Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-01-16
THE ATTITUDE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.

THE ATTITUDE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.
On the sth Of October, Brigham Young deliv-
cred a speech in the Tabernacle in relation to
the advance Of the United States troops into
the Territory. He said:
We have sought for peace all the day long,
and have sought for peace with the army now
on your borders, and have warned them that
We all must firmly believe that they are sent
here solely with view to destroy this people,
though they may be ignorant of that fact and
though we may believe that they are sent by
the Government of the United States, yet /. as
Governor of this Territory, have no business to
know any such thing until | am notified by
proper authority at Washington. I have a
right to treat them as a mob, just as though
they had been raised and oficered in Missouri
and sent here expressly to destroy this people
We have been very mereiful and very lenient
to them. As informed them in my unoffi cial
letter. had they been those mobocrats who
mObbed us in Missouri. they never would have
seen the South Pass We had plenty of boys on
hand, and the mode OF warfare they would have
met with they are not acquainted with.
L would just as soon tell them as to tell YOU
OF my mode of warfare. As the Lord God lives
we will waste our enemies by millions If they
send them here to destroy us, and not a man of
Us be hurt That is the method intend to pur-
sue. Do You want to know what is going to be
they como here, L will tell you what will be
done. As soon as they start to come into our
settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes
and slumber from their eyelids, until they sleep
In death. for they have been warned and fore
warned that we will not tamely submit to being
destroyed. Men shall be secreted here and
there, and shall waste away our enemies in the
name Of Israel's God.
Col. Alexander complains of our mode of war
fare. They have two or more field batteries of
artillery with them, and they want US to form
line Of battle i'll an open plain and give them
fair chance to shoot US. / did not tell their
Colonel what l thought, but if he had a spark
of sense he must be fool to think that we will
ever do any such thing. am going to observe
the old maxim:
'' He that d hits and runs away,
Lives TO tight another day"
Should our enemies venture upon violent
measures, i design to so manage affairs that
none of our boys will be killed; and in nv an
swer to the General l have told him pretty
plainly what we shall do under certain contin-
gencies.
What they will do neither know nor care.
for it will be just the Lord wills it, If lie
sees that We need their substance, he will turn
things to that end; and He designs them to be
wiped out, He will either cause them to under
take to come here, or will Overrule some other
plan to accomplish that end.
Another year, am going to prepare for the
worst, and want you to prepare to cache our
grain and lay waste this Territory; for L am
determined, if driven to that extremity, that
our enemies shall find nothing but heaps of
ashes and ruins. We will be 80 prepared that
in few days all can be consumed / shall re-
quest the bishops to see that the people in their
wards are provided with two or three years
provisions There is enough already in many
places this season to supply the people frsn
two to three years, and wish them to take care
OF it, though L expect that in all probability
We will raise great many crops before our
enemies again come here to disturb u.s. and I
expect that We are fully able to defend our
selves. and that our enemies will not be able
10 come within a hundred miles of US. know
that ten men, such as could name and select,
could stop them before they got to Laramie
And If VIC had seen fit to have sent such men
this season, they alone could very easily have
30 stopped our enemies that they never would
have got through the Black Hills. count five
such men equal to twenty-five thousand and
believe that two of them could put ten thou
sand to flight. / believe we are now where
that could be done. / will take five or ten
such As | can name, and if two can put ten
thousand to flight am sure that ten are able
to do it.
Our enemies in the last treaty they made
with US, should have stipulated that we should
have gone only short distance, So that We
"Ouiu not DC out Oh tcelr rcach. They had
better have made that stipulation, but they
did not have wisdom, or they would have stop
ped US from going 40 far over the sage plains.
that II Is impossible for an army to bring pro-
visions enough tO last them here
Il have been told that the first artillery COM
pany, upon its arrival at Laramie loaded up
all the grain they could haul to feed their mule
teams, and when they reached the Devils Gate
they sent forward after their grain from their
freight trains, and then they had not enough
To last them to Hams Fork. 1t il impossible
Tor them to load up teams with sufficient forage
20 last them TO Green River; and the more
men they send the more there are to eat up
what the mule and OK trains haul and the con-
sequence Is that the more men they send the
worse ii is all the time
If they undertake to send fifty thousand men
to Utah, Will venture to say that they cannot
raise so large force in the United States but
what would cut each others throats before they
travelled thousand miles across the plains. to
say nothing about any other persons molestiny
them. They would be cursiny. damniny and
bowling all the way. L know that the com
paratiyely few scattered here and there over
the country and in tho mountains can spoil
their march before they could get here.
We also perceive that the proposition to de-
clare Brigham Young L" Prophet, Seer, and
Revelation" of the Mormon people, was sus-
tanned unanimously in the Tabernacle
.R" Ex-President Fillmore accordinS IN the