[Brigham Young Sermon] President Young said there are horses wanted to draw the cannon. I have procured a boat and am taking it along for the benefit of the camp, and have furnished most of the horses for the cannon, until my teams are so worn down that I have need for them all, and I want the brethren to feel a common interest in the welfare pertaining to the whole, and those who have horses that they can spare, to put them in to draw the cannon. When we left Winter Quarters there were four horses attached to the cannon, and I supposed that the teams had been fitted up according to my instructions and was going through the journey; but the horses have been since taken away and it has fallen on my hand and I want the brethren to furnish some horses to draw the cannon. Colonel Markham will put on a driver that will not let the men ride on it and kill the horses. Let the buffalo and game alone and kill no more till we need it. I feel we shall want for game if we don't take this course and the camp voted unanimously that they would not kill no more game until they needed it to eat. I want to know if the camp will take care of the cows, or whether every man shall take care of his own; or what they intend to do about it. Yesterday there was no one with the cows and they started twice to go to the buffalo and I had to run my horse twice to bring them back, in doing which I lost a good telescope. I did not know then that Erastus Snow was the driver for that time. If I had, I should have know that he would not go out of his road one rod, he is so lazy. I expect some of the boys will get caught by a buffalo on the prairie and get badly hurt if not killed, before the brethren will stop going after them. Don't dare the buffalo, but let them alone; if the buffalo should come in the night and scare our cattle and they brake loose and run they will follow the buffalo and we shall lose them in all probability. The brethren must guard against this thing. Erastus Snow said that he had furnished some team for the cannon, had a team of his own drive, that he had no cow in the herd, that after this men might drive their own cows and if any man could fix a charge of laziness upon him, or anything else wherein he had not done his duty, they might do it and welcome; and if I can't throw it off, I will bear it. President Young then said Brother Snow was to driver the cattle yesterday. Snow replied, Yes, I volunteered to do it. The camp voted yesterday unanimously that Erastus Snow was not in the line of his duty in not taking care of the cows. President Young said I will warrant the best man in camp that undertakes to stick up his nib against the authorities that he will slide off like Warren Parish and Sylvester Smith. Brother Snow apologized. -- Gothenburg, Nebraska [Pioneer Camp of the Saints, Journals of Thomas Bullock. Will Bagley, ed. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007. 148]
[The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009)]
[source: The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009)]
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