I chose George M. Ottinger’s Above Camp Douglas for the cover of Mormon Visual Culture and the American West because it exemplifies so many aspects of the Mormon experience in nineteenth-century Utah—a sizeable city emerging in the newly colonized valley; the juxtaposition of urban, agrarian, and wilderness landscapes; and the political conflict between Latter-day Saints and other constituents in the American republic.
That last point was likely much more obvious to viewers in Ottinger’s era than it is today. Camp Douglas was established in 1862, ostensibly to provide protection for mail routes during the Civil War, but many Latter-day Saints viewed the army post, which was positioned directly above Salt Lake City, as a threat to Utah’s territorial sovereignty. While the conflict never boiled over into a hot war, non-Mormon federally appointed territorial officials occasionally engaged the army post to enforce their actions.
In November of 1870, Ottinger got swept up in this conflict. According to federal officials, Ottinger had violated the law by training an unlawful militia. The artist claimed that he had merely been leading a brass band and that some of the young men accompanying the parade had marched with wooden guns and old, inoperable muskets. Accounts from Mormon vs. non-Mormon sources differed dramatically, but it seems that Ottinger and other local militia leaders felt justified in mustering their regiment of the former Nauvoo Legion for a non-military exercise. Federal officials were interpreting the law aggressively in their broader project of checking Mormon power, but numerous descriptions from witnesses suggest that the militia participants were in fact armed with serviceable weapons.
Whatever the merits of the case, Ottinger and seven others were arrested an imprisoned at Camp Douglas for ten days. “Imprisoned” might actually be a bit too harsh a description, because, as Ottinger noted on his release:
“…on being consigned by Marshal Patrick, to the military authorities at Camp, he assured them that the prisoners were men of honor, gentlemen, whose word was strictly reliable, and that if any of them desired to visit the city occasionally there would be no objection to their doing so.”
“The ‘Rebels’ Bailed Out,” Deseret News, Dec. 7, 1870
Their quarters at the camp were hardly a dungeon: their captors provided them an officer’s house with six rooms, “thirty-two blankets were given them for bedding, ample rations of food were sent them daily; and, had they felt disposed to have one, a cook would have been furnished to prepare it; but in order to have it when and how they pleased, they preferred to do their own cooking.” Ottinger and company claimed that “the entire time was passed in joviality and enjoyment.”
The “prisoners” found themselves in a fortuitous position within the complicated political struggle they were caught up in: army officials were involved in numerous aspects of Salt Lake City’s business and social worlds, and while they were obliged to execute the orders of federal officials, they worked hard to maintain good relations with the city’s Mormon community, even if many of them vociferously disagreed with the Latter-day Saints’ theology and political practices.
Ottinger took advantage of his unexpected ten-day retreat by painting a landscape from a vantage point above the fort—presumably Above Camp Douglas at the Springville Museum of Art. He also apparently leveraged the publicity his arrest attracted to promote his art. In January, 1871, the Deseret News advertised that visitors to Ottinger and Savage’s gallery could “learn all about that notorious Wooden Gun Rebellion, and see a view of Salt Lake City, by Ottinger, painted while he was confined in that military prison at Camp Douglas.”
Ottinger didn’t stay out of the news, but fortunately most of the attention was positive: he led the art department at the University of Utah, was adjutant general of the Utah Militia, and served as chief of the Salt Lake City Fire Department from 1875-1882, a position he commemorated in an exceptional self-portrait, also at the Springville Museum of Art.
Despite his experience in 1870, Ottinger wasn’t the Utah artist with the most extensive legal problems—more later on C. C. A. Christensen, who gets that honor.