Solomon Chamberlin Briant: Mormon Battalion Soldier Called on Multiple Missions After Completing the March (1817–1891)

Solomon Chamberlin Briant was born February 14, 1817, in Vermont. He joined the Church in the early 1840s and gathered with the Saints to Nauvoo. In July 1846 he enlisted in the Mormon Battalion and was assigned to Company B, completing the full 2,000-mile march from Council Bluffs to San Diego.

Briant was discharged in July 1847 and returned to the Salt Lake Valley. What distinguishes his post-Battalion record is the number of times he answered subsequent calls to serve. He was called on missions by the Church on at least two occasions following the Battalion march — a pattern that characterized a significant number of Battalion veterans who, having proven their willingness to sacrifice in 1846, were repeatedly called upon in subsequent decades.

For Latter-day Saints, the willingness to accept a mission call is understood as a form of continuing revelation — the Church's leadership, operating under prophetic direction, identified men they believed God wanted in the mission field at a particular time. Briant's multiple calls suggest he was recognized as a man of proven faith and reliability.

He settled in Utah County and raised his family there, participating in the social and religious life of the early settlement community. He attended his meetings, bore his testimony, and lived as a witness to the faith that had carried him through the Battalion march.

Solomon Chamberlin Briant died in 1891 in Utah, having spent 45 years as a settler in the valleys he had helped open by his service in 1846. His life traces the full arc of the pioneer generation: soldier, pioneer, missionary, settler, elder.