Baptisms for Health on the Trail: Levi Hancock Performs Healing Ordinance for Mormon Battalion Soldiers (August 18, 1846)

On August 18, 1846, as the Mormon Battalion marched southwest across the Kansas prairie, Levi Ward Hancock made a brief but significant entry in his journal:

'Baptized Leonard M. Scott into the Church. Also, some for their health.'

This entry documents a practice that was widespread among early Latter-day Saints: baptism performed as an ordinance of physical healing. In the 19th century, Latter-day Saint leaders taught that baptism could be used not only for the remission of sins but for healing the sick. The practice, sometimes called 'baptism for health,' involved being rebaptized in water as an act of faith seeking divine healing.

For men on the Mormon Battalion's march — who would face diseases including scurvy, dysentery, and extreme exhaustion across nearly 2,000 miles of harsh terrain — any means of healing was significant. Hancock's journal entry reveals that some soldiers, already suffering from illness in the early weeks of the march, sought this ordinance.

The brevity of Hancock's note is itself revealing. He did not describe it as unusual or exceptional. It was simply what happened on August 18. Men asked for healing ordinances, and he performed them.

Separate from this entry, the Church History biographical database records that a 'rebaptism record' was kept for Battalion members, suggesting the practice was organized and documented at some level. The Mormon Battalion Association's research has drawn on this rebaptism record as one of the primary source documents for verifying service.

For Latter-day Saints, this small journal entry is a window into a frontier faith that trusted God with bodies as well as souls — and acted on that trust even on a military march through the Kansas prairie.