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"We Expect to See the Sun Rise Again"

The Emigration Camp of 1847

Our numbers far exceed what we anticipated, for instead of numbering 100 wagons we have near 600; the cattle were generally weak in coming off the rushes; we had to recruit our cattle and send to Missouri for breadstuffs. You know, brethren, that it takes a little time and labor to start a large wheel; it has, however, commenced rolling and will, we trust, not stop until it reaches the valley of the Salt Lake.1

So wrote an anxious and overburdened John Taylor in mid-August 1847, some 35 miles east of the Mormon Ferry on the North Platte, to Brigham Young, then just leaving on his return trip to Winter Quarters. Having modified Brigham's original instructions, which had been given by revelation, Taylor and his immediate leader, Parley P. Pratt, knew they were in for a fateful day of reckoning. Nonetheless, they took consolation and pride in their accomplishment-the bringing out of the single largest train of emigrants yet to have crossed the great American Plains-the Emigration Camp.

"I Mean What I Say When I Talk of the 25Th of May"

Just as Brigham had learned, while crossing the mud fields of Iowa in the spring of 1846, that it was infinitely more difficult to get away from his followers than it was to flee from his enemies, Pratt and Taylor were learning firsthand that they, too, could not resist the press of their people. Even before the vanguard pioneer company had disappeared over the hills west of Winter Quarters two months before, the rush was on to follow "as soon as the grass grows." As Amelia Richards said in a letter to her uncle, Willard Richards: "It makes me almost sick of home to see the teams rolling out so this morning. I want to be going myself."2

And little wonder! Winter Quarters and the Council Bluffs settlements had proven sad and weary habitats. Hundreds had died of scurvy, exposure, and malnutrition. The long winter had been severe, and their hovels, huts, wagons, and caves had provided scarce comfort. Many were fearful of potential Indian attacks. Scores of Battalion wives and families yearned to roll out and meet their returning husbands and fathers, just as Brigham and the bishops who provided for them had promised. And if the pioneers had indeed found a new place, as they had promised, everyone wanted to be there. Surely the cost of going could be no greater than that of staying. Reluctantly they had let Brigham and his little band forge onward in April; now in June there would be no stopping them.

"There was only one thing that made [us] venture to start from the Missouri River in 1847," wrote George W. Hill, with an attitude representative of their anxious faith bordering on defiance,

and that was the health of my wife. She had taken the scurvy in the winter superinduced by our living as we did without vegetables. And as soon as the weather began to get warm in the spring, she got worse instead of better and came very near dying. In fact, I had no hopes for her but to get on the road travelling as soon as possible, thinking a change of scenery, a change of air, and a change of water might be beneficial to her. I was determined to try it, let the consequences be what they might. . . . You may think this was a very hazardous undertaking; well, we thought so too, but the stakes were terrible we had to play.3