When Brigham Young heard about their plight, he complained about their lack of judgment and preparation, but he dispatched search parties to try to locate them and provide safe passage, knowing the rescuers would risk their own lives in the process. When the immigrant companies were found, many had died and the rest were near starvation. The survivors were resuscitated and gathered together to trudge through the mounting snow drifts the remaining distance to Salt Lake City.

A noteworthy aspect of the handcart pioneers' diaries is that none expressed regret, either for their own decisions or for the stigma that was attached to them for their ineptitude and lack of funds. Instead they tell of their hardships in a matter-of-fact way, including all the harsh details, while also articulating their remarkable determination and faith, and expressing gratitude for their intrepid rescuers.

A Salt Lake City memorial commemorates their achievement. The handcart has become an icon that represents the collective heroism of all those who walked the Mormon trail, despite the fact that some carried a disproportionately heavier load than others, most notably the handcart immigrants. This book tells the true story behind the legend.

Rebecca Bartholomew is a graduate of the University of Utah and a former history instructor at Salt Lake Community College. She is the author of Audacious Women: Early British Mormon Immigrants, Brigham Young's Forest Farm Home, and Lost Heroines: Little-Known Women Who Changed Their World. She is the co-author of Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies and is a contributing author to Sister Saints. She has recently launched her own imprint, Uintah Springs Press.

Leonard J. Arrington, former Church Historian of the LDS church, is the Lemuel H. Redd Professor Emeritus of Western History and former director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of eleven books, including the award-winning Brigham Young: American Moses and the classic Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900. He is co-author of thirteen works, including The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies, and Saints Without Halos: The Human Side of Mormon History; and he has written as many monographs, as well as contributing to such works as Faithful History Essays on Writing Mormon History, The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past, Personal Voices: A Celebration of Dialogue, and The Truth, The Way, The Life, An Elementary Treatise on Theology: The Masterwork of B. H. Roberts.