TO JOEL HAMILTON WALKER
1844 JUNE 1

FC. Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, Illinois, to Joel Hamilton Walker, Boston, Massachusetts, 1 June 1844, 1 p., in hand of William W. Phelps, Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Church Archives.

Having learned, probably from the newspapers, that Joseph Smith had petitioned the United States Congress for authority to raise a force of one hundred thousand volunteers to protect and defend the southern and western borders of the United States, including those Americans who had migrated into Texas and Oregon, Joel Hamilton Walker of Boston, Massachusetts, wrote to the Prophet on 9 May 1844, expressing an interest in the undertaking and offering his services. Walker, besides having "devoted much attention" to military study and having "an ardent love for the art," also claimed an academic and mercantile education and inquired if there were anything in Nauvoo "which would be for our mutual advantage."669 Joseph Smith replied:

Nauvoo, Ill. June 1, 1844.

Sir:

Yours of May 9 is before <me> and according to my custom, I answer off hand. I have not yet ascertained whether Congress will, by special act, authorize me to protect our beloved country: if it should I have not a doubt but your services could be agreeably used.

As to what you could do in Nauvoo, I am unable to say. Gentlemen with a small capital, or a large one, can easily employ it to good advantage, our City is so rapidly improving.

Truth, virtue and honor combined with energy and industry, pave the way to exaltation, glory and bliss. Respectfully I have the honor to be your Ob Sert

Joseph Smith

Joel Hamilton Walker

Boston Mass