Preface to the First Edition

When I first became active with the U S Mormon Battalion Inc., I decided to learn something about each of the original Battalion members. I came across a history of Reuben Warren Allred, of Company A7 In it I found that he was born in 1815 in Bedford County, Tennessee. I found a record which stated he died in 1916. Then I found another record which stated Reuben Warren Allred of Company A was born. in 1827 in Bedford County, Tennessee. It seemed strange to me that here was a man who lived to 101 years and had two birthdays 12 years apart. It occurred to me that perhaps I was dealing with two separate men.  I went to the Genealogical Library in Logan, Utah to see what might be available on Reuben Warren Allred. It turned out there were two men named Reuben Warren Allred, and both had been born in Bedford County, Tennessee; they were an uncle and a nephew. The uncle was born in 1815 and died in 1896. He was the son of James Allred and Elizabeth Warren.  The nephew was born in 1827 and died in 1916 and was the son of Martin Carroll Allred and Mary Hasker (See page 186.) Even members of both families were not sure, as each claimed their grandfather was the Reuben Warren Allred who had been in the Mormon Battalion.

It was obvious to me that more information was necessary in order to identify. the proper Reuben Warren Allred. I decided to examine the birth order of the children of both men.  Again the Genealogical Library provided the information.  The births of the children in the Allred families are important in light of other items that came out in the search. Daniel Tyler stated Mrs. Reuben Warren Allred accompanied the Battalion on the march. Reuben Warren, 1815, married Lucy Ann Butler in 1836 and had four children ages six to two years of age when the Battalion was formed. A fifth child was born June 5, 1848 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The first child of Reuben Warren, 1827, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1849. A history published by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers states Reuben Warren Allred and his wife arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1847. Those married men of the Battalion who did make it to the Salt Lake Valley late in the fall of 1847, found most of their families still in the east. They took a deep breath and journeyed on to Council Bluffs. After traveling through waist-deep snow and bitter cold temperatures, they arrived at the "Bluffs" in December of 1847. It is unlikely that Reuben Warren Allred would have taken his wife and children with him on the Battalion march, then arriving at his intended destination, being the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, continue on with his family to Council Bluffs through the cold and snow. This would necessitate a third journey across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. It is much more likely he would have remained in the Valley instead of taking his faintly another twenty-four hundred miles.  Further, there is no mention in any of the diaries and journals I have examined of Lucy Ann Allred and/or her children. The birth of Drucilla on June 5, 1848 throws doubt on Reuben W., 1815, as being our man. In searching the records I eventually came to the pension files on the Mormon Battalion members. That was the clincher as far as Reuben Warren Allred was concerned. These records gave complete birth. death, and marriage information. The date of birth for Reuben Warren Allred, Company A, Was given as November 9, 1827. I now had enough information to properly identify Reuben Warren Allred.

As I gathered information on the Allreds, I decided to collect what I could on the other members of the Battalion. I eventually ended up with a drawer full of files of information on the Mormon Battalion members. I decided the best way to sort out all of the information would be on a word-processor. This allowed me to fit my drawer full of files onto about 200 pages of documentation and resulted in A Data Base On The Mormon Battalion.

It has taken about five years to collect all of the information that has gone into this work.  I have driven over 12,000 miles during that time searching for the grave sites of the original Battalion members. To date, 1987, over 320 have been located and verified and there is good information as to where another 110 are buried.