In February 1846, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embarked on an exodus. They fled their hometown of Nauvoo, Illinois, where, in acts of religious persecution, their homes had been burned and their leader, Joseph Smith, had been killed by a mob of nonbelievers. There was nothing else to do but go. Led by a new leader, Brigham Young, sixteen hundred members loaded up their belongings in wagons and headed west. They trekked across the frozen Mississippi River, the ice cracking underneath, in search of a different future they could not yet envision.
