“[T]he Mormon War began formally on the 18th of July [1857] with the departure of the Tenth Infantry Regiment from Fort Leavenworth. A day later Phelps’ battery of four six-pounders and two twelve-pound howitzers followed from a camp nearby, and shortly thereafter the weary Fifth Infantry started for Utah. . . . In general they followed the trail familiar to overland pioneers: west from Fort Leavenworth to the Big Blue, north on this river, ad then northwest on the Little Blue, its tributary. The troops finally came to the wide, shallow, and lethargic Platte, the vital highway to the Rocky Mountain country.”
