The march from Fort Leavenworth was delayed by the sudden illness of Colonel Allen. A small group of about fifty, under leadership of Jefferson Hunt followed the El Camino Real along the coast through the Catholic Missions. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saint men, led by Mormon company officerscommanded by regular U.S. Army officers. Allen’s death caused confusion regarding who should lead the battalion to Santa Fe. Mormon Battalion Flag 1846-1847 San Diego, CA. A small detachment had specifically been picked and were assigned to accompany General Kearny in escorting Capt. Hunt, a member of the party and a former Captain in the Mormon Battalion, In July 1846, under the authority of U.S. Army, Captain James Allen rode into the Mormon Camp to try and enlist 500 men to serve with the U. S. Army of the West. Food was scarce. Mormon Battalion Historic Site Visitor’s Center…located at 2510 Juan St. in Old Town. When Battalion members rejoined the body of the Saints (by then in Salt Lake City), the flag was presented to Brigham Young. they were the first U.S. military forces on what is known today as Fort Irwin. Little met with President James K. Polk on 5 June 1846 and urged him to aid migrating Mormon pioneers by employing them to fortify and defend the West. Young instructed Little to meet with national leaders in Washington, D.C., and to seek aid for the migrating Latter-day Saints, the majority of whom were then in the Iowa Territory. Brown had a letter to the Battalion members from Brigham Young, telling them to stay in California until spring, unless they had sufficient food, etc. Eighty-one men chose to reenlist and serve an additional eight months of military duty under Captain Daniel C. Davis in Company A of the Mormon Volunteers. The Battalion members were mustered out of the United States Army on 16 July 1847, in Los Angeles. They They decided to gather in June and blazed a new trail over the Sierra Nevada Mountains that was to serve as the “Wagon Freeway” for the gold seekers coming to California the following year. Their first stop was Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to be outfitted with some After working for the winter in Northern California, the group met with Capt. We have also a printed list of all the companies of the battalion taken from "A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion," written by Daniel Tyler, a Corporal and Sergeant in Company C. The first division of the Mormon Battalion approached Santa Fe on 9 October 1846. RJM Productions, LLC, through the Fort Moore Garrison, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, has been commissioned to develop the script for feature film that will tell the full, remarkable story of the Mormon Battalion—the largest (and only) unit of … [1] Sidney Willis and Wiford Hudson, two of the men working on the gristmill, visited the sawmill site a few days later to confirm the rumors. Note: (This last major conflict of the conquest of California took place on December 6th and 7th at the Battle of San Pasquel, took place at the small Indian village in San Pasquel Valley, just 28 miles northeast of San Diego. Following the “Battle of the Bulls” (the only battle they fought), the battalion continued their march toward Tucson, where they anticipated a possible battle with the Mexican soldiers garrisoned there. 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