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Show 117 Francisco correspondent of the New York Herald and published by that paper on tfay 31.37 Even the week before, the Herald was printing a r t i c l e s written by correspondents with Johnston's army at Camp Scott proclaiming the Mormons were abanding their homes for the "White River Mountains" or the "White Mountains, near the borders of New Mexico."3° It seems the f i r s t intelligence of the new Mormon policy reached the army by way of William Gilbert of the firm of Gilbert & Gerrish, Gentile merchant of Salt Lake City. Gilbert had witnessed the exodus going south as he was coming up from California. When he reached the army on April 9* he reported that he l e f t Salt Lake City on the last of the month which was then being evacuated at a rate of one hundred wagons per day.39 "The Mormons," he explained, "are leaving the valley and going to the White Mountains." Although the term "White Mountains was not used in Young's "Sebastopol" speech, Gilbert bad apparently received the correct information. The prophet's efforts to mask his intentions worked for only nineteen days. After the news reached the army, a flurry of l e t t e r s was sent east by newspaper correspondents traveling with the Utah Expedition. The result was a corresponding profusion of a r t i c l e s about the new Mormon policy in the national press. Most of these reporters were ignorant of the Great Basin geography and the location of the White Mountains, but occasionally a correspondent would accurately identify the the destination of the Mormons. A writer employed by the Washington Union,who claimed to have "lived among the Mormons for a year, and knows the habits of the people," described the White Mountain region with fair accuracy: This d i s t r i c t of country i s situated in the southwestern portion of the Territory of Utah, bounded on the west by the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the north by the Humboldt River Mountains, on the east by the Desert |