• According to his obituary, James was part of the Mormon Battalion. His obituary also confirms his birth date and death date. Redick Allred's journal and William McBride's journal both provide evidence of James traveling back to Utah in the 1855 McBride company.

Jonathan H. Holmes/Samuel Thompson Company (1848)

• Age at Departure: 21

William McBride Company (1855)

• Age at Departure: 28

Sources

• 1870 Utah Census.
• "Died," Deseret News, 26 April 1871, [9].
• Find a Grave (Website)
• Norma Baldwin Ricketts, The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 222-23.
• Norma Baldwin Ricketts, The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 23.
• Pratt, Parley P. to George A. Smith, 30 April 1855, "Elders' Correspondence," Deseret News [Weekly], 22 August 1855, 190.
• Reddick N. Allred journal, 1854 August-1856 November.
• Utah, Veterans with Federal Service Buried in Utah, Territorial to 1966.
• William McBride journals, 1854-1855; 1874, vol. 2.