Posted by:
SL Cabbie
(
)
Date: May 03, 2012 01:36AM
>Partly as retribution for the Utah Expedition, Young decided that the Mormons would sit out the Civil War.
The NY Times is limiting non-subscribers to ten articles per month, and I'm thinking about replying nevertheless... If the comments are over on WaPo as the sub-line might indicate, I will certainly let fly...
Sheesh, seriously, this is "St. Brigham" stuff... No mention that Camp Douglas was established to make certain Young didn't join with the Confederacy (a real fear in Washington), no mention of the Bear River Massacre (which essentially amounted to giving "idle soldiers" something to do), and no mention of the specter of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and Young closing the Overland Trail in 1857-58...
I'm in the middle of re-reading parts of Bagley and Bigler's "The Mormon Rebellion: America's First Civil War." Anyone who's read it would just shake their head at this article.
http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/1527/the%20mormon%20rebellionEdit: I just the bio on author Turner, and he's actually more enigmatic that the Old Boss (Brigham Young) himself. Per his web page...
>My biography of Brigham Young emphasizes his early religious experiences (such as speaking in tongues), the transformative effect of Joseph Smith's murder on Young's personality and approach to leadership, Young's outsized family, and his thirty-year battle with the U.S. government for control of the Utah Territory.
Be interesting to see if he believes Young ordered the murders at Mountain Meadows...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 01:46AM by SL Cabbie.