Posted by:
SL Cabbie
(
)
Date: February 13, 2014 04:37AM
Pratt's murder certainly figures into it; Brigham Young was faced with a hysterical Eleanor Mclean Pratt in Salt Lake crying out for vengeance, and providentially, the Fancher/Baker train appeared in Great Salt Lake City within two weeks.
There are other factors, however, and I think it's important to note the wealth of the emigrants' train; it may have been the largest and richest ever to attempt the Overland Migration circa 1842-1869. They had a huge herd of cattle and a large number of thoroughbred horses.
The territory being on "war footing" and still simmering from the fires of the Reformation are also factors. Brigham Young did not want to give up being territorial governor, and he claimed "he would no longer hold the Indians in check" and MMM was probably a demonstration of his power.
Just a little nitpicking on Pratt's murderer, Hector Mclean: He'd actually allowed his wife to leave, but he'd shipped her children to New Orleans. Eleanor traveled there, with Parley not far off, moving under an assumed name (because of a murder warrant from Missouri; he was still an escaped prisoner). Eleanor feigned a "return to sanity," then fled with her children but was captured (in Houston, I believe). Mclean used his connections as a government employee to track Pratt down, had him arrested in Arksansas, and then murdered him across the border in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. He was never punished for his crime.
Bagley considers this book his and David Bigler's "most complete account" of the circumstances:
http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/1527/the%20mormon%20rebellion