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Show Page 139 At last the course was laid. Brigham Young assigned Orson on January 25 to rush back to Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah to put the revelation into practice and organize the stragglers into companies according to the new instructions. He left immediately and read the revelation "from Keg Creek to Lost Camp," returning February 12 with the report that all had been put in order. The pattern of emigration set, the Saints were ready to flee the borders. But the United States were creeping up on them - in December, Iowa territory was formally admitted into the Union, and the Saints had volunteered a battalion to help in Kearny's occupation of the boundless upper provinces of the former Mexican empire. The American blood which flowed at Buena Vista in February constitued the price for these lands, the very sand and rock which the Saints had hoped to claim for an independent Zion. The night of Buena Vista Orson was meeting with the council to discuss science and the prospects for arable land in upper Mexico - while the troops of Winfield Scott marched toward the enemy capital, the imagination of Orson Pratt and the Twelve roamed the 19 highlands they were wresting that year from Latin American grip. Oblivious to the battles in the south, the apostles watched for the first ice-free day on the Missouri. Huge flights of wild geese signaled the hour for departure, and, as the Church met in general conference on April 6, 1847, they covenanted to remember the Camp before the Lord continually. The sacred anniversary observed, the pioneers set out. On April 7, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and Wilford Woodruff accompanied the vanguard ten miles onto the prairie, although the organization for the journey was stalled a few days so they could hear Parley P- Pratt's report on the status of the missions in England and the East. At last, nine days later, the pioneers bade farewell for the last time to the main encamp- ,.20 ment at Winter Quarters and "the brethren went to work with alacrity. |
