from the city on the previous day, and prepared to hold their festival under bowers built of fragrant pines and cedars around a little lake far up among the mountains.  During the afternoon of the 24th, while they were engaged in music, dancing, and every manner of lively sport, two dusty messengers rode up the canon, bringing from the States the news of the stoppage of the mail and of the approaching march of the troops.  This mode of announcement was probably preconcerted with Brigham Young, who was undoubtedly aware of the facts on the preceding day.  A scene of the maddest confusion ensued, which was heightened by the inflammatory speeches of the Mormon leaders.  Young reminded the fanatical throng, that, ten years ago that very day, he had said, “Give us ten years of peace and we will ask no odds of the United States”; and he added, that the ten years had passed, and now they asked no odds,—­that they constituted henceforth a free and independent state, to be known no longer as Utah, but by their own Mormon name of Deseret.  Kimball, the second in authority in the Church, called on the people to adhere to Brigham, as their “prophet, seer, and revelator, priest, governor, and king.”  The sun set on the first overt act in the rebellion.  The fanatics, wending their way back to the city, across the broad plain, in the moonlight, were ready to follow wherever Brigham Young might choose to lead.

On the succeeding Sundays the spirit of rebellion was breathed from the pulpit in language yet more intemperate, and often profane and obscene.  Military preparations were made with the greatest bustle; and the Nauvoo Legion—­under which name, transplanted from Illinois, the militia were organized—­was drilled daily in the streets of the city.  The martial fervor ran so high that even the boys paraded with wooden spears and guns, and the little ragamuffins were inspected and patted on the head by venerable and veritable Fathers of the Church.

In total ignorance that the standard of rebellion had already been raised, General Harney, in the beginning of August, detached Captain Van Vliet, the Quarter-master on his staff, to proceed rapidly to Utah to make arrangements for the reception of the army in the Valley.  He passed the troops in the vicinity of Fort Laramie.  About thirty miles west of Green River he was met by a party of Mormons, who escorted him, accompanied only by his servant, to the city.  There he was politely treated, but informed that his mission would be fruitless, for the Mormon people were determined to resist the ingress of the troops.  At a meeting in the Tabernacle, at which the Captain was present on the platform, when Brigham Young called on the audience for an expression of opinion, every hand was raised in favor of the policy of resistance, and in expression of willingness, if it should become necessary, to abandon harvest and homestead, retreat with the women to the mountains, and wage there a war of extermination.