As fascinated as I am with the history of the Utah War and its participants on both side, I'm not sure that I "get" the relevance of a revolver acquired decades after that conflict to be auctioned two months from now in a distant New England state at an asking price as yet undisclosed. (I'm surprised that the "News" didn't cover the recent sale of the gold and ivory headed cane presented to Camp Floyd's assistant foragemaster, Elon John Farnsworth, upon entering the University of Michigan in the mid-1850s. Maybe Richard Whitehead Young's Spanish-American War inkwell will be covered in due time.) I'd have rather seen the "News" dig into Van Vliet's 1859 request of Brigham Young that he use Utah Territory's quota to obtain a West Point appointment for his half-brother and Young's instant efforts to comply. There was a little-known reciprocal relationship between Brigham Young and Stewart Van Vliet second only to that between Young and Thomas L. Kane. Now THAT, and Van Vliet's initial protest against his dispatch to Utah in July 1857, are worth writing about.

Relationship between Stewart Van Vilet and Brigham Young may have been difficult at best,"Do you think that we will ever be admitted as a state into the union without denying the priciple of polygamy? If we are not admitted until then,we shall never be admitted.' (JOD vol 11 p 269)Brigham Young