INTRODUCTION

When the Mormon Battalion was outfitted at Fort Leavenworth in August, 1846, for service in the Mexican War, the volunteers received United States Army arms, accouterments, and specific training in the use of this equipment. A Battalion soldier’s “tools of the trade” included a smoothbore musket or rifle, a bayonet, ammunition, and the means to carry and maintain such. Additional personal military equipment issued included knapsacks, haversacks, blankets, and canteens.¹ For the most part, this equipment was carried and cared for by each individual soldier. Shared items, such as tents, cooking gear, and supplies, were hauled in wagons. With a musket, ammunition, blanket, food, and water, each individual soldier of the Battalion was logistically self contained for marching, eating, sleeping and, if necessary, fighting.

A number of excellent, detailed histories of the Mormon Battalion have been written. However, the exact type of Mexican War military equipment provided the Battalion remains sketchy. Primary information sources, such as the journal entries of the soldiers themselves, provide general and, in some cases, specific insights into the type of military arms and accouterments provided the Mormon Battalion. Unaccustomed as they were to the U.S. Army, the newly enlisted volunteers of the Battalion did their best to describe the equipment they were issued. For all the insights these accounts provide, researchers lament the lack of detail in many of the first hand descriptions. The following is a small sample of some journal entries.