disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little
power for truth and right. And now it will be broken in pieces like a
potter's vessel."

These public rejoicings, however, brought a further trial upon the
Saints. The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalry
were now ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was one Connor,
an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south. It was said
that he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and
detachments to arrest and imprison "until they took the oath of
allegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering
treasonable sentiments against the government of the United States."
Even liberty of opinion, it appeared, was thus to be strangled in these
last days before the Lord came.

Further, this ill-tempered Gentile, instead of keeping decently remote
from Salt Lake City, as General Johnston had done, had marched his
troops into the very stronghold of Zion, despite all threats of armed
opposition, and in the face of a specific offer from one Prophet, Seer,
and Revelator to wager him a large sum of money that his forces would
never cross the River Jordan. To this fair offer, so reports ran, the
Gentile officer had replied that he would cross the Jordan if hell
yawned below it; that he had thereupon viciously pulled the ends of a
grizzled, gray moustache and proceeded to behave very much as an officer
would be expected to behave who was commonly known as "old Pat Connor."

Knowing that the forces of the Saints outnumbered his own, and that he
was, in his own phrase, "six hundred miles of sand from reinforcements,"
he had halted his command two miles from the city, formed his column
with an advance-guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry and