History of the Saints

Utah War Part 1: Beginnings

The Latter-day Saints had known persecution from the beginning, having been driven as a people from New York and then Ohio. The Saints thought they had found a home in Missouri in 1838, only to have hostilities erupt and escalate into a war of extermination against them. A few years later they left Nauvoo, Illinois, for a new home in the Rocky Mountains. Here they hoped to be safe from mobs ever after. So imagine their shock and trepidation when they learned in July 1857 that a federal army was coming against them. This event in history is seldom remembered but it was a dark time for the Latter-day Saints as a people. It was the Utah War!