Col. Thomas Kane--On a Mission to the Mormons

The son of a prominent and politically connected Philadelphia attorney, Thomas Kane was born into wealth, fame and fortune. He had grown tired of practicing law among the affluent as his eye clearly wandered to the adventures which lay in store with the unfolding of the "Manifest Destiny" doctrine of President James Polk.

While still in Philadelphia, the young Mr. Kane became familiar with a leader of the much maligned Mormon religious movement in the person of Jesse C. Little. "With a little tact and patience and a little maneouvring" he journaled, Kane was able to "get letters of genuine strength to Brigham Young and Orson Hyde and other notable," which seemed a "wild dream" to his ambitions. His relationship with Little included not only a letter of introduction to President Polk but also a conspiratorial tutoring on how to approach the President regarding the financial assistance they so desperately needed in their resettlement in the West. Battalion--the musical includes an re-enactment of that critical confrontation between Jesse C. Little and President James C. Polk--a strategic moment in the history of the Mormon Battalion and the survival of the Mormon movement.

As Kane's ambitions turned to compassion over the ensuing months, there are those who have avowed that Thomas L. Kane did more to insure the survival of the fledgling religion in nineteenth-century America than any other single non-Mormon. Numerous are the recorded words in early journals of the fondness felt among the Mormon pioneers toward the efforts of Col. Thomas Kane. The statue shown below stands prominently on the grounds of the Utah State Capitol.

One can get a sense of the budding energy Kane felt for the Mormon cause in the excerpts that are taken from a letter written to his father in July of 1846. The letter came after Kane had spent several days assisting in the recruitment of the volunteers for the Mormon Battalion and in spending several sessions with the top level leadership of the Church.

T.L. KANE TO MY OWN DEAR FATHER & MOTHER,

...in the first place, you know the importance I attached to the enlistment by the United States of volunteers from the Mormons, and of great benefits I believed would accrue from the measure to our country as well as that poor people. My presence has been of great service in promoting the measure. The relief was imperfectly understood by some of the leaders and much suspected by the great mass of the people. Captain Allen <the military recruiting officer> when I arrived was fidgetting discouraged, mad at being misunderstood--declaring that if, within a time really too brief, the men were not raised, he would return without them--which only increased the distrust of the Mormons. Within twenty minutes after my arrival in the main camp I held a council there for three and a half hours with the Twelve that were there and arranged with them that a grand meeting of the people should be held the very next day. Short as was the notice, a thousand people met. The right course was voted by acclamation of those present....

So the men were levied in a jiffy--married men left their wives & children & goods in charge of the church--and four hundred were raised without regard to sacrifice of feeling in two days work. I feel it a personal battle & fought for its completion accordingly. They are without any exaggeration a body of highly worthy men and they give me their most unbroken & childlike confidence.

I will devote much of my time when I come home to the Mormons...I am going to work for the Mormons, and want all my leisure to manoevure the newspapers and write a book in their vindication. This must be accomplished now, as soon as possible. If public opinion be not revolutionized before the Sacramento Country fills up with settlers, the miserable dramas of Missouri and Illinois will be acted over again there will be no country left to which the persecuted can fly....

I love more & more this suffering people and am determined to befriend them. I should not wonder if I found in this the mission of my life-- When I come home prepared to go to work, I will pray to god for health to labour in their cause, and to tell the world and the people of the Union who these people are who have been chased from hearths and altars--from the bosoms of their friends and the graveyards of their parents and children.

And now, dear Father, the sun having gone down behind the dreary hills over the River it is rapidly growing dark...Hope for me everything there is to be hoped for...what is the greats comfort to me, the knowledge that already, I have not lived in vain--Thomas L. Kane

Thomas Kane was clearly influential in securing the financial relief afforded by the formulation of the Mormon Battalion during the critical year of 1846. But, Kane was also instrumental just a few years later in negotiating a peaceful resolution just as the US Military under General Johnston was about to reign down on Brigham Young's and his followers as part of the ill-fraught Mormon war of 1858.

Battalion--the musical will be presented at the Outdoor Theatre in Huntsville, Utah on June 26th and 27th, 2009.