Posted by:
Kevin Henson
(
)
Date: November 05, 2017 07:41AM
Regarding the postulated Mormon Battalion creation of the Stone; my research is interpreting the Mormon Battalion's route. The Main Command - travelling south along the west bank of the Rio Grande - camped just north of los Chavez - across from Tome - on the night of 26 October 1846. During a mid-day stop at the Lunas family settlement, Col Cooke learned that he prior night the Navajos had driven off some thousands of sheep from the Lunas family, driving them off into the desert to the west. (Army commander Lt P. St George Cooke's official journal entry for 26 Oct).
The Navajos in the area were aggressive and on 11 November, surrounded and nearly killed a small group of Army regulars.
http://www.chargeofthedragoons.com/category/by-year/mexican-war/As the MoBat started off in the morning, Cooke had demoted a sergeant down to private for not getting his platoon ready for morning roll call. (Daniel Tyler, Concise History of the Mormon Battalion, Chapter 13; 26 October)
Thus, the area was extremely dangerous and Cooke was not booking his new command 'doing their own thing.' He was working to bring military discipline to the group and reporting for duty or sick call was one of his earliest demands upon the Mormons.
Turning now to the distances involved:
The MoBat arrived in camp about 3 PM. Sundown at los Chavez was at 5:20 PM (Source:
http://skyviewcafe.com/ for Lat 34.7424, Long -106.7508 on 26 Oct 1846 which is my best approximation for the evening camp location)
From Los Chavez out to "Mystery Mountain" is (direct line) 13.6 miles. This gives a round trip distance of over 27 miles. Their average rate of travel was about 2 mph afoot. Assuming they (you'd need more than one person involved, yes?) use mules, the average rate of travel can be bumped to perhaps 4 mph - but this is going on in the night time which would slow them back down. (I note here that my research shows General Kearny, an experienced dragoon leader, during his return to Ft Leavenworth from California rarely exceeded 4 mph while riding).
Add to that time necessary to etch the inscription, requiring a few hours at least. This has to be done in the dark or using candles - and the Army didn't provide many of them.
The men would have to be back in camp by 6:00 AM (muster & roll call time) for a sunrise of 6:23 AM.
So, you have a minimum of six hours travel time - most of it in the dark, through hostile territory, to carve a fake inscription to which you or your co-conspirators never direct someone to throughout the rest of your life in hopes of pumping up belief in the Book of Mormon.
Nope - I think we can lay to rest the theory that someone from the MoBat was involved.
We do a disservice to even repeat that claim.