Truman Doolittle: Private, Company B — Mormon Battalion Soldier Who Endured the Full March and Became a Utah Pioneer (1821–1896)

Truman Doolittle was born around 1821 and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1840s. He enlisted in the Mormon Battalion in July 1846 and served in Company B under Captain Jesse D. Hunter, completing the full march from Council Bluffs to San Diego.

The name Doolittle carries a certain irony for a man who did anything but 'do little' — Truman Doolittle walked 2,000 miles through desert, mountain, and wilderness as a young man of 25, answering a prophetic call that required everything he had. Company B's march culture was one of the most consistently documented in the Battalion, and Doolittle was part of the community of faith that its journal-keepers described.

The evening prayer meetings of Company B were regular and sincere. The administration to the sick was practiced consistently. The Sabbath was observed even on the march. Truman Doolittle participated in all of these — a soldier and a Saint simultaneously, for eight months, in the most demanding conditions the American Southwest could present.

After his discharge in July 1847, Doolittle returned to Utah and settled there. He married and raised his family in the Great Basin, living through the pioneer decades that transformed the territory. He attended his ward, served in his community, and bore witness through the consistency of his life to the faith he had carried across a continent.

Truman Doolittle died around 1896 in Utah. His endurance on the march is his testimony — a man who did not do little, but did everything asked of him.