The Utah War was a dramatic episode in the history of the antebellum western United States. One of the most remarkable records to discuss the experience of traveling west with the Utah Expedition is the memoirs of William Clark. These were recently published anew, edited and annotated by William P. MacKinnon and Kenneth L. Alford. These authors recently discussed the Utah War in an interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.

First, it’s important to note who William Clark is. William MacKinnon made sure to point out that this was not the same William Clark as the one who co-led the Lewis and Clark expedition decades earlier. Instead,

William Clark was a farm kid from Java, Wyoming County, New York—just southeast of Buffalo—trying to shape his own destiny. As his manuscript reveals, he was a gold rusher headed to California, but he took his time, traveling west by working farm to farm.

He spent a winter in Paoli, Wisconsin—a newly settled town near the Iowa border—living with a farming family also named Clark, who had come from Vermont. During his stay, he fell in love with one of the daughters, Cora J. Clark—and she with him.

But Cora was twelve years younger, and her father told Clark she was too young. If Clark wanted a future with her, he’d have to leave, make his fortune, and return. So he kept heading west, one farm at a time, until he reached St. Louis.

At St. Louis, Clark signed on with the freighting company Majors, Russell & Waddell to assist with the transportation of beef as a supply for the Utah Expeditionary Force.

The path between St. Louis and Wyoming was an adventure in and of itself. Kenneth L. Alford shared some of those experiences:

William Clark describes several memorable experiences on the plains, including buffalo hunts that are surprisingly fun to read and offer a vivid glimpse into a very different time.

I don’t know if you ever played the computer game Oregon Trail as a kid in elementary school, but I played it with my kids when they were growing up. The thing about that game was that every player died almost every time they played.

Clark was essentially living that frontier story. He fell seriously ill on the trail and wrote about how his companions cared for him and nursed him back to health. He also recorded his encounters with Native Americans. His memoir offers a vivid snapshot of life in the 1850s West—he experienced it all, took careful notes, and later expanded them into a compelling reminiscence.

He may not have died of dysentery, but Bill Clark had some adventures similar to those portrayed in the Oregon Trail game.

The Utah Expedition was not well-planned and did not set out early enough to reach Salt Lake City before snow in the mountains. Raids by the Utah Territory militia, the Nauvoo Legion, exacerbated the issues they were facing, and the army stopped at Fort Bridger. There, William P. MacKinnon explained, “The army didn’t need teamsters at Fort Bridger—unless you were among the few hired directly by military quartermasters. Most were cut loose by their employers, unable to head west and unsafe to head east.” The army leaders worked to prevent people from heading west, but Clark and some of his friends left for California anyway. Along the way, however, Clark was captured by the Nauvoo Legion:

Kenneth L. Alford: To understand what happened, you have to understand the times. It’s an understatement to say that Utah was on edge. The Latter-day Saints knew the U.S. Army was marching toward them. They had already been driven out of several states and had deliberately chosen to settle in a place no one else wanted. Now, once again, they saw a threat approaching. Tensions were sky-high. It was a very different world.

William Clark was, for lack of a better word, captured. But he remained jovial and good-natured. By all accounts, he was well-liked and eventually fell in with Wild Bill Hickman. Remarkably, Clark’s is the only account I’ve ever seen that describes Hickman as “jolly.”

This Hickman was “a hardened American frontiersman who openly admitted to killing several people. Being in his company gave Clark a kind of protective shield, if not exactly a halo. According to Clark’s account, the two developed a rapport, and he recorded a fascinating conversation they had while traveling to Salt Lake City.”

Once he moved beyond that companionship with Hickman, however, Clark made his way at great risk towards California. Along the way, he passed through Mountain Meadows, only a couple months after the massacre had happened:

Kenneth L. Alford: William Clark didn’t write much about the Mountain Meadows massacre in his reminiscences. What makes his account notable, however, is that he passed through the area not long after the event. The massacre took place primarily on September 11; Clark came through in December, and the site had been largely left undisturbed.

As far as I know, his is one of the earliest surviving accounts from a traveler who passed through Mountain Meadows after the massacre.

He was far from the first person to pass through, but left a brief, notable account of what he saw.

Clark eventually made his way to California:

William P. MacKinnon: Clark made his way past Mountain Meadows, through Santa Clara Canyon, and into the Mojave Desert on his way to San Bernardino. He was scared—the only thing standing between him and potentially hostile tribes was his Mormon guides, who charged him a small king’s ransom for their services.

When he finally reached San Bernardino in January 1858, he ended his reminiscence with a short paragraph—about three sentences—describing how pleasant the climate was, how green the grass looked, and how relieved he felt to be out of Utah Territory.

He essentially said, “I don’t care what the guides charged me. It was worth it to be able to reach freedom again and be out of Utah.”

That’s how he closed his manuscript.

William Clark’s firsthand account of the Utah War is a great read. And William P. MacKinnon and Kenneth L. Alford dug in and found additional details about the man’s life that they shared in the book and in the interview. For more on the subject, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk to read more!