Eugene Ware - The Indian War of 1864

One of the stage-drivers who was pretty loud, got to talking about the dangers that would follow an Indian outbreak. Every man at the table had on a revolver; some of them two. This loud-talking and vivacious stage-driver said he believed that the Cheyenne Indians could come and take the post. Captain O'Brien asked him what made him think so. He made some sort of a flippant reply which brought on a controversy, and this stage-driver pretended to take offense at what the Captain said, and told the Captain that he, the stage-driver, had a notion to go across the table and break him in two.

Thereupon the Captain quickly arose with his hand on his revolver and told him that he must not talk that way, and if he wanted to do any shooting that he could always get satisfaction; that he, the Captain, would shoot toe to toe, or across the table, or across the corral, or across the prairie, or across the river. The fellow was inclined to be ugly, but as he looked at the Captain he did not think it wise to say much more.

I do not know how many of those present had their hands on their revolvers, but I guess everyone around the table. I had mine ready. The Captain said he believed he did not care to eat any more dinner where such discourtesy was shown, and he withdrew from the table with his hand on his revolver, passing out of the door, and keeping his eye upon those present; I did the same. We went out, got on our horses, and went up to the post.

It was without doubt a put-up job to get us down there at dinner and have some fun with us. Some of them had been Confederate soldiers. Of course we never knew whether there was a design to be gay with us, but we took good care not to get into such a situation again. Some of the stage-drivers we knew personally; some we did not know, but had generally regarded them all as good fellows, and, singly and personally, they were; but, in bulk they were not very desirable acquaintances for officers in blue uniform.

One day, early in December, I was up on top of our stable gazing around with my field-glass, as I often used to do, to see if anything suspicious could be seen on the horizon, or up on the hills, when I noticed a dark speck up Lodgepole Creek. It was so much enveloped in haze that I could not make it out for a long time. Finally I saw that it was a covered wagon. I bad a corporal and five men immediately go over to where it was, for fear that some Indian might rise up out of the grass and kill the traveler.

When he arrived at the post the occupant of the vehicle introduced himself to me as Mr. Cannon. He had a driver and a large, fine four-mule light-running wagon with rubber cover. I told Mr. Cannon that he would have to stay until a hundred armed men were going East. He very much opposed this, and did his utmost to persuade me to disobey my orders in such cases. He told me that he was one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon Church, and he was going East to meet an appointment, and if he were long delayed it would be very unfortunate. He told me, as every other Mormon did, that he was not afraid of the Indians, and that no Indian ever killed a Mormon. But I was compelled to hold him; told him that I could not permit the orders to be violated; would have a train ready for him as soon as possible, and that there were already quite a number of wagons in corral near the post.

Cannon was a very fine, dignified-looking gentleman, and very much inclined to talk. And when I found he was a Mormon apostle, I was very desirous of hearing what he had to say, having already had the advantage of desultory conversations with his predecessor, Elder Sharpe, of whom I have spoken. As an evangelist and lecturer on the Mormon faith, Cannon was very much superior to Sharpe. Cannon saw the dogs, and wanted to see a wolf-hunt; so I with ten men went out on horseback with him. While on the hunt he got to telling me about the Mormon faith, and its introduction by Joe Smith. There came between us a series of very interesting colloquies. I would now be unable to depict these, except that I not only made full notes of them at the time, but I also wrote them out fully in letters to my Mother, upon whose death I found them all preserved. I am able, therefore, to go into the matter with more detail than I otherwise would, but will have to condense them very much here.

I asked him how be knew that the Indians were the lost tribes of Israel. He then went on to tell me how the lost tribes of Israel wandered from their country, came to the United States, and how they increased and spread out, and prospered. Then he gave me a long history of the wars that took place between them. He told me of the battles which were fought, one after another. At the place where Cincinnati now stands a great battle had been fought. There were pursuits by one tribe of another. One tribe endeavored to annihilate another. There was a great battle where Charleston, South Carolina, now stands, and there were secretaries who acted as historians to keep run of the vicissitudes of these wide and bloody wars.

Then he told about how finally the record was made which Joe Smith found. He described to me the size of the gold plates upon which the characters containing these records were engraved. These gold plates contained it all, and had been placed in a stone box, and hidden in a hill in New York. He kept using scriptural quotations continually. He told how Joe Smith had found these plates, and had translated them. I asked him what kind of characters were on these plates. He said that he had not seen them, but he had had them described to him. He said they were not like the Roman letters, nor the Greek letters, nor the Chinese, nor the Hebrew, but they were written in a sort of elegant, cursive hand, something not unlike Pitman shorthand, smoothly, but with an entirely different character and meaning. He said nobody could read the characters without they had the tools to read them with. I asked him what he meant. He said that with these plates in the stone box there were placed two transparent pebbles, one for each eye to look through. These pebbles were rights and lefts, and must be held up before the eye, each pebble for the proper eye, and that when looking through those pebbles anybody could read the writing; that the pebbles themselves illuminated the mind of the reader, so that the reader, so long as he was looking through the pebbles, could read and understand the script, no matter what his native language was, but that he could not understand anything by simply looking at the plates with his unaided eyes.

I asked him why it was that as an apostle he had never seen these plates. He said that he did not dare to look at them. I asked him where they were. He said they were in a vault in Salt Lake; that they were sewed up in a heavy buckskin bag. He had hefted the bag, and it weighed about 25 pounds. He said that he had felt of them, and could perceive the size and thickness of the plates in the buckskin bag, but if anyone should look at those plates with unaided eyes, and without the urim and thummim they would be stricken dead. (The pebbles were named "urim" and "thummim.")

I asked him if the Mormons had any proof of immortality that any other of the religious denominations had not. He said that they had, but that the proof only came individually to those who belonged to the church, and had been consecrated. In response to further questions he gave the Mormon theory of birth and life.

He said that every person upon the earth came to the earth from heaven; that everybody was born in heaven; that in heaven the person was simply a celestial spirit without a body, and had to come to the earth to get a body, and that having come to the earth and obtained a body, that is, having been born, then they on death became angels, capable of having children; but that the children born in heaven were celestial angels, who themselves had to come down to the earth to get bodies so that they in turn might be parents of other celestial angels. He said the object is, on this earth, to furnish bodies for as many celestial angels as possible, and thereby do good, because there are great numbers of celestial angels who need and want bodies, and who are waiting to be born on this earth so as to get them. And hence the father and mother of the most children did the most good, and it was for that reason that polygamy was advocated, and so much esteemed. He said the object of polygamy is to give bodies, as many as possible, to the celestial angels who are ready to inhabit them, and therefore the more children one has on earth the higher his standing in heaven.