The Battle of the Bulls: The Only Battle the Mormon Battalion Ever Fought Was With Wild Animals — Brigham Young’s Prophecy Fulfilled (1846)

In July 1846, as the Mormon Battalion prepared to depart Council Bluffs, Brigham Young gave them a prophecy: they would never have to face a human enemy in battle. It was a specific, testable claim about the outcome of an active military deployment during the Mexican-American War.

On December 11, 1846, marching north along the San Pedro River in what is now Cochise County, Arizona, the Battalion found itself in what would become its only significant armed engagement of the entire 2,000-mile march.

The enemy was not Mexican soldiers.

It was wild bulls.

The Battalion had been following the San Pedro River, where water, firewood, and wild cattle were plentiful. Without warning, a herd of wild bulls charged the column. 'The rampaging bulls charged on and on. There was great confusion and fear.' Three men were injured. Three mules were gored to death. Some wagons were overturned. At least nine bulls were killed by the soldiers.

The event was immediately understood by the men through the lens of Brigham Young's prophecy. When they later reached San Diego without having fired a single shot at a human enemy, they named the Arizona encounter 'the Battle of the Bulls' — partly in humor, but partly as a testimony. The only battle the Battalion ever fought was the battle Brigham Young had left open: not against men, but against animals.

The site along the San Pedro River is now marked with a historical marker on the east bank of the river, south of Sierra Vista, Arizona, open to the public.