A fascinating eyewitness history of the Mormon movement--from its beginnings as a curious, controversial sect to its present-day prosperity. Told through contemporary accounts, letters, newspaper columns, documents, and memoirs by the Saints themselves and by the travelers, journalists, soldiers, officials (and their wives), humorists, and sensation-seekers who followed and observed the Mormons in their great trek westward and in the later struggles and adventures in Zion.