Description
Miracle in the Desert
December 18, 1846, The Mormon Battalion was marching across Arizona near a place called Tucson Creek. Marching with them was 22-year-old Henry Green Boyle. Early that morning, before dawn, Henry’s nose had begun to bleed and would not stop. At the creek, the Battalion filled their canteens and marched on, except that Henry’s messmate lost his canteen, and Henry went without water.
That day the Battalion marched 30 miles across the desert. Somewhere along the way the bleeding stopped, but Henry was left weak from loss of blood. The next day the Battalion started again and found no water all that day.
Henry recorded:
“I traveled nearly all that night, having been left some distance behind. I was weak from loss of blood, from hunger and thirst and from the fatigues of our long journey. None but ourselves will ever know how much we suffered. When traveling I became so weak and exhausted that I lay down by the side of the trail to rest and soon went to sleep.”
As he slept, Henry experienced a dream in which a stranger helped him to three cups of water from a hole by the right side of the trail. He woke up and then went to sleep again, having the same dream again. The dream made a powerful impression on him, so much so that he kept his eyes on that side of the road.
“Sure enough,” as Henry walked, he came upon a man in the act of dipping water from a hole on the right side of the trail. Henry said:
“I approached him and he dipped up and passed three cups of water to me from a hole on the right side of the road just precisely as I had dreamed. I did not speak to the man, nor him to me. I thought he was a stranger as I did not remember ever seeing him before, for it seemed to me I could see him very plain with all his features and impression of countenance, although it was dark and no moon it being about one o’clock in the morning of the 20th.”
At first, Henry did not think that much about it, but the more he considered it, the more he marveled. He concluded: “When I arrived at camp, I was not thirsty.”
I have no idea who that stranger was in the middle of the Arizona desert in the middle of the night, but I have some idea what he was.
Henry G. Boyle completed his service in the Mormon Battalion, returned home. He married and raised a large family. Over the next 20 years he fulfilled multiple missions in the service of the Lord and passed away in 1908 in Pima, Arizona.
Source: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/KWJ8-JM1
