But another great event disturbed the equanimity of the camp. War had broken out between Mexico and the United States. General Taylor's victories in the early stages of the strife had been all but decisive, but the Republic was on march to the western ocean and the provinces of New Mexico and California were in her path. These two provinces comprised in addition to the territory now designated by those names, Utah, Nevada, portions of Wyoming and Colorado, as also Arizona; while Oregon, then claimed by Great Britain, included Washington, Idaho, and portions of Montana and Wyoming. It was the plan of the national administration to occupy these provinces at the earliest moment possible; and a call was made upon the "Mormon" refugees to contribute to the general force by furnishing a battalion of five hundred men to take part in the war with Mexico. The surprise which the message of the government officer produced in the camp amounted almost to dismay. Five hundred men fit to bear arms to be drafted from that camp! What would become of the rest? Already women and boys had been pressed into service to do the work of men; already the sick and the halt had been neglected; and many graves marked the path they had traversed, whose tenants had passed to their last sleep through lack of care. But how long did they hesitate? Scarcely an hour; it was the call of their country. True, they were even then leaving the national soil, but not of their own will. To them their country was and is the promised land, the Lord's chosen place, the land of Zion. "You shall have your battalion," said Brigham Young to Captain Allen, the muster officer, "and if there are not young men enough, we will take the old men, and if they are not enough, we will take the women." Within a week from the time President Polk's message was received, the entire force, in all five hundred and forty-nine souls, was on the march to Fort Leavenworth. Their path from the Missouri to the Pacific led them over two thousand miles, much of this distance being measured through deserts, which prior to that time had not been trodden by civilized foot. Colonel Cooke, the commander of the "Mormon" Battalion, declared, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry." Many were disabled through the severity of the march, and numerous cases of sickness and death were chronicled. General Kearney and his successor, Governor R. B. Mason, as military commandants of California, spoke in high praise of this organization, and in their official reports declared that they had made efforts to prolong the battalion's term of service; but most of the men chose to rejoin their families as soon as they could secure their honorable discharge.