[3] In 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young reformed the remnants of Nauvoo Legion into a fully functional paramilitary force, which was organized into sub-units for each of the Utah counties as the Deseret Territorial Militia akin to their contemporaries the Army of the Republic of Texas and the Texas Rangers.

With strength of around 6,000 personnel, segments of the northern contingent mobilized to impede the advance of Albert Sidney Johnston's army into Utah.

Both sides stopped engagements after agreement was reached permitting the army's passage through Salt Lake City, establishing Camp Floyd.

Local commanders and members of the Iron County, Utah Territorial Militia, overcome with suspicion and war hysteria, perpetrated the Mountain Meadows Massacre against a group of wagon trains travelling from Arkansas to California in September.

It was also under the auspices of the militia that the groups of men were organized who were instructed to burn down Salt Lake City and other parts of northern Utah should the invading army try to take up residence.

Federal troops dispatched in response to the 1870 Ghost Dance ensured Shaffer's order was enforced.

[citation needed] A small artillery piece, an 1841 12-pound mountain howitzer was issued to the territorial militia.

The 4 pound Spanish bronze is in the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center in San Diego, Calif.

After the men were released from service in 1847, they headed for home, many stopping for temporary employment at Sutter's Fort.

Sutter wrote a letter to the pioneer society in the 1870s where he said that his cannons, except for one Russian 4-pounder, which he donated to a museum in San Francisco, were all Spanish guns.