See That None Were Left Behind: Millen Atwood's Watch Over the Sick of the Willie Handcart Company (1856)

Millen Atwood was born May 24, 1817, in Wellington, Connecticut. A stone mason who did considerable work on the Nauvoo Temple, he crossed to the Great Basin with Brigham Young's 1847 company, returned east that fall, and served missions to Scotland and England, where he presided as a conference president. When the plan was announced in 1856 that poor European Saints would cross the plains with handcarts, the missionary reported the reaction of the Saints: "it ran like fire in dry stubble, and the hearts of the poor Saints leapt with joy and gladness."

Returning home in 1856, Atwood sailed with a large company of converts on the ship Thornton and traveled as a counselor to Captain James G. Willie in the Willie handcart company. Along with Levi Savage, Atwood was among the experienced leaders who argued against departing late in the season; when the company rolled west anyway, he took a shepherd's responsibility for its weakest members. One hundred of the emigrants traveled under his direct supervision, and as the rations shrank and the storms of October closed in, "Atwood, Woodward & Christiansen staid behind the main body of the camp to urge on the sick & see that none were left behind."

After the rescue parties reached the frozen company in the Sweetwater, Atwood stood in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on November 16, 1856, and delivered one of the first full public accounts of the Willie company's deliverance, published in the Deseret News on November 26, 1856.

Atwood went on to serve on the Salt Lake high council from 1873-81 and as bishop of the Thirteenth Ward until his death on December 17, 1890. His account is preserved in the archive as a witness of the Lord's care through shepherds who would not leave the sick behind — and whose company, against every earthly probability, lived to fill the Tabernacle with its testimony.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

I have been absent from this place about four years and a half, and have been laboring in the ministry in the British Isles, and have had great joy in my labors. I have seen the work of the Lord prosper, and have seen many souls brought to a knowledge of the truth. I have been associated with the Willie company, and have traveled with them from the frontiers to this place. I have seen the power of God manifested in behalf of that company, and I have seen the faith of the Saints tried. I have seen them suffer, and I have seen them die, and I have seen them rejoice in the midst of their sufferings. I have seen the hand of the Lord stretched out for their deliverance, and I have seen the brethren from this valley come to our relief, and I have felt to praise the Lord for his goodness and mercy. I have seen the sick and the dying, and I have seen the power of the Priesthood exercised in their behalf, and I have seen them raised up by the power of God. I have seen the Saints in the midst of their trials, and I have seen them manifest a spirit of patience and resignation to the will of God, and I have seen them look forward with hope to the time when they should reach this valley. I have seen the hand of the Lord in all our journey, and I have felt to acknowledge his hand in all things.