Army of Israel
Army of Israel
Ed. David L. Bigler & Will Bagley
$24.95
ISBN 978-0-87421-294-5
504 pages
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Army of Israel

Mormon Battalion Narratives

Ed. David L. Bigler and Will Bagley

Also by David L. Bigler - Forgotten Kingdom

Also by Will Bagley - Always a Cowboy

"History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry," said Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke of the 1846 march of his command, the Mormon Battalion, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the California coast. The command's distinctive place in the history of the West and the United States military was secured by that epic Mexican War journey, which pioneered a new wagon road across the arid Southwest desert and helped bring about the Gadsden Purchase, as well as by this military unit's unique composition, consisting almost entirely of members of one religion, and by the battalion's subsequent important roles in early California history, from the United States army's occupation and the establishment of new civil government to the discovery of gold and the pioneering of major emigrant roads into the territory. Prolific journal and letter writers, the battalion members produced one of the richest and farthest ranging documentary records of the mid-nineteenth century West. Several classic battalion journals have been published, including those by Cooke and Henry Bigler, but many other valuable and informative accounts have not been readily available until now.

Giving priority to previously unpublished documents, editors David Bigler and Will Bagley have compiled, introduced, and annotated dozens of firsthand accounts and other primary sources regarding the Mormon Battalion's march and subsequent adventures. These include such perspectives as the journal of teenager William Pace, letters from a few of the women associated with the battalion (some thirty wives accompanied their husbands), and military and government correspondence. These and the many other collected documents provide an expansive portrait and detailed record of a large part of the American West—including portions of what became Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah—and its inhabitants at a critical juncture in the region's history, the late 1849s