Camp Floyd

The sagebrush covering Utah's nearly forgotten Camp Floyd looks nothing like the hallowed and often-visited green hills of Gettysburg, the cornfields of Sharpsburg, the Mississippi banks near Shiloh Chapel nor Vicksburg's red-clay bluff.

But they have something in common. The same actors used them as backdrops to stage different acts of the Civil War. Camp Floyd's run from 1858 to 1861 was more like the Civil War's prologue or "greenroom," where actors gather before a performance.

A search by the Deseret Morning News of Army histories and rosters shows that at least 59 Civil War generals — 30 for the Union and 29 for the Confederacy — earlier served as junior officers in the "Utah War" or at the Camp Floyd it created to quell a rumored Mormon rebellion.

The fort in Cedar Valley, 36 miles from Salt Lake City, was once the nation's largest military installation with 3,500 troops, nearly a third of all U.S. soldiers at the time. Only a cemetery and a commissary building remain.

Generals who rose from Camp Floyd's ranks fought in virtually every major battle of the war, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox, including 20 who faced each other at Gettysburg alone.

The Utah War

The Utah War and the Camp Floyd it created foreshadowed how the nation would try to deal with perceived rebellion, how people invaded would react and how traits of some of its soldiers later would have heroic or tragic consequences.

The Utah War began when federal judges in Utah territory convinced President James Buchanan that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refused to subject themselves to the judges' rulings and federal law.

Buchanan appointed new territorial officials, including a governor to replace then-Gov. Brigham Young, and sent an army to ensure their installation despite perceived rebellion.

Some historians argue Buchanan tried to unite the nation by diverting attention away from slavery by focusing on polygamy — which rival Republicans were calling one of the "twin relics of barbarism" along with slavery.