On 26 June 1858, COL Albert Sidney Johnston ordered his troops forward, marching them towards Salt Lake City. For over a year, they had endured cold, hunger, and grueling marches. Now, as they entered Salt Lake City, they found it abandoned -- ...

In March 1858, Thomas Kane’s efforts to end the Utah War had been fruitless.  a week with COL Albert Sidney Johnston and the U.S. Army on the plains of Wyoming. President James Buchanan had sent the Army to Utah, to remove Brigham Young as...

On the night of 9 March 1858, Thomas L. Kane was trudging through a heavy snow storm on his self-appointed mission to End the Utah War. He had convinced Brigham Young and Church Leaders to extend an olive branch to the Army Expedition by offeri...

In February 1858, the Latter-day Saints and the U.S. Army were in an armed standoff on the frozen plains of Wyoming.  The Army, under the command of COL Albert Sidney Johnston, were on half rations, and suffering from a lack of salt. The L...

This episode continues the adventures of Thomas L. Kane, who left his home in February 1858 and set out for Salt Lake City.  His self-imposed mission was to stop the Utah War.  His plan was, as his wife Elizabeth later wrote, was ...

At the crisis of the Utah War -- Arguably the most dangerous moment in the history of the Latter-day Saints -- Colonel Thomas Kane set out on a bold plan: He would travel to Utah and Wyoming, in the dead of winter, throw himself between the U.S...

Before Lot Smith’s raid on the Wagon Supplies, conventional wisdom in the Government and the Nation seemed to be that talk of the Latter-day Saints actually resisting the Army was just that – Talk.   But when news of the raid finally reach...

In the 1920s, an elderly and well-respected Oregon Rancher, Charlie Becker, prepared a sketch of his adventurous life, the places he had seen, the adventures he had lived, and the hardships he had overcome. He also disclosed that, as a young ma...

In August of 1857, Brigham Young delivered a speech to the saints assembled in the Tabernacle.  As he contemplated the Army force marching closer to the home of the Saints, he bitterly remembered how, over the last he and the Latter-day Sa...

In 1857, the Buchanan Administration sent an Army Expedition to Utah.  It was sure to be an arduous, difficulty journey, with many ways to suffer and few to win glory.  But who were the Soldiers marching against the Latter-day Saints?...

On July 24, 1857, the Latter-day Saints learned – in the middle of the 10th Anniversary Celebration – that President Buchanan had ordered an Army to the Utah Territory.  Though they did not know what the Army’s mission or the intent behind...

The Utah War is one of the strangest footnotes in American History, and almost entirely forgotten.  But it was the largest military campaign the United States undertook between the Mexican War and the Civil War.  It took a third of th...

In 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – the famous author of Sherlock Holmes –  embarked on a worldwide speaking tour.  But this tour was not to sell books of his famous detective.  Instead, it was to win converts to spiritual,ism – th...

In February 1858, the United States Senate was debating a new bill from the House.  They knew that the Army, under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, was on its way to Utah to put down the reported Mormon rebellion.  Now, ...

Of all the people to go down as villains in the history of the Latter-day Saints, perhaps none were as colorful as the infamous W. W. Drummond, Federal Judge of the Utah Territory in 1855.  Arriving with a flamboyant woman whom he introduc...

Of all the people to go down as villains in the history of the Latter-day Saints, perhaps none were as colorful as the infamous W. W. Drummond, Federal Judge of the Utah Territory in 1855.  Arriving with a flamboyant woman whom he introduc...

The 1830s were a time of great religious enthusiasm across the United States and saw scores of ladies take up the call to travel from place to place, preaching faith, repentance, and the coming of judgment.  Among these women was the New H...

From the fall of 1838 through the Spring of 1839, Joseph Smith and other Church Leaders were confined in the Liberty Jail.  They had several attorneys defending them, including Peter Burnett, a Missouri lawyer and--incidentally-- one of th...

Latter-day Saints remember the conflict that has come to be known as the "The Mormon War” in Missouri in 1838.  Places like Haun’s Mill, Far West, Clay County witnessed violent and savage persecutions against the newly organized Church, an...

Latter-day Saints are familiar with the Joseph Smith’s account of his First Vision in the year 1820.  Less well known, however, are the remarkable dreams of his father, Joseph Smith Senior.  In the years leading up to his son’s first ...

 This episode draws on the account of Utah and Latter-day Saint voices who did their best to convey what it was like to fight in the Great War.   In this episode, we cover the experience of Arthur Guy Empey, a Utah native...

Soldiers who were swept up in the First World War faced a shocking level of interpersonal violence.  How did LDS Soldiers deal with fear?  What was it like for them, living under the shadow of death, violence, and suffering?  And...

This episode continues the story of Latter-day Saints in the Great War, 1914-1918.  Whether Americans, Germans, Canadians or British, Latter-day Saints either volunteered or were conscripted into their nation's Armed Forces.  Then beg...

On June 28, 1914, Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot dead by a Serbian assassin.  At the time, nobody suspected that this murder had lit the fuse to a global conflagration, a cataclysm that would swe...

This episode concludes the story of the cascade of bizarre, unintended consequences coming from Abraham Lincoln's decision to appoint John Dawson as Governor of the Utah Territory in 1861, culminating with the discovery of a massive grave robbi...