Mormon March Honors Army Battalion of 1840s

Dressed in replicas of Army uniforms from the 1840s, 250 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will march from Laguna Niguel to Mission Viejo on Saturday to commemorate one of the longest military marches in U.S. history.

Some of Orange County’s roughly 50,000 Mormons plan to honor the so-called Mormon Battalion, which marched about 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego to help fight in the Mexican-American War.

Six-hundred soldiers set out, but only 250 survived. By the time they arrived Jan. 1847, the war was essentially over. They ended up staying in Southern California and founding the first Mormon community here.

William Vogeler, a march organizer, said, “We’re doing this to connect with history. For me personally, it will be an incredible feeling, especially with people dressing in Army uniforms.”

The four-mile hike will begin at 9 a.m. at Aliso and Wood Canyon Park in Laguna Niguel, wind along the Aliso Creek Trail and end about noon at Sycamore Park in Mission Viejo, where the public may join church members for lemonade and cookies.

Men will wear replicas of Army uniforms, and woman will wear clothes from the period.

“It’s not 2,000 miles, but that’s not the point as much as it is to show our admiration for the people who were at the heart of the church in Southern California,” said Linda Duncombe, an organizer and participant. “This is an event that celebrates the heart of it all.”

Members of the Mormon community consider the Mormon Battalion, which answered a call to action despite ideological tensions between the church and the U.S. government at the time, a military action that turned into a pilgrimage made at great sacrifice of human life, officials said.

Not half of the original group survived.

“Honoring those people is something we’ve needed to do for a long time,” Duncombe said. “There is no word or phrase to describe what this means. . . . But as people spread out, it was kind of the beginning of [the church] in Southern California. This event is about our pioneer spirit.”