Relatives in the Mormon Battalion:

James Tillmon Sanford Allred (Co. A)

Reuben Warren Allred (Co. A)

William Alexander Follett (Co. B)

Albert Knapp (Co. E)

(All were Privates)

 

WOMEN and CHILDREN of COMPANY A

 

Brief History of the U.S. Mormon Battalion

 

        The need to assist the U. S. Army in the Mexican war was urgent [1846]. President James K. Polk instructed the Secretary of War, William L. March to authorize Col. (later General) Stephen W. Kearney, Commander of the Army of the West, to enlist a battalion of 500 Mormons for this purpose. Captain James Allen was ordered to proceed to the Mormon Camps in Iowa to recruit five companies of 75 to 100 men each.

    The Mormons had many reasons to be reluctant to enlist: They had received no protection from persecution and mob action in Missouri and Illinois; their families were destitute and spread over a wide area; they had hundreds of miles of hostile Indian territory to cross; they worried how their families would suffer in the bitter plains winter; and of course, the Mormons had particularly close family ties and were concerned about protection for their families located on the western frontier.

    However, President Brigham Young and the governing Council of the L.D.S. Church urged the men to enlist, telling them it was their patriotic duty to join. Five companies totaling over 500 men were mustered in at Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 16, 1846. There were 32 women, of which 20 were laundresses hired at private's pay, that left with the Battalion. They made the longest march in military history consisting of 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California.

    President Brigham Young told them: "Brethren, you will be blessed, if you will live for those blessings which you have been taught to live for. 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. And men and nations will rise up and bless the men who went in that Battalion. These are my feelings in brief respecting the company of men known as the Mormon Battalion. When you consider the blessings that are laid upon you, will you not live for them? As the Lord lives, if you will but live up to your privileges, you will never be forgotten, without end, but you will be had in honorable remembrance, for ever and ever."

    In addition to the 500 men, some of the officers chose to take their families and their possessions and their own wagons at no expense to the government, which the Army permitted. There were 15 or 16 families, including 50 or 55 children and dependents, who left Council Bluffs with the Battalion.

    In 1954 the present organization called the U. S. Mormon Battalion, Inc. was formed to help fulfil Brigham Young's prophecy to those Mormon Battalion men. Also an Auxiliary to the USMB was formed for the women.

 

Carl V. Larson and Shirley Maynes. Women of the Mormon Battalion. A B C Printing 1997

 

http://www.mormonbattalion.com/history/brief.shtml

"Original Circular to the Mormons"

(Presented by Brigham Young and Captain James Allen

on July 1, 1846 at Council Bluffs, Iowa)

"I have come among you, instructed by Col. S.F. Kearney of the U.S. Army, now commanding the Army of the West, to visit the Mormon camp, and to accept the service for twelve months of four or five companies of Mormon men who may be willing to serve their country for that period in our present war with Mexico; this force to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and be marched thence to California, where they will be discharged.

"They will receive pay rations, and other allowances, such as other volunteers or regular soldiers receive, from the day they shall be mustered into the service, and will be entitled to all comforts and benefits of regular soldiers of the army, and when discharged as contemplated, at California, they will be given gratis their arms and accoutrements for which they will be fully equipped at Fort Leavenworth. This is offered to the Mormon people now. This is an opportunity of sending a portion of their young and intelligent men to the ultimate destination of their whole people, and entirely at the expense of the United States, and this advanced party can thus pave the way and look out for the land for their brethren to come after them.

"Those of the Mormons who are desirous of serving their country, on the conditions here enumerated, are requested to meet me without delay at their principal camp at Council Bluffs, whither I am going to consult with their principal men, and to receive and organize the force contemplated to be raised.

"I will receive all healthy, able-bodied men from eighteen to forty-five years of age."

J. Allen, Captain 1st Dragoons

http://www.mormonbattalion.com/history/circular.shtml