The Utah War-U.S Army Sent West

In 1857, President Buchanan ordered twenty-five hundred soldiers to Utah, convinced by secondhand reports that the Mormons were in open rebellion. He sent no message ahead explaining their purpose. The troops, under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, left Kansas late in the season and marched straight into an early winter. Mormon raiders burned their supply trains and drove off their cattle, and the army limped into a frozen camp near Fort Bridger to wait out the cold. Critics back east soon named the whole affair Buchanan's Blunder.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Utah Olympic Park — 21 mi
  The ski jumping and bobsled venue from the 2002 Winter Olympics
• Park City Mountain — 24 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States, grown straight out of a 19th-century silver town.
• Park City — 24 mi
  Silver built it. Snow saved it.
• Park City Main Street — 24 mi
  A historic mining town turned world-class ski and film festival destination

More markers nearby

• The Utah War-fortifying Echo Canyon — steps away
• The Utah War-The Mormon Response — steps away
• The Utah War-Diplomacy Prevails — steps away
• Deputy Sheriff Rodney Badger Gave His Life — 4.4 mi