Well, one third of the Mormon Battalion volunteers, the men themselves were detached and sent to Pueblo for the winter of 1846-1847. They went there to join a small contingent of members of the church from Mississippi who had wintered there. And by a chance encounter along the trail near today's Larned, Kansas, Lieutenant AJ Smith learned of this contingent of Mississippi Saints who were at El Pueblo instead of Bents Fort and he got the bright idea and said, “Well, let's send the women and children that are accompanying the Battalion. Let's send them there and let them stay there.” And so off went the Higgins detachment.
Then when they got to Santa Fe, Colonel Cook and Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Decamp looked at the battalion and said, “We've got too many men that are in poor shape, so we're going to detach them. And the husbands of the laundresses and laundresses and any remaining children we're going to send them to Pueblo too.” So off went the Brown detachment.
Now five women and one child were permitted to continue with the Battalion, but as Cook took them down the Rio Grande Valley, he learned that there were still a number of men, (almost 55) who just really weren't able to endure it. And so, he detached another contingent under Lieutenant Willis and sent them to Santa Fe and from Santa Fe they were then directed to go on over to Pueblo.
The results are these three detachments numbering, one third of the Battalion, plus almost all the women and children that being sent to Pueblo to join with the Mississippi Saints there. And in the spring of 1847, all of those groups, almost all of them pulled up their tents and their stakes and piled in and headed to Salt Lake to try to catch Brigham Young and his group.
If you want to know more details about the Mississippi Saints, you can listen to our podcast. We have two episodes about Mississippi Saints by Brent Holiday, who is a descendant of that group.