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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Forgotten Little War, December 14, 2007
In this superbly researched and well written book, Donald Moorman chronicles the American war that most Americans don't know. A decade after Brigham Young led the Latter Day Saints out of New York and Illinois, where they'd been persecuted and martyred, they succeeded in creating a theocratic state in Utah Territory. By the mid-1850s, tension was building between the US government and the Mormons. The latter insisted on appointing their own judges, and wanted only Brigham Young as their territorial governor. Federally appointed judges, claiming that the Mormons were undercutting their authority, resigned and returned to Washington with tales of autocracy and polygamy that outraged and titillated the nation. Indeed, in the 1856 presidential election, the new Republican party ran on a platform that condemned the twin "infamies" of slavery and polygamy.
Hoping in part to distract the nation's attention away from the growing North/South crisis, President Buchanan decided that he had to reassert federal authority in Utah, and he dispatched a small army to quell Mormon independence. Headed by Albert Sidney Johnston of Shiloh fame, and including a good score of officers who would make names for themselves in the Civil War, the army eventually made it to Utah, established Camp Floyd about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, and "occupied" the territory between 1858 and 1861. The army never fired a shot in anger. The "war" was settled diplomatically. But before the settlement, the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred (1857) in which over 100 members of a California-bound wagon train were slaughtered by hysterical Mormons.
Moorman's history (contrary to an earlier reviewer's estimate) is remarkably fair. He documents the misunderstandings between Mormons and Gentiles that led up to the crisis without grinding any doctrinal ax. His description of the tedium of life at Camp Floyd, the horror of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the excitement (sometimes deadly) of a frontier life, and the army's very real achievements in mapping new western-bound trails makes for an entertaining and instructive read. Highly recommended for those who know little about frontier history or the years immediately prior to the Civil War.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb Yet Underrated History, January 10, 2007
This was Professor Donald Moorman's life's work, prepared for publication by his colleague Gene Sessions after Moorman's untimely death in 1980. This little-known work should be read along with Yale Professor Norm Furniss' earlier The Mormon Conflict 1850-1859, Juanita Brooks' earlier Mountain Meadows Massacre, and Will Bagley's later Blood of the Prophets. Reading these books together will show how competent historians can see and discuss the evidence of controversial historical accounts quite differently from one another.
Moorman's work, however, is quite unique. He was a non-Mormon living in Mormon country. His book is brightly written, more so than the other works. He does not attempt to make judgments on controversial issues where there is insufficient evidence to do so.
Camp Floyd and the Mormons documents the army President James Buchanan marched against Utah to put down a purported rebellion of Mormons in 1857. The book discusses, in quite entertaining fashion, Mormon resistance and the subsequent peace negotiations and presidential amnesty. It also discusses collateral results of the conflict, such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre in which Mormons and Indians massacred a 140-person wagon train in southern Utah.
What makes this book unique is that Moorman appears to have had access to archived Mormon Church material which Juanita Brooks claimed in her biography to be denied. Moorman's book explains the Mountain Meadows Massacre succinctly and in a very balanced manner. This book is a must for students of the American West.
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5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Camp Floyd Flawed, October 11, 2006
Don Moorman was not LDS,but he did get access to LDS church archives. After reading this poorly written, rambling apology it is clear the church leaders saw little danger. Granted the book was written several years ago, but some of the omissions are egregious. The authors accept unchallenged many of Brigham Young's public pronouncements and don't dig beneath the surface. They often use castigating language when referring to anti-mormon federal authorities in Utah without balancing that against what caused their antipathy and suspicion. Judge Brocchus comes off as an irrational opponent of the Saints, but no attempt is made to show what motivated Brocchus' verbal assault on the Saints while addressing their semiannual conference. The fact that Young and others had viciously slandered the President and other federal officals they disliked is curiously omitted. The analysis of Mountain Meadows is very weak. Mention is made of how appalled Brigham Young was on hearing of the massacre but no mention is made of his ordering the destruction of the original monument US troops erected over the grave site. They do however admit Young and the church kept a tight veil of secrecy on the act for 20 years. The authors go to considerable lengths to show the Arkansas wagon train in a bad light, i.e. poisoning wells and generally raising hell. Even if that were true (and it is certainly not proven), it does not excuse the despicable acts of cold blooded murder that followed. The US troops who marched to Utah in 1857 are often made to look like ruffians spoiling for a fight. Perhaps some were since they had been attacked numerous times by Mormon militia members and saw there provisions stolen or destroyed. In their eyes it was treason pure and simple, but the authors give the soldiers little or no sympathy. In fact most of the sympathy vote goes to the Mormons and particularly Brigham Young. Young denies that blood atonement exists and the authors choose not to examine that obvious falsehood. I suppose one could say some of the criticims are beyond the scope of the book, if so why did the authors mention them at all? I expected a much better effort than what the University of Utah calls "a comprehensive analysis of the history of frontier Utah..."
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