General Orders for Nauvoo Legion, 22–27 February 1842
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Source Note
JS, , , and , General Orders, to , , Hancock Co., IL, 22–27 Feb. 1842. Featured version published in “Nauvoo Legion,” Times and Seasons, 1 Mar. 1842, vol. 3, no. 9, 718. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
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Historical Introduction
In late February 1842 JS, , , and —generals of the —issued orders for their respective staffs and all soldiers in the Nauvoo Legion to assemble at ten o’clock in the morning on Friday, 11 March, for parade and review. Although technically an “independent military” body, the legion was ultimately responsible to the governor of , and its members were required to “perform the same amount of military duty” as regular Illinois militia units. For most soldiers, this mandatory duty consisted primarily of periodically mustering for reviews, parades, and training exercises throughout each year. While Illinois statute dictated the parade’s appointed ten o’clock assembly time, it did not require the militia to hold a company parade on the second Friday in March. Parades were traditionally scheduled for the first Saturdays in April, June, August, and October of each year. However, the law allowed unit commanders to schedule additional activities as needed. Under the four orders featured here, the entire legion was required to assemble. It is unclear when JS and the other legion generals determined they would hold a parade on 11 March 1842, as the minutes of all Nauvoo Legion court-martial proceedings between 9 March 1841 and 12 March 1842 were lost by the end of 1843.The orders were published in the 1 March 1842 issue of the ’s newspaper, Times and Seasons, and no handwritten manuscript is extant. While all four generals stipulated that their staffs were to assemble at their respective residences, according to JS’s journal entry of 11 March 1842, the legion met at “their usual place of parade. below the .” This was likely the “usual place” to which the notices for the legion’s two cohorts refer.
Footnotes
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1
Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; An Act Organizing the Militia of This State [26 Mar. 1819], Laws . . . of the State of Illinois [1819], pp. 270–296.
General Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly, Convened January 3, 1853. Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1853.
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2
An Act Organizing the Militia of This State [26 Mar. 1819], Laws . . . of the State of Illinois [1819], pp. 277–278, sec. 15.
General Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly, Convened January 3, 1853. Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1853.
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3
Legion recorder Hosea Stout speculated on 8 December 1843 that Bennett mislaid or took the minutes when he was cashiered from his position in the legion and left the church and Nauvoo in summer 1842. (Nauvoo Legion Minute Book, 8 Dec. 1843, 9; JS et al., “Notice,” 11 May 1842, JS Collection, CHL.)
Nauvoo Legion Minute Book, 1843–1844. Nauvoo Legion, Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 3430, fd. 1.
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