are his strong comments in defense of fully in Italy in 1796 around & about the South and slavery as well as his view of Lake Guarda & the city of Verona, the region as unfairly beleaguered by a grasp- when he destroyed after a series of ing, oppressive North—sentiments unrelated the most brilliant victories, in a few to Mormon Utah but undoubtedly congenial months, with an Army of only 30,000 to the political opinions of Slidell, Davis, and men—two Austrian Armies of 85,000 Quitman, if not Buchanan. & 60,000 men each—commanded by In so writing, Beauregard hoped to influ- two of the oldest and best Generals of ence strategy while displaying his knowledge the Empire—Wurms and Alvingi!15 of the field. He also wanted to obtain appoint- How do we know but that the ment as a colonel commanding one of the new Mormons may have amongst them- volunteer regiments then being contemplated selves a great Captain in embryo! Are by President Buchanan and Secretary Floyd not volunteers considered by many as for prosecution of the Utah War. equal if not superior to regulars in a Mountainous War?—then how much Capt. P. G. T. Beauregard, the more superior would they not be, Letter to Sen. John Slidell, when defending their religion & their 13 February 9, 1858 own firesides! look at the interminable I see it stated in the newspapers that war the Russians have been waging for Genl Scott is about to repair to Cali- over a quarter of a century with her fornia to take command of a Corps best troops, against the Circassians— d’Armée to move from thence on to are they any nearer to success now Utah! I wonder if this is to be done than they were when they first com- upon the recommendation of the menced?16 I believe not—May we not Genl?14 If so, it is contrary to all “stra- be about to commence our “Circassian tegic” principles, if to be executed in War”—with even greater difficulties conjunction with a similar movement to contend against than the Russians on this side of the mountains—for it is have had—If I were a Mormon and impossible that two operations, from amply supplied with provisions & such distant initial points—should ammunitions, I would defy five three be performed with such precision & times the number of troops you could regularity as to arrive at the Utah Valley send against me on the system now within a few days of each other—at any adopted—not one of them would ever rate such a favorable result would be set foot within the valley of Utah! against all probabilities—It would then The first principle in war, as laid follow, if the Mormons are ably com- down by the Greatest Captain that ever manded, that they would concentrate lived, is “never to despise your enemy” 392 Appendix A

the next “always to act against his main be fought in succession, & the chances or strategic points with concentrated are, that they would get whipped all masses superior if possible to those he other things being equal—for the has in position there”—& then where Mormons would be fresh for the fray; practicable “to endeavor to cut off his & fighting for their religion and their lines of communication, so as to strike homes, would be the more desperate; at his bases of operations without whereas, if the best of these two lines exposing your own.”17 of operations, were selected for the Now with regard to that Mormon offensive march—a force calculated to war we ought first to know, what arrive at c, a little stronger in numbers are their resources, and how many & discipline than the enemy’s forces, effective men they can bring into the would have all the probabilities of suc- field—let us say about 5,000—the cess on its side—whether it would suc- rest acting as scouts, guarding the ceed or not would be “for the Gods to passes &c not being counted but still decide”—and the same object would effective to recruit from or as a force then be effected with a great economy in reserve, in case of reverses—then in treasure, men & materials. it becomes evident from what I have The above are but crude ideas, already stated—that if we march two roughly put down—but they are based converging forces against them thus: upon the true principles of the “Art [diagram: a right angle with the points of War”—which, whenever departed marked “a” “b” and “c”]—from a to c from—sooner or later assert their & from b to c—the Mormons occupy- supremacy by some disastrous calam- ing the central or strategic point c—we ity to the offending party.18—[Because must to be certain of success, send each of its flaws] I am glad to see that the column of at least 7,000 men, for by committee’s bill for the increase of the time they would get to c—besides the Army has been voted down.—Do being nearly exhausted by their long Legislators believe that field officers of and fatiguing marches—they would Regts are less necessary on a distant or probably be reduced to about 5,000 prolonged campaign than company fighting men each—then success officers & men? If so,—they are much would very much depend upon the mistaken, particularly in our [Ameri- nature of the ground they are operat- can] service, where most of those field ing upon, the relative discipline of the officers are weighed down with age opposing forces—the abilities of their and infirmities.19—In time of active commanding officers & other con- service particularly, our complement tingencies not necessary to mention of officers ought to be kept up to the here.—Now, as all the probabilities full standard, and our companies to are that the offensive forces, would not about 96 rank & file—which is the reach the point c within several weeks French system based upon long stand- of each other—they would necessarily ing & dearly bought experience.—Is Rooted in Utah 393

it not surprising that so much opposi- good behavior of the troops and camp fol- tion should be shown in Congress to lowers commanded by Colonel Albert Sidney an increase of an Army, so lamentably Johnston. Delana R. Eckels, Utah’s chief jus- small in comparison to the duties it is tice, described to a U.S. senator the discharged called upon to perform—when in the civilian teamsters swarming about him at Fort last few years—(since the War with Bridger and Camp Scott, Utah, as St. Louis Mexico) —we have added so much to “wharf rats.” U.S. Army Quartermaster Stewart its area of operations. . . . Van Vliet reported to Secretary of War Floyd Should the Army be increased by that Brigham Young “informed me that he had two or more Regts, and I succeed to no objection to the troops themselves entering be appointed the Col. of one of said the Territory; but if they allowed them to do so, Regts (the Zouaves if possible), could it would be opening the door for the entrance not the Lt Colonelcy & two majori- of the rabble from the frontiers, who would, as ties be conferred on ex-Capts G. W. in former times, persecute and annoy them”21 Smith[,] George McClelland [sic] of Lounging in that group was William C. the Engrs & ex-Lieut I. [J.] K. Duncan Quantrill, a young Ohioan barely out of his of the Artillery—they are all now in teens, who within six years would become the civil life, but have seen considerable most notorious guerrilla of the American Civil hard service whilst in the Army—the War—the leader of the Confederate atrocity two former served with distinction dubbed the sack of Lawrence, Kansas. Serv- in the company of sappers & miners ing with Quantrill on the Utah Expedition during the War with Mexico—the sec- as teamsters were David Poole and George ond one is the officer who was sent to Sheppard, both future members of “Captain” Europe by the Govt lately & who has Quantrill’s guerrilla band. Poole had wit- written a very interesting & instruc- nessed the ­October 1857 raid by Lot Smith tive work containing his observations and the Nauvoo Legion on the Utah Expedi- whilst there—they are all in the prime tion’s undefended supply trains. ­Sheppard of life & of the highest intelligence & was a subsequent rider with the postwar gallantry—a Regiment having such gang led by Jesse James and Cole Younger men for its field officers would soon be until captured and imprisoned following an equal if not superior to any other in unsuccessful Kentucky bank robbery. Quant- our service.20 rill was mortally wounded in Kentucky by a Union Army patrol in June 1865 at age 27. “Take a Tap, Pard”: Until relatively recently his skull was kept The Utah Expedition in the refrigerator of an Ohio household, a as Finishing School for fate appropriate for a man whose band rode Civil War Hard Cases roughshod over the Missouri-Kansas border That the federal side of the Utah War region with human ears and scalps dangling produced no known atrocities was a function from their horses’ bridles.22 more of regular army discipline and seasoned, Ironically, among the corpses that effective military leadership than any inherent ­Quantrill’s band left in the smoking ruins of 394 Appendix A

Lawrence was that of Lemuel Fillmore, a local there were few ways of spending the realtor who during the Utah War had served as money outside of Judge [William A.] a field reporter in Salt Lake City and Provo for Carter’s sutler store, where prices were the New York Herald until becoming embroiled outrageously high, during the few days in a knife fight with a rival correspondent for that intervened between our arrival the New York Times. As a direct consequence at Fort Bridger and the departure of of Quantrill’s Lawrence raid came the Union Gen. Johnston’s forces for Salt Lake Army’s punitive “Order No. 11,” which in the City, gambling was rife throughout the fall of 1863 ordered the depopulation of three camp, and, as usually happens, in a western Missouri countries. It was a mass exo- short time, a few sharpers had nearly dus from the border area on a scale comparable all the soldiers’ money. to the Utah War’s Move South of March–June Among the celebrities of the camp 1858, the largest hegira of civilian refugees I had frequently heard the name of since the expulsion of the Acadians and British ­Charley Hart24 mentioned, whose Loyalists in connection with the French and notoriety seemed to be derived from his Indian War and American Revolution. reckless bettings and phenomenal win- For a glimpse of the raw, volatile behavior nings. I heard it stated that he had come that Col. Johnston and his provost marshal out from Kansas with Gen. Johnston’s strained to control in 1858, one should troops the previous fall, working as a turn to a description of Quantrill in action teamster in one of the six-mule trains. at a Fort Bridger gambling den provided in While sauntering through a big 1907 in his old age by former cavalry private gambling tent a day or so after pay-day, ­Robert M. Peck:23 watching the fluctuations of fortune at the various tables where chance games I was a soldier in one of the two compa- were being operated, I heard some one nies of 1st Cav. that formed a part of the remark, “There comes Charley Hart”, command of Lieut. Col. Wm. Hoffman, and having heard his fame as a wild 6th Inf., which command was sent out plunger in gambling, I took a good from Fort Leavenworth early in the look at him. I could see nothing heroic spring of ’58 to escort several trains— in his appearance, but considerable of some mule teams and some of oxen— the rowdy, as I now recall the impres- loaded with supplies for the command sion I then got of him. of Brvt. Brig. Gen. Albert Sidney John- He was apparently about twenty-two ston, Commanding the Mormon Expe- or twenty-three [twenty] years of age; dition, who had been snowed in all about five feet ten inches in height; with winter at Fort Bridger, or Camp Scott, an ungraceful, slouchy walk; and by as it was officially designated. no means prepossessing in features. He We arrived at Camp Scott in the had evidently been patronizing Judge first days of June. A paymaster who Carter’s store, since he “struck it rich,” had followed us arrived about the for his clothes all seemed new. A pair of same time and paid the soldiers off. As high-heeled calf-skin boots of small size; Rooted in Utah 395

bottoms of trousers tucked into boot- a muttered oath he found himself look- tops; a navy [Colt] pistol swinging from ing into the muzzle of Hart’s pistol. his waist belt; a fancy blue flannel shirt; “Back out”, said Hart quietly. “Don’t no coat; a colored silk handkerchief tied even touch your pistol. I’ll give it back loosely around his neck; yellow hair to you when I rake in the pot.” hanging nearly to the shoulders; topped The banker did as directed, while out by the inevitable cow-boy hat. This Hart, without showing any nervous- is the picture of Charley Hart, as my ness, still holding his pistol in one memory presents him now. hand, reached across the table and As he entered the tent he carried in with the other arm swept the banker’s his left hand a colored silk handker- money and pistol over to him. Picking chief, gathered by the four corners, out the twenties, tens, fives and two- which apparently contained coin. and-a-half pieces, he tossed them into Advancing to one of the tables where his handkerchief. There still remained the operator, or banker, as the dealer on the table about a double handful of of a chance game is usually called, was small silver, (there were very few silver dealing “Monte”, he set the handker- dollars in circulation then, the little chief on the table and opened it out, one-dollar gold pieces being largely showing the contents to be gold coins, used in their stead), and a handful of and seemingly in bulk about equal to gold dollars. Sweeping this small stuff the stacks of gold coins tiered upon into his hands, Hart said, “I don’t carry the table in front of the banker. such chicken feed as that,” as he tossed Hart then asked, “Take a tap, pard?” the small coins up in the air and let the meaning would the banker accept a bet crowd scramble for them. of Hart’s pile against the dealer’s, on the Then handing the dejected looking turn of a card. The banker accepted the banker his pistol and a twenty-dollar challenge, shuffled the cards, passed gold piece, he said: “There, pard, is a the deck to Hart to cut, then threw out stake for you,” and gathering up his the “lay-out” of six cards, in a “column- plethoric handkerchief, he meandered of-twos” style. Hart then set his hand- on seeking new banks to “bust.” kerchief of gold on a card, at the same The next day, so I was told, Hart’s time drawing his pistol, “Just to insure marvelous luck deserted him, and he fair play,” he remarked, seeing that the lost every dollar he had; and after trying banker had his gun lying on the table in vain to “strike it up again”, he became convenient to his right hand. Keeping discouraged and disgusted with gam- his eye on the banker’s hands, to make bling, joined some outfit going back sure that the deal was done “on the to the states, and went back to Kansas square”, Hart said, “Now deal.” dead broke.25 Turning the deck face up the banker I never heard the name Quantrill drew the cards off successively. Hart’s used till the summer of ’61, when card won. As the dealer looked up with his depredations along the borders of 396 Appendix A

Missouri and Kansas were bringing bloody-handed guerrilla leader, and the name into unpleasant notori- Charley Hart, the reckless gambler of ety. I then heard that Quantrill, the Fort Bridger, were identical.

William P. MacKinnon is an independent historian in Montecito, California.

Notes 1. To brevet an officer was to confer an additional note across the Columbia River to Robert (“Doc”) (higher) rank in recognition of either valor in battle Newell, one of the region’s most experienced or service of ten years in grade. Absent a system of mountaineer-guide-interpreters. From Newell, decorations or awards until the Civil War, brevets Ingalls wanted advice as to the best route and sea- were used by the U.S. Army as a means of honoring son for funneling troops into the Salt Lake Valley such officers without permitting them to wear the from Oregon. Remarkably, within two days Newell insignia of their brevet rank or receive its pay unless responded from Champoeg, Oregon, with a long specifically ordered to a duty that allowed it. Hence, letter. Although he had dated his letter to Swords after his promotion in 1858 by brevet, Albert Sidney on December 29, Ingalls held it back until hearing Johnston wore a single star and styled himself as from Palmer and Newell. Ingalls then revised it, “brevet brig. gen. and col., Second U.S. Cavalry.” constructed an appendix of routes and distances, 2. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, Part 1, 423–24. and mailed all of this material to San Francisco on 3. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke January 7, 1858. Newell to Ingalls, December 31, Library, New Haven, Connecticut. 1857; photocopy in author’s possession. 4. Here Thomas presumably means Mormons. 12. Both coastal destinations were under consideration 5. Thomas was almost as inaccurately optimistic about in at least some passing fashion by Brigham Young such distances in the region as was Brigham Young. during the war. Captain Rufus Ingalls’s estimate of about five hun- 13. The holograph original of this letter is at the Hunting- dred miles was closer to the mark. ton Library, San Marino, California, and a holograph 6. MacKinnon, “Sex, Subalterns, and Steptoe: Army copy is included in the Papers of John A. Quitman, Behavior, Mormon Rage, and Utah War Anxieties,” Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, Uni- Utah Historical Quarterly 76 (Summer 2008): 227–46. versity of , Chapel Hill. When an addi- 7. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke tional copy (now lost) addressed to Jefferson Davis Library, New Haven, Connecticut. was captured with the baggage of a Confederate offi- 8. Not printed here for reasons of brevity. cer following the evacuation of ­Jackson, Mississippi, 9. When Ingalls departed Utah in the spring of 1855, it in August 1863, excerpts appeared in newspapers was via the northern route. His brother officer, First throughout the North. A typescript of Beauregard’s Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry, led a detachment to letter made from the version at the Huntington is in California through Utah’s southern settlements and Leonard J. Arrington Papers, Merrill-Cazier Library, would have disagreed vigorously with Ingalls about Utah State University, Logan. the disposition of the settlers based on the hostility 14. For a summary of these events swirling around Gen- he encountered. eral , the army’s general in chief, see 10. At this time Ives was just beginning his ascent of MacKinnon, “Buchanan’s Thrust from the Pacific: the Colorado River from the Gulf of California to The Utah War’s Ill-Fated Second Front,” Utah His- Fort Yuma. torical Quarterly 34 (Fall 2008): 226–60. 11. In addition to seeking his old field notes from 15. This was the battle of Arcole, Italy, November Palmer, on December 29 Ingalls also sent an urgent 15–17, 1796. Beauregard means Austrian generals Rooted in Utah 397

­Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser and Joseph Frei- when he died in 1862. All three men, as well as herr Alvin(c)zy de Berberck. Beauregard, were West Pointers. 16. The Russians had been fighting to subjugate the 21. Delana R. Eckels to Sen. Jesse Bright, December 13, ­Circassians in the northwest Caucasuses since 1763. 1857, copy in author’s possession. Capt. Stewart Van The war would not end in a Russian victory until Vliet, Report to Sec. of War John B. Floyd, Novem- 1864, with the mass deportation of 500,000 Circas- ber 20, 1857, U.S. Secretary of War, Report of the sians in its aftermath. Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., 1857–58, 17. Beauregard’s “Greatest Captain” was the eighteenth- Senate Ex. Doc. 11, 38. century Russian general Alexander Suvorov, author 22. For an account of Quantrill’s and Shepherd’s lives, of the Manual of Victory. including their participation in the Utah and Civil 18. Baron Antoine-Henri de Jemini’s The Art of War, a wars, see Henry S. Clarke, “W.C. Quantrill in 1858,” text on military strategy and the Napoleonic cam- Kansas Historical Collections 7 (1901-2): 218-23; Wil- paigns, had an enormous influence on nineteenth- liam Elsey Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars century military officers in the . (Lawrence: Kansas Heritage Press, 1992), 1–7, 66, 19. Field officers were majors, lieutenant colonels, and 75–81, 87, 94–96, 99–100, 103–4, 100–110; Barry A. colonels; company-grade officers were lieutenants Crouch, “A ‘Fiend in Human Shape’? William Clarke and captains. Beauregard’s assessment of the U.S. Quantrill and His Biographers,” Kansas History 22 Army’s officer corps was accurate. (Summer 1999): 143–56; Edward E. Leslie, The Devil 20. The army was not expanded for the Utah War, and Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Beauregard remained a captain of engineers until Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders (New York: his resignation in 1861. The U.S. Army would have Random House, 1996), 52–63; and Martin E. Ismert, no units of Zouaves, a flamboyantly uniformed “Quantrill-Charley Hart?,” paper presented at the infantry corps in the French North African service, Posse of the Westerners of Kansas City, October 13, until the Civil War. This reference and several others 1959, William Clarke Quantrill Research Collection, in his letter reflect Beauregard’s French-Louisiana McCain Library, University of Southern Mississippi, background and proclivities, affectations that fellow Hattiesburg; also Gilbert Cuthbertson, “Shepherd Louisianan Slidell would understand, if not appre- Was Name to Fear in Border War Era,” Kansas City ciate. McClellan’s eagerness to return to the army [Missouri] Times, September 9, 1965, 140. for the Utah campaign from an engineering vice 23. Peck’s reminiscences are found in Connelley, Quant- presidency at the Illinois Central Railroad was well rill and the Border Wars; Leslie, The Devil Knows How known among his friends, including those still in to Ride, 56–57. the service. Beauregard refers to McClellan’s army- 24. Quantrill assumed the alias “Charley Hart” in Kansas sponsored role as a military observer during the Territory during 1856–57 to cover his participation recent Crimean War with two other officers and to in a spree of thefts and involvement with the violent their joint report published as a congressional docu- disturbances then wracking the region over the ment. First Lieutenant and Brevet Captain Gustavus slavery issue. Woodson Smith of Kentucky never returned to the 25. Actually, after leaving Fort Bridger in the summer U.S. Army after his 1854 resignation, although he of 1858, Quantrill followed the Utah Expedition rose to major general in the Confederate service. west and worked as a civilian cook at its enormous First Lieutenant Johnson Kelly Duncan of Ohio had garrison at Camp Floyd, Utah, until returning east resigned in 1855 and was a Confederate brigadier in late 1859.