JULY 31, 1864:
Under
the direction of Confederate Chief Surgeon Isaiah H. White, the inmate hospital
at Andersonville P.O.W. Camp (Fort Sumter) is enlarged to accommodate 1,400
patients. This improves conditions almost not at all. The men are living in 700
tents, there are few permanent structures, and the food is a thin gruel (when
it is available at all). 6,315 of the 30,000 prisoners are sick with scurvy,
gangrene, and dysentery, along with 517 of the 2,700 Confederates on post.
Brigham Young, the leader of the Church of Latter Day Saints
(Mormons) gives a fiery sermon castigating all non-Mormon gentiles and
criticizing the form of government of the United States as being “an
ursurpation of the government of the Son of God.”
Young loathes the United States. Presidents Fillmore, Pierce
and Buchanan had all dispatched troops to subdue Mormon hostility toward
gentiles. Buchanan, in one of his few assertive acts as President, forcibly
removed Young as Governor of the Utah Territory, citing the Establishment
Clause.
Young likewise dislikes the Confederacy which he sees as
“godless” --- but he refuses to aid the Union. During the Civil War, a Mormon cavalry troop
based in Salt Lake City, “The Nauvoo Legion” made up of 100 young men sides
with the Union until Young threatens them with banishment. They quickly disband.
Only a very few banished Mormons actually fight in the Civil War, and as might
be expected, they fight on both sides.
When asked what he is going to do about the Mormons, who
have begun harassing transcontinental settlers who wander into their realm of Deseret,
President Lincoln answers sagely, “As they are the least of my problems right
now I propose to do nothing about them.”
