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The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 [6] [7] and 559 [8] [Note 1] Latter-day Saint men, led by Mormon company officers commanded by regular United States Army officers. During its service, the battalion made a grueling march of nearly 1,950 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa , to San Diego, California .
On January 18, 1997, 2,400 church members re-enacted the arrival of the Mormon Battalion in California 150 years earlier. Other Mormon Battalion celebrations along the coast followed on respective anniversaries.
The Mormon Battalion was the only religious unit in United States military history to be recruited solely from one religious body and having a religious title as the unit designation. [5] The volunteers served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican–American War.
The unit was a contingent of about 500 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who forged the first reliable wagon route from New Mexico to California.
Other American forces followed including Colonel Sterling Price and the Second Missouri Mounted Volunteer Regiment and the famous Mormon Battalion, the only religious unit in American military history. Months later the 1st New York Volunteer Infantry and some regular army units arrived by ship
The Mormon Battalion was raised at the express invitation of President James K. Polk, not as part of any state or territorial requisition for troops. [13] The contemporary official Army documents refer to the unit in the following ways; Prior to Allen recruiting the unit as, "Capt. Allen's Battalion of Volunteers". [14]
Tragedy Spring is a small alpine freshwater spring and historical site in eastern Amador County, California adjacent to Highway 88 approximately two miles west of Silver Lake. It was named after an incident on June 27, 1848, in which three Mormon men were killed adjacent to the spring, allegedly by Native Americans, and their bodies burned and ...
Mormon Battalion; Mormon Battalion Historic Site; Mormon Battalion Monument (Presidio Park, San Diego) Mormon Battalion Monument (Sandoval County, New Mexico) Mormon Battalion Monument (Salt Lake City)