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Show 278 Mountain Meadows massacre the previous fall, the White Mountain Expedition trudged across the trackless deserts and spiny ridges of the American Great Basin in search of Brigham Young's elusive refuge. With the failure of the expedition to find the sanctuary, Brigham Young was compelled to accept the army into the Territory. Although he distrusted the army, Young saw no alternative except the re-adoption of his early policy of belligerence. The prophet was shrewd enough not to accept the army without some concessions, however. Young finally acquiesced to the guarantees of the peace commissioners, and the events that spawned the White Mountain Expedition were brought to a close. Bloodshed was avoided largely through the efforts of Colonel Thomas L. Kane and Governor Alfred Cumming who induced Young to modify his inflexible stand. The expedition itself deserves a unique place in the history of the exploration of the Great Basin. In spectacular fashion, the White Mountain Expedition explored a large portion of the last virgin territory in the United States south of Alaska. A large piece of present-day western Utah and eastern Nevada came to light for the first time in I858 through the efforts of these men. Not all of the White Mountain trail was unknown in I858, but the great majority was. Evans had explored the route from Antelope Springs (in the House Eange) to the Snake Valley in 1855. The Death Valley company and Fremont's 1854 expedition paralleled Dame's trail between Cedar City and Meadow Valley. Martineau's discovery of the old iron wagon tires in Meadow Valley testifies to that fact. And in I827 Jedediah S. Smith traversed a portion of the White Mountain country on his return from California. It was not until the discovery of Smith's journal in 1967 that his exact route across the Great Basin became known. It is now understood that the mountain man crossed the White River Valley from west to east in the vicinity of present-day Lund, Nevada, thence across Steptoe and Spring Valleys to the Snake Range. As the Mormons did later, Smith crossed |
