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Show 141 wrote that Brigham Young wanted to find: a place of refuge; some valley which should be surrounded by a desert requiring a five-day's march to cross. He reasoned that while small parties might be able to cross such a thirsty waste with comparative safety, an army would find it impassable, and the larger the force the more impracticable it would be; that while a few men might find enough water in a small seep or water-hole to allay their thirst, a thousand men and animals would find it totally inadequate; and that such a desert would be a more formidable barrier than an army of forty thousand men.1 3 Such was the strategy of Brigham Young. Rather than defeat the army by force, he would let the desert do it. So much rested on the explorations of Bean and Dame. Colonel Dame asked Lee for his assistance in recruiting the men and animals for the expedition, as Lee was one of Dame's officers in the militia and an influential man in his own right. Lee agreed to hold back some of the best mule teams he had intended to forward to Salt Lake and to give Dame his assistance. While Lee returned home to finish up business, Colonel Dame rode the eighteen miles to Cedar City to confer with President Haight. Haight wrote in his diary that Dame arrived on the l4th, "having orders from Prest. Young to raise another company to go west to explore for a place to hide from the face of our enemies."1^ Cedar City was by far the largest settlement in southern Utah with a population of about 2,000,15 and Haight had little trouble raising the fifteen men and the animals Dame requested of him. A meeting was called, and the men were enlisted.1" Recruiting was not as easy in the smaller settlements. On the 15th, Lee rejoined Dame, and the two proceeded south. At Washington, a 9 A.M. meeting was called on the l6th to lay the matter before the men of that settlement. |