In Dave Bigler's characteristic good-humored and gentle way, Confessions or a Revisionist Historian includes eighteen articles, essays, presentations, tributes, and a love story that showcase what fellow historian Polly Aird called Mr. Bigler's "legacy of path-breaking research, honesty, and historical integrity." This work stands as an enduring tribute to a gifted chronicler's ability to examine the facts, step outside the box of the venerated interpretation, and evaluate the evidence in an new way. This perceptive historian offers original insights into the significant human events that define today's American West.

Confessions of a Revisionist Historian: David L. Bigler on the Mormons and the West (Utah, the Mormons, and the West, 16)

History

Bigler, David L.

Americas

Tanner Trust Fund

In 1857 President James Buchanan ordered U.S. troops to Utah to replace Brigham Young as governor and restore order in what the federal government viewed as a territory in rebellion. In this compelling narrative, award-winning authors David L. Bigler and Will Bagley use long-suppressed sources to show that—contrary to common perception—the Mormon rebellion was not the result of Buchanan's "blunder," nor was it a David-and-Goliath tale in which an abused religious minority heroically defied the imperial ambitions of an unjust and tyrannical government. They argue that Mormon leaders had their own far-reaching ambitions and fully intended to establish an independent nation—the Kingdom of God—in the West.
Long overshadowed by the Civil War, the tragic story of this conflict involved a tense and protracted clash pitting Brigham Young's Nauvoo Legion against Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston and the U.S. Army's Utah Expedition. In the end, the conflict between the two armies saw no pitched battles, but in the authors' view, Buchanan's decision to order troops to Utah, his so-called blunder, eventually proved decisive and beneficial for both Mormons and the American republic.
A rich exploration of events and forces that presaged the Civil War, The Mormon Rebellion broadens our understanding of both antebellum America and Utah's frontier theocracy and offers a challenging reinterpretation of a controversial chapter in Mormon annals.

The Mormon Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857–1858

Bagley, Will

University of Oklahoma Press

Mormonism's formative years in the West have never been evaluated with the clarity and objectivity David L. Bigler brings to the story of our nation's most unique territory and its proud and peculiar people. Forgotten Kingdom combines an insightful understanding of the theology of early Mormonism with a lifetime of research into federal and LDS church sources to forge a creative reinterpretation of this fascinating and contentious history. Early settlement, Indian affairs, the Reformation, handcart migration, and much more are discussed in the early chapters. Forgotten Kingdom objectively evaluates some of the most troublesome puzzles in Mormonism's history and presents some intriguing solutions to many of its mysteries. The bitter political battle between the federal government and the Mormon church is told with special emphasis on the forgotten men and women who lived with its consequences. Meeting the standards of the most demanding scholarship, Forgotten Kingdom tells a story so odd and interesting that it both challenges and entertains. Bigler's gentle wit seldom misses the high irony of a story that has entertained Western observers since Samuel Clemens. A fascinating cast of little-known Latter-day Saints, including Hannah Tapfield King, Joseph Morris, Jeter Clinton, Sylvanus Collett, George Reynolds, Lydia Spencer Clawson, and George Hill, shows both the diversity of opinion within the faith and the devotion of its people to their institutions. The Utah War of 1857 was a pivotal episode in Utah's history. This event and those which led up to it are often given scant treatment in previous histories of the period. The reader will find the author's meticulous research and clear prose enlightening on this topic and others. California, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, and other western lands were impacted by the Mormon theocracy's battle for independence. Nevada became a separate entity because its early settlers rejected theocratic rule and Congress determined to cut Mormon domains back to governable size. This history is not limited to Utah, but reflects a broad view of the history of the Far West. Patrick E. Connor, Daniel S. Tuttle, Duncan J. McMillan, Charles S. Zane, Robert N. Baskin, Caleb W. West, Clarence E. Allen, and many others are among the forgotten leaders whose role in the Americanization of Mormonism is often overlooked in the traditional histories. Their stories are told in this volume.

The Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896 (Volume 2) (Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier Series)

The Arthur H. Clark Company

"History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry," said Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke in commending the Mormon Battalion for its epic march in 1846 from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego and Los Angeles to claim California for the United States. Yet this historic journey across the Southwest during the War with Mexico was but one of the reasons the Mormon Battalion holds a unique place in the story of America's western migration during the nineteenth century. Army of Israel puts to rest ancient myths and sheds new light on forgotten heroes, both male and female. Recruited from a single religious organization, this battalion was perhaps the most unusual body of men ever to serve in America's armed forces. Between 1846 and 1848 its members played pivotal roles in events of such magnitude that they continue to shape the nation's destiny and the lives of its people. This documentary study seeks to place the larger political and military role of the Mormon Battalion in the context of the history of the American West through the papers and accounts of the participants, supplemented with thorough explanatory text, notes, and references. A fine addition to the Kingdom in the West Series. The March: Without opposition or firing a shot, the Mormon infantry tramped across the width of what was then northern Mexico and built a road as they went-Cooke's Wagon Road. Their explorations helped influence the decision in 1853 to acquire the Gadsden Purchase in southern Arizona. Service in California: The good behavior and industry of battalion members accomplished far more than the muskets they shouldered in pacifying California. They defended ranches against raids by hostile natives, they sank wells, manufactured bricks, and built new buildings at Los Angeles and San Diego. The command arrived too late to take part in the last battles of the American occupation, but just in time to carry out President Polk's orders to treat the people of the region as fellow citizens, not as subjugated enemies, reversing the damage done by Robert Stockton and his underlings. Explorations and Adventure: Besides exploring and building Cooke's Wagon Road across the Southwest, men chosen from the battalion escorted General Kearny and party, including Fremont, to Fort Leavenworth in 1847. Near Donner Lake in the Sierra Nevada, they buried the bodies of Donner party members who had perished in the snow over the previous winter. Battalion veterans opened a new wagon road over the Sierra Nevada, known today as the Mormon-Carson Emigrant Trail, which became in 1849 the main thoroughfare of the gold rush to the new El Dorado. They pioneered Hensley's Salt Lake Cutoff, one of the California Trail's major branches and blazed the wagon road from Los Angeles to Salt Lake. The Gold Rush: Battalion veterans in California witnessed an event that would transform the nation almost overnight and touch off a massive population shift west that still continues. As employees of James Marshall and John Sutter, two of these men-and two only-would record the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill and the day it happened, 24 January 1848. Other veterans soon scored the first major gold strike when they discovered the rich placer diggings at Mormon Island. New Voices from the Borderlands: Army of Israel contains dozens of previously unpublished eyewitness accounts of the American conquest of the Southwest, including narratives by the fortotten Mormons who spent the winter of 1846 in today's Colorado. The accounts include a moving set of women's letters and colorful descriptions of encounters with Apache moonshiners, freebooting Mountaineers, ruthless Comancheros, Wakara's horse raiders, and heroic Mexican patriots.

Army of Israel: Mormon Battalion Narratives (Volume 4) (Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier Series)

In 1855 the Mormons established a mission at the foot of famous Lemhi Pass near Salmon River, where the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery first crossed the Continental Divide and Sacagawea was reunited with her brother. Fort Limhi was, at first, part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' outreach to the Indians throughout the West. But the mission soon assumed a critical role in Brigham Young's plans for the Saints as they faced the imminent confrontation with the U.S. government which came to be known as the Utah War. Fort Limhi: The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory is an innovative account of a fascinating but forgotten story. Journals, diaries, letters and recollections of the men and women who served at the mission during the three years of its existence provide a wealth of information about native history and culture in eastern Idaho. The Mormon missionaries intentionally selected a spot that put them at the crossroads of ancient trails used by Nez Percé, Shoshone, Bannock, and Flathead bands as they battled each other and pursued their annual pilgrimages to trade, harvest salmon, and hunt buffalo. The sources also cast important light on little-known trails followed by Indians, traders, and emigrants. Ordinary western folk who survived an extraordinary exploit tell their stories in their own words, and these narratives are dramatic, compelling, ironic, enlightening, and downright fun. With its astonishing fish stories, desperate Indian battles, life-threatening chases, and heroic rides to rescue a terrified and helpless outpost, this work has all the elements of a great frontier novel. It even tells of the star-crossed love of Lewis Shurtliff and Louisa Moore, whose romance, like the story of Fort Limhi, came to a tragic ending. Historians often seemed baffled by Brigham Young's visit to Fort Limhi in 1857 while the fires of the Mormon Reformation burned in Utah and the territory's relationship with the federal government was collapsing. Young's trip was far more than a vacation for his family and advisors. As award-winning author David Bigler reveals, the Salmon River Indian Mission played a pivotal role in the resolution of the Utah War of 1857-1858. The catastrophe that ended the colony at Fort Limhi brought Utah back from the very brink of war with the United States. Fort Limhi provides new material on the obscure fur-trade veterans and misfits who called themselves "mountaineers" (the contemporary term for that "majority of scoundrels" now known as the fearless "Mountain Men") and sheds light on their contentious relations with their Mormon neighbors. The story of Fort Limhi has long deserved a larger role in the history of Idaho and Montana. It provides new insights into the role of Mormons in the West and their Indian relations, and explains some long-standing puzzles about the Utah War of 1857-1858.

Fort Limhi: The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory 1855–1858 (Volume 6) (Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier Series)