In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan unravel the Steptoe Expedition, a moment of uneasy calm before the storm of the Utah War and Mountain Meadows Massacre. What began as a military survey spiraled into scandal, seduction, and cultural collision, as Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry set his sights on Mary Ann Ayers Young (Brigham’s daughter-in-law!) and ignited a powder keg of fear, obsession, and moral panic. It’s the summer Brigham Young ruled like a frontier god, the army moved in with more than maps, and Utah’s daughters stood at the center of a battle between empire and theocracy. This is the rehearsal for everything that would go violently, tragically wrong.
SHOWNOTES:
- Sex, Subalterns, and Steptoe: Army Behavior, Mormon Rage, and Utah War Anxieties By WILLIAM P. MACKINNON