Zion’s Camp March

Last month, I was invited to create my rendition of the march of Zion’s Camp to be used in the documentary TV show, “History of the Saints”. Glenn Rawson, the show’s host, will be documenting this exhausting and character refining experience of the early Mormon church.
Zion’s Camp was a Latter-day Saint expedition from Kirtland, Ohio, to Clay County, Missouri, during May and June 1834. The Mormon settlers in adjacent Jackson County, Missouri, had been driven out in the fall of 1833 by hostile non-Mormon elements, and the initial objective of Zion’s Camp was to protect those settlers after the Missouri militia escorted them back to their homes. The camp was to bring money, supplies, and moral support to the destitute Saints.
As things unfolded, this experience turned out to be a refining and galvanizing process for many of the future leaders of the LDS church who participated in Zion’s Camp.