The Saints' Miraculous Crossing of the Frozen Mississippi

During the exodus from Nauvoo in the dead of winter, the Mississippi River froze over in a single night, allowing the Saints to drive across with their teams and wagons, providing a miraculous escape after initial reliance on slow ferry-boats.

In his diary, Appleton Milo Harmon, who left Nauvoo in early 1846, recorded that he crossed the Mississippi River on the ice while experiencing significant cold, snow, and rain during the initial departure.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in The historical record (1889), pp. 877-905):

President Brigham Young and some others, with their families, left Nauvoo on the 15th, and, after crossing the river, they traveled nine miles to Sugar Creek, in Lee County, Iowa, where they formed another camp, organized in companies and awaited the arrival of others from Nauvoo before they proceeded on their way. While encamped there, the weather became so intensely cold that the Mississippi River was frozen entirely over, and hundreds of the Saints, with their teams, crossed the river on the ice. During the remainder of the month of February there were arrivals almost every day at the camp on Sugar Creek.