In the fall of 1861, the writer passed his ninth birthday. He resided, at the time, with his parents, in the Fifteenth Ward, Salt Lake City....
One afternoon in October, 1861, the writer was at the home of John M. Moody, playing with other children, when a messenger came with the announcement that the Moody family had been called by the presiding authorities of the Church, to go to Dixie to raise cotton and develop the resources of that part of the territory. Frightened by the thought of [his friends making] such a move, he ran through the block to the home of his parents, and bursting into the house exclaimed to his mother and sister, who were in the room, "Brother Moody is called to go to Dixie."
"So are we," said his sister, between sobs.
His mother said nothing, but tears filled her eye as she thought of leaving a good home and comfortable surroundings, and of facing the hardships and dangers of frontier life, in the barren country known as Utah's Dixie.
Several hundred families had been so called to go upon this mission. It was the manner in which the affairs of the Church were conducted, at that time....
Some offered excuses. Some were too poor to go, some were too rich ... but the great majority, with that devotion which has characterized the members of the Church from the beginning, silently but resolutely made preparations for the accomplishment of the task assigned them.
Valuable homes were disposed of for but a small part of their real value. Farms were exchanged for teams or livestock which could be driven through to their destination; and the late fall and early winter of 1861 found hundreds of teams on the rough and dreary road to the South.
(Anthony W. Ivins, in _Pioneer Stories_, Preston Nibley, pp. 129-131)
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