There was not an ounce of salt in the entire camp; a supply was proffered as a gift from Brigham Young, whom Johnston now termed, “The great Mormon rebel,” which was rejected with contempt.  Salt was secretly brought into the camp, but the commander would eat none of it, and the officer’s mess was soon after supplied by the Indians at the rate of five dollars a pound!

Thus did the army of Utah pass the winter of 1857-1858, amid privations no less severe than those endured at Valley Forge eighty-one years before.

But meanwhile events occurred which promised a peaceful solution of the difficulty.  The spirited resistance of the Saints had called forth unfavourable comments on Buchanan’s policy throughout the United States and Europe.  He had virtually made war upon the territory before any declaration had been issued; he had sent forward an army before the causes of offence had been fairly investigated; and now, at this critical juncture in the nation’s history when there was a possibility of the disruption of the Union, he was about to lock up in a distant and almost inaccessible region more than one-third of the nation’s war material, and nearly all of its best troops.  Even the soldiers themselves, though in a cheerful mood and in excellent condition, had no heart for the approaching campaign, accepting, as they did, the commonly received opinion that it was merely a move on the President’s political chess-board.  In a word, Buchanan and the Washington politicians and the Johnston-Harney army must confess themselves hopelessly beaten, before a blow was struck.  The army was powerless before the people they had come to punish.  All that remained to do was to forgive the Mormons and let them go.

Through the pressure brought to bear, the President was induced to stop the threatened war.  On the 6th of April he signed a proclamation promising amnesty to all who returned to their allegiance; and on the 26th of June, 1858, the army of Utah entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Thus ended this farcical demonstration on the part of the government —­a war without a battle!  There was, perhaps, no genuine basis of necessity upon which to organize the expensive and disastrous expedition against the Mormons.  The real cause, perhaps, should be attributed to the clamour of other religious sects against what they held to be an unorthodox belief.

The City of Salt Lake, the capital of the Mormon settlement, was founded upon the arrival of that sect in the valley in 1847.  It is situated in latitude 40 degrees 46 minutes north, and longitude 112 degrees 6 minutes west, (from Greenwich), at the foot of the western slope of the Wahsatch Mountains, an extensive chain of lofty hills, forming a portion of the eastern boundary of what is known in our geography as the Great Basin.

The growth of this delightful mountain city in its arid, desolate environment is a monument to the patience, industry, and devotion to a principle which has few parallels.