At Sword's Point, Part 1; A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858

546, [6] pages. Volume 10 of the Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier series. Includes Footnotes, Illustrations, Foreword, Acknowledgments, Editorial Procedures, and Introduction. Chapters cover "Like a Thousand o-Brick"; Happy Fighting Led by Inspired Men: Approaching the Flash Point, 1856; "See the Red Stuff Run": Awaiting Buchanan; "Dancing on a Volcano"; The Change in Administrations; "It's a Hell of a Place"; The Decision to Intervene; "President Young Says that He Would Build a Fort" Utah Prepares for the Storm; "To Conquer Both Time and Distance"; Harney Organizes the Expedition; In Pharaoh's Army: Teamsters, Reporters, and soldiers West; "We Will Make a Potter's Field of Every Canyon: Young and the Legion Respond; "Bring Home All the Powder and Lead": The Quest for Arms and Munitions; "If We Are Driven into Extreme Measures"; "Lonely Bones"; "Like Stubble before a Wirlwing"; "Staggering Along Like so Many Drunken Men"; "My Thoughts upon Utah Matters". William P. MacKinnon, an American independent historian. A management consultant, MacKinnon is a historian of the American West, Mormon history, and Utah history who was described by Richard E. Turley in 2018 as "the acknowledged expert" and by Thomas G. Alexander in 2019 as "the most knowledgeable authority" on what was known in its time as the American War of the Mormons' Succession (or more recently "the Utah War"), a topic of which MacKinnon began his study as a Yale sophomore history major in 1958. The Utah War of 1857-58, the unprecedented armed confrontation between Mormon Utah Territory and the U.S. government, was the most extensive American military action between the Mexican and Civil wars. At Sword's Point presents in two volumes the first in-depth narrative and documentary history of that extraordinary conflict. William P. MacKinnon offers a lively narrative linking firsthand accounts, most previously unknown, from soldiers and civilians on both sides. This first volume traces the war's causes and preliminary events, including President Buchanan's decision to replace Brigham Young as governor of Utah and restore federal authority through a large army expedition. Also examined are Young's defensive-aggressive reactions, the onset of armed hostilities, and Thomas L. Kane's departure at the end of 1857 for his now-famous mediating mission to Utah. MacKinnon provides a balanced, comprehensive account, based on a half century of research and a wealth of carefully selected new material. Women's voices from both sides enrich this colorful story. At Sword's Point presents the Utah War as a sprawling confrontation with regional and international as well as territorial impact. As a nonpartisan definitive work, it eclipses previous studies of this remarkably bloody turning point in western, military, and Mormon history. The Utah War (1857-1858), also known as the Utah Expedition, Utah Campaign, Buchanan's Blunder] the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the US government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 to July 1858. There were some casualties, most of which were non-Mormon civilians. The war had no notable military battles. The confrontation between the Mormon militia, called the Nauvoo Legion, and the U.S. Army involved some destruction of property and a few brief skirmishes in what is today southwestern Wyoming, but no battles occurred between the contending military forces. In the end, negotiations between the United States and the Latter-day Saints resulted in a full pardon for the Mormons (except those involved in the Mountain Meadows murders), the transfer of Utah's governorship from church President Brigham Young to non-Mormon Alfred Cumming, and the peaceful entrance of the U.S. Army into Utah. …