The distance of Salt Lake
City from the camp on Ham's Fork was by this route nearly three hundred
miles,--while the distance by the road past Fort Bridger, through the
canons, was less than one hundred and fifty miles. At that fort, about
twenty miles west from the encampment of the army, the Mormon marauding
parties had their head-quarters and principal _depot_. It was there that
Colonel Alexander was ordered, about this time, by Brigham Young,
to surrender his arms to the Mormon Quartermaster-General, on which
condition and an agreement to depart eastward early the following
spring, he and his troops should be fed during the winter; otherwise,
Young added, they would perish from hunger and cold, and rot among the
mountains. In his perplexity, Colonel Alexander called a council of
war, and, with its approval, resolved to commence a march towards Soda
Springs, leaving Fort Bridger unmolested on his left. For more than
a fortnight the army toiled along Ham's Fork, cutting a road through
thickets of greasewood and wild sage, incumbered by a train of such
unwieldy length that often the advance-guard reached its camp at night
before the rear-guard had moved from the camp of the preceding day, and
harassed by Mormon marauding parties from the Fort, which hung about the
flanks out of the reach of rifle-shot, awaiting opportunities to descend
on unprotected wagons and cattle.
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