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Show 88 i t was Ives who actually made the connection. The press was aAiO of the opinion that the Ives expedition was, in part, for the carrying on of h o s t i l i t i es with the Mormons. These a r t i c l e s were soon received in Salt Lake City.2^ In the final analysis, the true purpose of the Colorado expeditions was unimportant. The only significant information was that which reached the ears of Brigham Young, and in the winter of I857-I858 correct information was scarce in Utah. Many important decisions were based on incorrect presumptions and rumor. Brigham Young had read the report of Ives's expedition in the Los Angeles Star of December 5 which reported i t to be a "scientific" expedition. He had been informed of rumors in the South from Jesse N. Smith and Amasa Lyman, but, as yet, nothing was concrete. Then on January 19, a group of missionaries arrived in Salt Lake City who had just come from the coast. Included in this group were Apostles Ezra Taft Benson and Orson Pratt who were returning from their missions in England.. These men were possitive in their assertions that Utah was in immediate p e r i l from the south or west. They brought word that the army had issued orders 'for a l l the disposable force of the army to s t a r t early in the spring to reinforce Colonel Johnston's command," that Missouri was offering volunteers to fight the Mormons, and that General Winfield Scott him-self was enroute to California to direct the war movement from that point.^D The Apostles, I t was said, had t o travel incognito from the coast "to keep from being taken up."2? On January 24 these men spoke before the congregation in the Tabernacle, and,| as one might expect, the subject of the war with the Gentiles came up in the sermons. One Salt Lake City man wrote: "This morning I went to the tabernacle & heard E. T. Benson giveing a Journal discourse of his Mission &... that the United States are now Shipping Troops of Soldiers round to Callaforia trying t o come in on us from every side. ° It was a dismal message. Indeed, the feelings of being surrounded were beginning to pervade the thoughts |