Elder Ballard dedicates Mormon Battalion plaza

SALT LAKE CITY — Brigham Young pledged that the Mormon Battalion would be held "in honorable remembrance to the latest generation." Now, those 500 Mormons who enlisted in 1846 as U.S. Army soldiers in the war with Mexico are honored at This Is the Place Heritage Park, the Emigration Canyon location where the LDS Church president himself led his pioneer followers into the Salt Lake Valley.

Before several hundred spectators, Elder M. Russell Ballard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Quorum of the Twelve on Saturday dedicated a new plaza near the park entrance. It features bronze statuary and bas-relief sculpture honoring the sacrifice and dedication of the battalion volunteers, who left their exiled families on the Iowa-Nebraska border. They did so at the behest of their country and of Brigham Young himself, who saw the enlistment as a way to demonstrate the patriotism of the Mormons and to help pay the cost of the westward trek to their Great Basin refuge from religious persecution.

Two heroic-size sculptures by Steven L. Neal, a Pendleton, Ore., plastic surgeon, dominate the plaza.

"Duty Calls" depicts Brigham Young with his hand on the shoulder of a departing enlistee stooped down to receive the embrace of his young daughter, his arm around his wife who, with tears in her eyes, holds an infant.

"Duty Triumphs" features two soldiers assisting a comrade who is obviously suffering from thirst and fatigue. Another soldier is depicted kneeling in prayer, while yet another battalion man clutches an American flag in a triumphal gesture as he and his wife gaze heavenward in gratitude.

Among other elements of the plaza, a bas-relief sculpture honors the Mormons who left from New York aboard the ship Brooklyn, sailed around Cape Horn, landed at present-day San Francisco and eventually rendezvoused with the pioneers who followed Brigham Young to the Great Basin. Another bas-relief honors the wives of battalion volunteers, a few of whom went along with the military companies as laundresses, but most of whom stayed behind to make their way West as best they could and await the return of their soldier-husbands.

In the forefront of the plaza is yet another bas-relief, proclaiming the battalion trek as "one of the longest infantry marches in U.S. history" and displaying a map with landmarks along the 2,000-mile route from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the California coast.

"Even with all of their heartache and sorrow and all the problems they had, they did have a sense of humor," Elder Ballard said of the battalion enlistees. He cited a journal entry from one of the soldiers, who told of being dragged and whipped around after grasping one of the pack mules by the ears.