been steadily fostered by Young and Kimball ever since the commencement
of the rebellion, had amounted to a frenzy which no authority less
potent than such a hierarchy as theirs could possibly have controlled.
Nevertheless, the morning Brigham rode into Salt Lake City, the
capitulation had been preordained.

The conferences lasted through the 11th and 12th, the inflexibility of
the Commissioners securing decency of language from the Mormons, if not
decency of demeanor. All the participants, including Young himself,
expressed their sentiments in turn. The opening speech was made by one
of the Apostles, named Erastus Snow, who forgot for the moment that he
was not addressing a congregation of his brethren on a Sunday morning,
and indulged in a strain of obscene and profane remark which was checked
at once by Senator Powell. Some of the speakers broke into savage
tirades like those with which Governor Cumming was once greeted in the
Tabernacle; but these were checked by Young. There were two subjects on
which the Mormon leaders were particularly anxious, all fear of their
own trial for treason being removed. They dreaded that the army should
be quartered upon their settlements, and that the policy inaugurated
by Judge Eckels in his recent charge to the grand jury at Fort Bridger
should be pursued against polygamy. No assurances were given by the
Commissioners upon either of these subjects. They limited their action
to tendering the President's pardon, and exhorting the Mormons to accept
it. Outside the conferences, however, without the knowledge of the
Commissioners, assurances were given on both these subjects by the
Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which proved
satisfactory to Brigham Young. The exact nature of their pledges will,
perhaps, never be disclosed; but from subsequent confessions volunteered
by the Superintendent, who appears to have acted as a tool of the
Governor through the whole affair, it seems probable that they promised
explicitly to exert their influence to quarter the army in Cache Valley,
nearly a hundred miles north of Salt Lake City, and also to procure the
removal of Judge Eckels. The news of the issue of the order for the
advance of the army reached the city on the 12th, and accelerated the
result of the conferences, which concluded that evening with a pledge on
the part of Young and his associates to submit unconditionally to
the Federal authority. During the next few days, th