Abner Blackburn: A 19-Year-Old Cooper Assigned to the Mormon Battalion Sick Detachment at Pueblo (1846–1847)

Abner Levi Blackburn was born January 23, 1827, in Bedford, Pennsylvania. His family converted to the Church in Ohio in 1833, moved to Nauvoo, and when the Saints were expelled in the winter of 1845–46, joined the exodus west. Abner — a barrel-maker by trade, age 19 — enlisted in the Mormon Battalion in July 1846 and was assigned to Company C.

When the Battalion reached Santa Fe in October 1846, an inspection found 86 men too sick or weakened to continue the march to California. Three sick detachments were formed. Abner was among those assigned to care for the sick rather than continue with the main body. He wintered at Pueblo, Colorado, with what became known as the Sick Detachments: 92 men, 19 women, and 10 children enduring a frontier winter on reduced rations.

Abner's original journal was lost — but he later wrote an autobiography that became celebrated in LDS historical circles. The historian Dale Morgan called it unique among all Mormon diaries: 'No other Mormon journal had the élan and the humor of Abner's story.' It was eventually edited by historian Will Bagley and published as *Frontiersman: Abner Blackburn's Narrative* (University of Utah Press, 1992).

The Mormon Battalion Historic Site's research from Abner's autobiography notes encounters with the supernatural during this period — descriptions that include an 'angel' and experiences that the young private recorded with characteristic bluntness and directness.

Abner left the Battalion, eventually settled in San Bernardino, California, married Lucinda Harris in 1852, and had ten children. He died in 1904, having lived long enough to see his extraordinary early life become something of a legendary text.