| OCR Text |
Show 118 and the southern spurs of the Goose Creek Mountains, on the south by the Sierra Nevada and the intervening spurs of the great Sierra Madre Mountains. This throws them about six hundred miles further into the mountain fastenings of the continent, in the midst of the richest gold district on the pacific coast. By this movement they hope to allay the apprehensions of the Government and public at large, while they will push forward with redoubled force and energy their schemes of immigration, colonization, and accumulation of native wealth and munitions of war. Despite the article's generally correct assessment of the White Mountain geography, it was only one of a flood of speculative articles which had the Mormons leaving their homes for refuges from Sonora to Alaska. Brigham Young's attempt at secrecy was doomed to failure almost from the beginning. It was all but impossible to keep such a massive plan contained. The White Mountain Expedition itself remained obscure, however. The trails of the explorers were never publicly revealed, and later journalists could only guess at where the Mormons had been. In 1859 an article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly which illustrates this point: Long wagon-trains were sweeping through the city every day, accompanied by hundreds of families, and droves of horses and cattle.... What was its object and what its destination are still mysteries; but it was probably directed toward the mountain-ranges in the southwestern portion of the Great Basin, of the topography of which region-hitherto unvisited by Fed- 42 eral explorers-the Mormons undoubtedly possess accurate information. Shortly after Brigham Young's circulars were received, teams began to roll into Salt Lake City from all the outlying settlements ready to take the residents south. Within a week, the exodus was well under way. On April 1, Brigham Young and his family abandoned Salt Lake City. |
