Group honors Utah's ties to the Civil War
Mount is a Civil War re-enactor along with his buddies in the Utah Civil War Association who dress up in Union or Confederate uniforms on certain days — including Memorial Day, which was begun to honor fallen Union soldiers — and re-enact battles and other important events. This year, on Sunday and today, they'll be at Camp Floyd doing drills, demonstrations and participating in a memorial service.
Mount is originally from New Jersey, where re-enactments are more common. Utah's involvement in the Civil War is lesser known and many people interested in living history get involved in Wild West-themed groups instead.
"We're all slightly insane," Mount said.
But even though he recognizes that love for that time period is limited in Utah, he wishes more people understood how intertwined Utah history is with the conflict. Early Utahns mostly stayed out of the war between the states, preferring to nurse long-held resentment over their shabby treatment by the Union. But Utah Territory actually played an important role during the war and was immensely affected by it.
The beginning of the war in the spring of 1861 was a blessing in disguise for Utah Mormons. Territorial Gov. Alfred Cumming and Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston of Johnston's Army, among others, quietly found their ways South, where their loyalties lay. Johnston, who had led U.S. troops into the territory in 1857-58 to quell a purported "Mormon uprising," would later bleed to death at the Battle of Shiloh. Many of his officers would go on to have distinguished careers on both sides, many leading troops at Gettysburg.
Camp Floyd, the thorn in the side of Salt Lake City since the arrival of Johnston, was closed. Even the camp's namesake, John B. Floyd, defected to the Confederacy. The camp and its supporting town, Fairfield, were the third-largest community in the territory, with almost 10,000 people — and consequently, it was also the largest concentration of non-Mormon "gentiles." When Col. Philip Cooke, Johnston's replacement, was ordered to disband the fort, it instantly became a ghost town. Cooke needed to get rid of assets fast and ended up selling about $4 million worth of supplies to the Mormons for $100,000.
Many Utahns blamed Abraham Lincoln for the South's secession. Democrat James Buchanan had sent Johnston to Utah, but he had preserved the Union, which Mormons believed was a divinely formed nation. Furthermore, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held a deep resentment toward Lincoln's Republican Party since it made the dissolution of slavery and polygamy, then being practiced in the territory, its two main goals in 1856.
Recent comments
Col. Phillip St. George Cooke was not Johnston's replacement....
Curtis Allen | May 26, 2008 at 8:21 a.m.
