Andrew Jackson Shupe: Company A Soldier's Preserved Diary of Faith and Endurance (1846–1848)

Andrew Jackson Shupe was born in 1815 and at age 25 enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, Company A, answering the call to serve his country and his faith. He served from 1846 through the entire campaign and was among the soldiers assigned to Captain Brown's detachment in Pueblo, Colorado, where some of the hardest trials of the march took place.

When many soldiers fell ill—some fatally—from the rigors of mountain life and inadequate supplies, Shupe persisted. His original diary, now preserved in the Church History Library (MSS SC 817), documents not only the physical journey but the spiritual discipline required to maintain faith when circumstances seemed impossibly harsh.

Shupe's diary is particularly valuable because it provides an insider's view of Company A's experience and the Pueblo detachment—a smaller group that faced unique hardships and separations from the main battalion. His firsthand account of the conditions, the character of his fellow soldiers, and the quiet ways that God sustained the faithful during impossible times has been preserved for posterity.

The miracle of Andrew Jackson Shupe's life is the miracle of steadfastness. He did not become a famous prophet or a renowned author; he became a faithful record-keeper whose words allow us, generations later, to understand what it cost to follow the Lord into the wilderness. His original journal, housed at Church History, stands as testimony that individual faithfulness is never forgotten by God.

Shupe lived until 1877, long enough to see the Great Basin bloom, to participate in building Zion, and to know that his sacrifice had meaning. His preserved diary remains a gift to all who seek to understand what early Saints experienced and believed.