Elder N. H. Felt's Experience of Divine Preservation and Support During the Mormon Battalion March

“Have you ever witnessed the interposition of Gods! Ask the Sierra Madre to tell of the famished guerillas in our doleful march, and they might tell a whisper to their hearts, “Inhibit their march, for God is there.” God fed one man anciently through the ravens; now we find Him feeding hundreds by the wild herds of the deserts. By wars and bloodshed in ancient times did He prepare a way for His people. More mercifully does he now, and, as then, subdue the hearts of the warlike Apaches, and they minister to us of their bread-root. The proud Tuesonian and his gallant cavaliers retire in consternation, and unwillingly prepare a passage for us through their stronghold. But ah! when I come to the scenes of those heat-reflecting deserts; I shudder. Not an hour of the dark watches but our reveille has been heard there: The cold night march, continued with through the burning heat of the day; the quarter ration, and the empty canteen: These you may think about, you cannot realize. You cannot realize the decrepitude acquired in a month; you cannot conceive a constitution broken in a day. Could I but paint to you the scenes of six hours on the Tierra Caliente, the great desert of the Colorado, one glance would last you a life-time; and the recollection would make you shudder till recollection itself should fail you. I have seen the stoutest among us fall by the stroke of the heat, thus dividing the spirit from the body, in a moment, when the tree is shaken by a mighty wind, yet, it will not fully compare with the time when the sun shall become black like sack-cloth of hair, the moon like blood, (Rev. vi. 13), and the stars fall to the earth—as these appeared to vanish when they fell behind the trees, or came to the ground. I have seen the last reserve of strength fail, and have seen the humble, prayerful, and devoted follower of the Lord, brave whole storms of God, and maintain the determination to defend the liberties of their country. I have—and I blush to own it—known the ration, when our strength was failing, and none was dealt out until the bread could be found. These fatigues were all forgotten when we were called to change our course and meet the enemy, after one day our march had had a pause. Our turn into the settlements lately revolutionized, and then on the very verge of starvation, by the then existing government in California, as a blessing from on high. The brave old Kearney received us as his friends; he welcomed us as preservers of the newly acquired Territory, then threatened by the revolt of Fremont. You know the rest. I appear on behalf of the Battalion; I have come to speak for them... And tell you for them, with the help of the God that preserved us, that while one muscle’s energy is left, we have still a musket to use in the defence of our good Union. — Millennial Star 14:37”