In his report to the Secretary of State, Governor Cumming denied the charges made against the Mormon people--charges which had been pointed to as justifying the President in sending the army--so that there was left not even the shadow of a justification for this inconsiderate, hostile demonstration. But even before Governor Cumming's report reached Washington, President Buchanan had become so heartily sick of his blunder that he issued a proclamation [1] pardoning the people for their alleged rebellion and treason. Governor Cumming had entered the Territory, his authority had been acknowledged, he was in the full discharge of his official duties and congratulated himself that all the Utah difficulties were approaching a happy termination. His rejoicing was premature. The difficulties were not ended. The army was within a few days' march of the capital and other thickly settled portions of the Territory, and might rush in at any time to be quartered in Salt Lake City or encamped in close proximity to other settlements to insult, abuse and oppress the people. Furthermore, with the army and its camp followers once settled in or near Salt Lake City, with judges deeply prejudiced against them, and with an idea that they were judges with a mission, it was more than possible, it was quite probable, that juries composed of teamsters and camp followers would be packed to set in judgment on the old settlers of Utah in respect to events which had occurred during the unsettled state of affairs of the past two years. To these things the leaders of the people had determined not to submit; and rather than brook such treatment, an exodus from the Territory was determined upon. Early spring saw the people in the northern settlements moving _en masse_ for the south, leaving only enough men in the deserted settlements to fire them and lay waste the country. Alfred Cumming might be Governor of the Territory, but the people leaving would make his sceptre a barren one. The army might march into the Territory with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, but the country would be a blackened waste--not much glory to be reaped on such a field for the army of the great Republic! By June, Salt Lake City and all the settlements north of Lehi were deserted, save by those left to destroy them. Such was the state of things in Utah when President Buchanan's Peace Commissioners--L. W. Powell, Senator-elect from Kentucky, and ex-Governor of that state, and Major-General Ben McCullough--arrived. A conference between them and the leaders of the Church, in which Elder Taylor took part, resulted in an adjustment of the Utah difficulties. The past was to be buried. In the language of Commissioner Powell, "Bygones are to be bygones;" and while the army was to be permitted to enter the Territory it was not to be encamped nearer than forty miles of Salt Lake City, and not adjacent to densely settled districts.