D&C 105 - Intro

Section 105 comes back to Zion’s camp, and the IM gives background saying, “In October and November 1833, the Saint sin Jackson County, Missouri, were driven from their homes by mobs. ‘A revelation was given to Joseph Smith December 16, 1833, giving the reason for the expulsion of the members of the Church from Jackson County.’ As part of that revelation the Saints were instructed, through a parable, to ‘gather together the strength of the Lord’s house, ‘My young men and they that are middle aged also among all my servants, who are the strength of mine house, save those only whom I have appointed to tarry, ‘said the Lord, ‘and go straightway unto the land of my vineyard, and redeem my vineyard, for it is mine, I have bought it with money.’ Joseph Smith met with the High Council in Kirtland on February 24, 1834. The subject uppermost in the minds of everyone present was how could they relieve and rescue the Saints from the mobbers in Zion. At the meeting attend by about forty others, the group listened attentively to Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight, newly arrived from Zion, pleading that the Saints there be succored. All were quiet when the Prophet arose and stated that in response to a revelation, he intended to go to Zion to assist in redeeming it. He asked for council sanction. There was unanimous assent. He called for volunteers. Forty hands were raised… The revelation to which the Prophet referred instructed him to do his best to recruit five hundred men. They were to be young and middle-aged. If, perchance because of poor response, he should have to accept less, he was not to start until he had a minimum of one hundred. Led by Joseph Smith and Parley P. Pratt, four pairs of elders were to seek volunteers to go to the redemption of Zion. Within two days Joseph and Parley were on their way east seeking volunteers and friends. For a month they labored diligently to obtain the required help. Be that time there were 125 who had volunteered to go.’ When ready to start from Kirtland, the group consisted of about 150 men. This number increased to about 200 by the time the camp arrived in Missouri. Zion’s Camp arrived at Fishing River, Missouri, on 19 June 1834. Two days later, ‘on Saturday, the 21^st of June, Colonel Scounce and two other leading men of Ray County visited Joseph, and begged to know his intentions, stated: ‘We see that there is an Almighty Power that protect this people.’ Colonel Scounce confessed that he had been leading a company of armed men to fall upon the Prophet, but had been driven back by the storm. The Prophet with all the mildness and dignity which ever sat so becomingly upon him, and which always impressed his hearers, answered that he had come to administer to the wants of his afflicted friends and did not wish to molest or injure anybody. He then made a full and fair statement of the difficulties as he understood them; and when he had closed the three ambassadors, melted into compassion, offered their hands and declared that they would use every endeavor to allay the excitement.’ On the arrival of the camp in the vicinity of Jackson county, negotiations were opened with Governor Dunklin asking him to fulfill his promises to call out the militia in sufficient numbers to reinstate the exiled saints in their possessions. The governor admitted the justice of the demand, but expressed the fear that should he so proceed his action would excite civil war, and he dared not carry out what he admitted to be the plain duties of his office. He suggested that the delegation that waited upon him urge their brethren to sell their lands in Jackson county. This the saints could not do without repudiating the revelations that designated Jackson county as the land of their inheritance, the place for the gathering together of God’s people, and the location of the city of Zion; also it meant an abandonment of their right as citizens of the United States to settle wherever they thought proper to make their homes within the confines of the Union. ‘With the governor unwilling to fulfill his engagement to the exiles by calling out the militia to reinstate them in their lands; with the inhabitants of western Missouri deeply prejudice against them, and greatly excited by the arrival of Zion’s Camp; and the brethren of the camp, and the exiled brethren, painfully conscious that the saints in the eastern branches of the church had not responded with either sufficient money or men for them to act independently of the governor, take possession of their lands, purchase other lands, and hold them despite the violence of mobs- the necessity of disbanding Zion’s camp, and awaiting some future opportunity for the redemption of Zion, was apparent to the mind of its leaders. Accordingly it was disbanded from its encampment on Rush Creek, in Clay county, on the 24^th of June, and word to that effect was officially sent to some of the leading citizens of Clay county.’ Although the avowed purpose of the camp (to reinstate the Saints to their lands in Zion) was not realized, it was not an exercise in futility, but rather served as the forged in which the Lord tempered the steel of many of his early leaders, including the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Delbert L. Stapley said: ‘Zion’s Camp was disbanded on June 24, 1834. It had furnished the know-how and experience which made possible the subsequent exodus of more than 20,000 men, women, and children from Nauvoo to the Rocky Mountains, and prepared leaders for the great exodus. It also provided a proving ground- some 1,000 miles of it- for the future Church leaders. This is evidenced by the fact that when the Quorum of the  Twelve Apostles was ‘searched out’ by the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, (most of those) chosen had been members of Zion’s Camp. These men had demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice everything, even life itself, when commanded by the Lord. The First Quorum of the Seventy was likewise made up of the men who followed the Prophet to Missouri in Zion’s Camp.’” Some really good information on Zion's Camp, what happened during the trek and what came out of it.