Friends built a cabin for the Hunsaker family "up Honey Creek." On the map of Iowa there is a Honey Creek which empties into the Missouri River about 10 or 15 miles to the north of Council Bluffs; this likely is the creek where Eliza's cabin was built.

Of her grandmother, Eliza Collins Hunsaker, Meltrude Hunsaker Stohl wrote: In the years that I knew Grandmother Hunsaker, although I heard from her many Pioneer stories, there was never a complaint of the hard times, or of a scarcity of food or clothing or any other necessity during the year and a half that she waited for the return of her husband. She was independent, thrifty, and resourceful, and most likely she and her children were able to eke out an existence without being a burden to her friends.

A sketch of Eliza Hunsaker added this information: Her people wrote again and again begging Eliza to return to them, criticizing her husband severely for leaving his family in such destitute circumstances, promising that neither she nor the children should want for anything if she would but renounce her husband and her religion and return to them. Her brother, who lived near Council Bluffs, repeatedly offered to take Eliza and her children to his home, telling her she would never see her husband again. But nothing tempted her nor shook her faith. She had complete assurance that her Heavenly Father was caring for her and that he would bring her husband safely back. She knew well the trials and hardships that awaited her, but her husband and her religion were her dearest possessions, and not for any earthly pleasure or comfort would she forsake either.

The following was taken from the book by Sergeant Daniel Tyler, A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1846-1847. (Place of publication is not indicated.) 1881, 376 pp. A second edition was published in 1969 by the Rio Grande Press, Inc.

On 20 July 1846 the memorable march of the Mormon Battalion began. Even that 200-mile march to Fort Leavenworth was not without its hardships and suffering. Before reaching the fort they had run out of flour, and for three days they marched through heat and dust, rain and mud, alternately, without sufficient food.

At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on August 3, the members of the Battalion drew their arms and accoutrements, and on August 5 each man received $42.00 clothing money for the year. Abraham Hunsaker and a majority of the men sent most of the money back to help their families and to assist in prepara­tions of the Saints for the journey west.

The first three companies took up their line of march on August 12; two days later Company D, to which Abraham Hunsaker belonged, and Company E left the fort. It was only a few days before the last two companies had caught up with the main army at Stone Coal Creek.

To add to all of the physical suffering of these men was the anxiety about the dear ones left near Council Bluffs. Abraham spent many a restless night, thinking of his little fam­ily, worrying about them, and praying for them. In those days, there was no postal ser­vice that reached so far beyond the bounds of civilization.

During one of these harrowing nights, he had pictured Eliza and their six children out on the lonely prairie in a crudely built, homemade, covered wagon, perhaps even now suffering for lack of food and from the inclemencies of the weather. He recalled the sadness of their parting and Eliza's tearful assurance that the Lord would take care of them. Then he pleaded with the Lord to pro­tect and care for them and that he might have some sustaining assurance that all was well with them.

The following morning, as the men were washing and preparing for breakfast, a dove flew into the camp, straight to Abraham, and lighted upon his head. Some of his compan­ions called attention to the bird resting on Hunsaker's head. It stayed there but a mo­ment then flew back over the trail made by the Battalion the day before; it flew low di­rectly over the line of march. Abraham watched the dove as far as the eye could see, and in his heart there was a feeling of peace, a feeling that a blessing and a promise had been sealed upon his head.

The next morning as the men prepared for breakfast, the dove again appeared. This time it circled around Abraham's head, then flew away. Some of his companions re­marked, "There is Hunsaker's dove," but no one else realized, as did Abraham, that it had come to him in answer to his prayers, bring­ing with it the assurance that all was well with his loved ones, that they were in God's keep­ing, and that His promises never fail.

The first division of the Battalion arrived at Santa Fe on the evening of 9 October 1846. On their approach, General Doniphan, the commander of the post, ordered a salute of 100 guns to be fired from the roofs of houses, in honor of the Mormon Battalion. This same General Doniphan had been a law­yer in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith and others were tried by a court mar­tial of the mob at Far West in 1838. When the prisoners were sentenced upon that oc­casion to be shot in presence of their fami­lies, General Doniphan denounced the deci­sion as "cold-blooded murder," and by his influence the court martial was changed.

The following entry dated Monday, No­vember 16 is of special interest to descen­dants of Abraham Hunsaker:

Levi Hancock told the men not to whip their animals or swear so much. He said the meat would be better to eat when it was butchered if the animals hadn't been beaten. He suggested the men imitate Abraham Hunsaker, Company D, as he didn't whip much or swear any and had a mild spirit.

Of the Mormon Battalion The commanding officer in California said:

"History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor we have dug deep wells, which the future traveler will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless tablelands where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick and axe in hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat, and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock more narrow than our wagons. To bring these first wagons to the Pacific, we have preserved the strength of our mules by herding them over large tracts, which you have laboriously guarded without loss. The garrison of four presidios of Sonora, concentrated within the walls of Tucson, gave us no pause. We drove them out, with their artillery, but our intercourse with the citizens was unmarked by a single act of injustice. Thus, marching half naked and half fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our country."

"Arrived at the first settlement of California, after a single day's rest, you cheerfully turned off from the route to this point of promised repose, to enter upon a campaign, and meet, as we supposed, the approach of an enemy; and this too, without even salt to season your sole subsistence of fresh meat."

Private Abraham Hunsaker was ap­pointed a sergeant in Company D on 18 March 1847 on the recommendation of his commanding captain. On the same date First Lieutenant George W. Oman and Sergeant Ebenezer Brown and nine privates of Com­pany A, eight privates of Company C, Ser­geant Hunsaker and five privates of Company D, and eight privates of Company E were ordered to comprise the detachment which would remain to garrison the post of San Luis Rey. They remained at this post until April 6, when the post was ordered discontinued, and they were ordered to join the main Battalion at Los Angeles.

The men received their pay, and on July 20, after being honorably discharged, the majority of those who did not reenlist were organized into companies for traveling, with captains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. A few of the men who did not have sufficient money to buy their needed supplies stopped at Sacramento, where there was opportunity to obtain work at good wages. Some of these men were on the scene when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill.