History May Be Searched in Vain: A Military History of the Mormon Battalion (Volume 25) Hardcover – March 6, 2006

Let me start the review with a disclaimer. I am an active member of the Mormon Church and also an active Army Officer, which is obviously going to affect my view of the subject.This book is NOT a sustainment of inspirational Mormon folklore about the Mormon Battalion. This book is a factual review of the Mormon Battalion covering its establishment, formation, training, military service, and ultimate discharge from service. It is not the folklore stories of the battalion I had learn in Sunday school it is a critical review of the subject, including some subjects which many members might object. This is not to say the history I had previously learned of the battalion was wrong. To steal a line from Obi Wan, my prior knowledge was "the truth, from a certain point of view".The book lays out the facts from both members of both factions, US government with their motives and the early church member with their motives. The author pulls no punches point out how church leadership, including the Brigham Young, through direct guidance and orders interfered with operational necessities of belonging to a military organization. The split of loyalties between supporting your church leadership and conducting themselves as Soldiers did cause some decent amongst the members. As members of the Mormon Church we sustain our President as a Prophet, seer and revelator. As a Soldier you are expected to comply with orders unless those are illegal, unethical or immoral. Bottom line is some of the guidance issued by the Prophet could not have been compiled with by members of the Battalion without their being insubordinate.The book also does a very good job explaining the political realities of the day both in the Mormon Church and the Nation which contributed to the Battalions establishment. The book has no villains, just different individuals doing what they thought was right. This perspective is not found in most of the other books I had read on the Battalion. In other books, the military leadership is often framed as cruel, vicious, and anti-Mormon. In this book one can readily see that although the non-Mormon members of the battalion assigned by the Army didn't understand the commitment Mormons had for their religion, they were not anti-Mormon. Many of these individuals who I had previously read were committed anti-Mormons had journal entries which spoke highly of their Mormon comrades in arms.I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a factual perspective of the battalion, without the standard folklore.According to the last page of the book, only 750 copies were printed. If you want this book pony up the money and buy it now.

Very good, original and objective perspective of the Mormon Battalion. A little repetitive at times.

Sherman Fleek's history of the Mormon Battalion is simply excellent. Mr. Fleek not only presents a description of the epic march and the difficult logistics associated with it, but he bends over backward to give as fair and balanced an assessment as possible of the performance of the battalion's commanding officers, Lieutenant Colonel James Allen, Lieutenant A.J. Smith and Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke. Fleek's emphasis on how the officers dealt with the Mormon "volunteers" and vice-versa was, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of this book. At the very least this history gave me a new-found respect for the leadership capabilities of Philip St. George Cooke, who, of course, was much maligned for his less than stellar performance during America's Civil War. While most historians consider Cooke's son-in-law, JEB Stuart, to have been one of the Confederate Cavalry's and Civil War's supreme cavalry commanders, I wonder now, after reading Fleek's book, how Stuart would have performed (in comparison to his father-in-law) had he been assigned to lead a group of religious volunteers with no military experience across the deserts, plains and mountains of western America to California. I would strongly recommend this book to any and all who are interested in how this march and these Mormon volunteers helped shape the American west and the importance of planning, logistics, etc., in conducting campaigns of this kind during the early 19th century. Finally, Fleek's book examines the impact of experience gained from the march, annexation of California and the Mexican War on some notable officers, i.e. John Fremont, George Stoneman, Philip St. George Cooke and Andrew Jackson Smith, most of whom would gain notoriety, of one form or another, during America's Civil War. Anyone interested in the backgrounds of these particular officers would love this book as well.

I needed to prepare a book review for my Basic Officer Leader Course as a new 2LT in the Army. I chose the Mormon Battalion as my own can trace its heritage to the Mormon Battalion and I'm LDS so an admixture of military and LDS history has always interested me but I've never looked too deeply into the battalion's history. Mainly, we pass on word-of-mouth oral histories and maybe tall tales so I took the opportunity to learn more.COL Fleek has done as good a job as I could have hoped for investigating as many source documents as possible, oral histories, journals, Army records, government correspondence, etc. I love all the detail; especially, as a logistician, the information he presented on the logistical hurdles the battalion surmounted. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in pre-Civil War US military history, LDS history, US foreign policy in the 19th Century or all of the above.

Sherman Fleek has written the most authoritative tome on the Mormon Battalion. Most writers approaching this subject do not have any significant military experience. Not Sherman. As a retired Lt. Col. who is presently Command Historian at West Point and who has written many articles on this era of our history, Sherman is uniquely qualified to write on this subject. Sherman grasps the true military and historical significance of this most unique group of religiously-oriented American soldiers. As he points out in his book, there has not been such a singular religious group of American soldiers before or since. Any serious student of Mormon history must read this book. Any serious student of American history who wants to study the broad diversity of our military history should also study this book. Written from an objective perspective, Sherman Fleek does a superb job of describing every important aspect of this unusual part of our history.