A council was called and the situation was freely discussed. Had they not seen, lo, these many times, organized battalions and companies surpassing fiendish mobs in villainy? The evidence warranted their conclusion that invasion meant massacre. With tense calmness the plan of action was decided upon. It was the general conviction that war was inevitable, and it was decided to resist to the last. Then, if the army forced its way into the valleys of Utah on hostile purpose bent, it should find the land as truly a desert as it was when the pioneers first took possession. To this effect was the decision:--We have built cities in the east for our foes to occupy; our very temples have been desecrated and destroyed by them; but, with the help of Israel's God, we will prevent them enriching themselves with the spoils of our labors in these mountain retreats. There seemed to be no room for doubt that war was about to break upon them; and with such a prospect, men may be expected to take every advantage of their situation. Brigham Young was still governor of Utah, and the militia was subject to his order. Promptly he proclaimed the territory under martial law, and forbade any armed body to cross its boundaries. Echo Canyon, the one promising route of ingress, was fortified. In those defiles an army might easily be stopped by a few; ammunition stations were established; provisions were cached; boulders were collected upon the cliffs beneath which the invaders must pass if they held to their purpose of forcing an entrance. The people had been roused to desperation, and force was to be met with force. In the settlements, combustibles were placed in readiness, and if the worst came, every "Mormon" house would be reduced to ashes, every tree would be hewn down. With an experience of suffering that would have well served a better cause, this picked detachment of the United States army made its way to the Green River country; and there, counting well the cost of proceeding farther, went into camp at Fort Bridger. Many of the troops had almost perished in the storms, for it was late in November, and the winter had closed in early. Colonel Cooke reported to the commandant that half his horses had perished through cold and lack of food; hundreds of beef cattle had died; yet the region was so wild and forbidding that scarcely a wolf ventured there to glut itself upon the carcasses. In Cooke's own words we read that for thirty miles the road was blocked with carcasses--and "with abandoned and shattered property, they mark, perhaps beyond example in history, the steps of an advancing army with the horrors of a disastrous retreat."