[Apostle Wilford Woodruff Journal] 3d A light sprinkle of rain, cool, Cloudy & High winds, so they could not finish ferrying. The pilots Are preparing to start back to meet the companies. I wrote A letter by them to Aphek Woodruff A O. Smoot And John Benbow. The wind laid & we finished ferrying in the evening & the whole camp moved 3 miles & camped. A guide board was put up A mile from the ferry saying 340 mile from Fort Laramie.
Sunday Independance July 4th 1847. A meeting was held last evening & the 4 men were Appointed as pilots to go back & meet the company Were called upon to start this morning to go on their journey. I accompanied Presidents Young Kimball Richards & others to the ferry to put them across the river & when we arived at the river we saw 13 Horsman on the opposite bank with there baggage on one of our rafts. But to our great joy who should they be but our Brethren belonging to the Mormon Battalion who volunteered into the service of the U.S.A. one year ago this month & belonged to Capt Browns Detachment who had been at Pueblo through the winter. Br A Lyman who we sent unto them had reached them & informed them whare we are & the whole detachment of 140 of the brethren were within 7 days drive of us.
We drew up the raft & crossed them all over but one who returned with our pilots to meet the company. When we met it was truly A Harty greeting & shaking of hands. They accompanied us into camp and all were glad to meet. This small detachment had come on to meet some Hors thieves who had Stolen about a dozen horses from them. They had overtaken them & got all but one. He had gone on to Bridgers fort & they calculated to follow him & get their Horse. They spent the night in camp with us. Among the number of those who died was Mervin Blanchard who drove teams for me last summer.
But I must stop writing. The Musketoes have filled my carriage like A Cloud And have fallen upon me as though they intend to devour me. I never saw that insect more troublesome than in certain places in this Country. Several traiders passed by our camp just at night.
[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
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