Santa Fe Trail

During the Mexican War of 1846 James K. Polk, president of the United States, requested five hundred Mormon men to help in the war effort. What has been called the longest infantry march in history—approximately 1,850 miles—began 20 July 1846 on the Little Pony River in Council Bluffs, Iowa. 

 

On August 13, the battalion intersected with the Santa Fe Trail. Near Lyons, the men first sighted buffalo. At the famous Great Bend on the Arkansas River, they picked up the river trail and followed it to Ingalls in Gray County. Soon after reaching the Arkansas they sighted Pawnee Rock to the northwest, a famous landmark on the trail.

 

Francis Parkman, a famous historian, noted meeting the battalion near Larned, Kansas. Near Dodge City some wagon ruts are still visible. At Ingalls the battalion crossed the Arkansas and marched towards the Cimarron River. Although none of the infantry were killed on the trail, several became sick. At the Arkansas crossing the first of three sick detachments, tenmen and several families, were sent back along the Arkansas to Fort Pueblo to spend the winter. The advance companies of the battalion reached Santa Fe the evening of October 9 and camped in a wheat field back of the cathedral. They had by then marched nearly eight hundred miles from Fort Leavenworth and nearly one thousand from Council Bluffs (Kimball, 1979).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the complete article of the Mormon Battalion March along the Santa Fe Trail, visit the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints Magazine.