Plans for their spring departure scrambled, however, when rumors of probable federal interference caused the Twelve to jumpstart the evacuation early, beginning on Feb. 4, 1846. This rushed departure for those ready enough to go, and for too many who left unprepared, broke up the earlier assignments of people to wagon companies. A huge encampment sprawled along Sugar Creek, eight miles from Nauvoo, jammed with tents and covered wagons and constant crackling campfires that semi-protected about 3,000 outdoor Saints. The wind blows, one can hardly get to the fire for the smoke and we have no tent,'' Patty Session wrote Feb. 16. Discomfort came, too, from feelings of loss and hurt over unsold homes and farms and from leaving behind their unique city and temple.
Good people make the best of bad circumstances.
They were six weeks too early for prairie grasses. So, they skirted the Missouri border in southern Iowa, on crude existing roads part of the way, so they could send traders south into Missouri settlements for feed and food. At Bonaparte, a tiny village on the Des Moines River, they forded that river on March 5 over a rock shelf just below the surface. Some Saints lugged wheat to the Bonaparte mill and returned with flour. Several dropped out of the trek temporarily for a few days or weeks to work nearby.