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On April 12, 1861, the United States entered the bloodiest war its ever been engaged in – the American Civil War. But with the vast majority of Latter-day Saints safely behind the Rocky Mountains, did they ever fight in the war? What side were they on? Were they for or against slavery? Let’s talk about it.
Video transcript: https://saintsunscripted.com/faith-and-beliefs/living-the-gospel/the-church-during-the-civil-war/
— “Civil War Saints,” cia BYU Studies (this is an entire book full of essays about the Church during the Civil War — all available online): http://bit.ly/3gwwcMD
— “Abraham Lincoln and the Mormons,” by Mary Jane Woodger (BYU Studies): http://bit.ly/3tKajMN
— “The Lot Smith Cavalry Company: Utah Goes to War,” by Kenneth L. Alford & Joseph R. Stuart: http://bit.ly/3EGExqn
— “Slavery and Abolition,” via the Church’s website: http://bit.ly/3UbdmJ3
— “The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and ‘An Act in Relation to Service,” by Christopher Rich (Utah Historical Quarterly): http://bit.ly/3tKArrb
— “Life and journals of John Henry Standifird, 1831-1924,” see pgs. xxii-xxiv (John Strandifird was a member of the Utah Cavalry. These pages contain what he wrote about his experience): http://bit.ly/3GlGxFT
— A list of the men in Lot Smith’s “Utah Cavalry”: http://bit.ly/3gcra8a
— Here’s a newspaper account (Union Vedette, March 3, 1865) of Utahns celebrating Union Victories, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation: http://bit.ly/3EfgnBY
Notes:
— This source (http://bit.ly/3hUdRtd) records the following promise from Brigham Young, given to Lot Smith’s company:
“…although you are United States soldiers you are still members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and while you have sworn allegiance to the constitution and government of our country, and we have vowed to preserve the Union, the best way to accomplish this high purpose is to shun all evil. . . Remember your prayers . . . establish peace with the Indians . . . [and] always give ready obedience to the orders of your commanding officers. If you will do this I promise you, as a servant of the Lord, that not one of you shall fall by the hand of an enemy.”
I think this promise is cool, and probably true. However, I haven’t been able to track it back farther than the source already mentioned. Since that author did not cite where she got her information from, I’ve left it out of this episode. If anyone knows of an earlier source, please let me know!
— “Although most Mormons were from the North and Midwest and therefore favored the North, Church leadership took a neutral position.” Source: http://bit.ly/3tKajMN
— “As William H. Hooper, Utah’s territorial delegate to Congress, noted in a letter to George Q. Cannon, ‘We show our loyalty by trying to get in while others are trying to get out.’” Source: http://bit.ly/3EPCHUl
— “The federal census of 1850 reported 24 free persons of color in Utah, and 26 slaves.” Source: http://bit.ly/3GzorjO
— “During the 1850s, there were about 100 black slaves in Utah.” I’m not sure, though, if this is referring to the amount of slaves at any single given time, or accumulated over the entire decade. Source: http://bit.ly/3UbdmJ3
— A Twitter thread from author/scholar W. Paul Reeve about Utah’s “Juneteenth”: http://bit.ly/3XAiJEu This is the only Utah newspaper I could find that wrote about the end of slavery (and only briefly): http://bit.ly/3tSnpaV Why didn’t it make headlines? I’m not sure. Perhaps it was because the practice already applied to so few people in the territory.
— Latter-day Saint Colonel Robert T. Burton also led a Utah cavalry unit during the Civil War, but it was not a federal unit. It was a territorial unit.
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