America's Forgotten Precursor to the Civil War

I've been to various national museums in Utah and Colorado, and even managed to speak with a few curators. They've painted a picture of the 1857-58 Utah war as an attempt to squash rebellion and a pre-cursor to the Civil War. Some might even call it the first battle of the Civil War.

According to one curator I recently spoke with, the territory of Utah, pro-slavery and pro-polygamy, was perceived in open rebellion against the Federal government. One thing new that I learned from the curator was that Utah had quite a few slave owners from the Missouri saints. I had never heard of that before.

With a misreading of the Mormons and the political situation, President Buchanan sent 20% of the total federal force - a huge show of force - to squash the rebellion.

The Deseret News features a neat piece on the Utah War and how it showed how the American nation would deal with perceived rebellion and how an invaded people would react, foreshadowing events of the real Civil War that would follow just four years later.