Interesting Thoughts from a Reader and Our Responses – Part II

Continuing from the previous post regarding further insights into the comments and responses regarding the Nephites and their activities. 
    Reader: “With the only exception of King Lamoni and his father using horse-driven chariots, we have no mention that the Nephites ever traveled by horse or chariot, only that they were known to them.”

Response: In 17 A.D., during the time when the Nephites had reached their maximum in size and scope prior to the advent of the Savior, a Gadianton Robber, named Giddianhi, threathened the Nephite Nation in a letter to Governor Lachoneus, who promptly appointed a chiefest captain among the Nephites named Gidgiddoni. Now this captain was both a righteous man as well as a military genius, determined that “we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our armies together, and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us; therefore as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands” (3 Nephi 3:21). Lachoneous sent out a proclamation for all the Nephites and converted Lamanites to bring “their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance, and did march forth by thousands and by tens of thousands, until they had all gone forth to the place which had been appointed that they should gather themselves together, to defend themselves against their enemies” (3 Nephi 3:22).
    Now, while it does not say they rode their chariots into the center of the land, chariots have but one purpose—to convey people. As the 1828 dictionary states: “a half coach; a carriage with four wheels and one seat behind, used for convenience and pleasure; a car or vehicle used formerly in war, drawn by two or more horses, and conveying two men each. These vehicles were sometimes armed with hooks or sythes.” Today’s definition is not much different; “a carriage with two wheels that was pulled by horses and was raced and used in battle in ancient times; a light four-wheeled pleasure or state carriage.”
    Consequently, we can definitely say that not only did the Nephites have chariots and horses, but likely a great many of them since they are listed first ahead of cattle and supplies, and the people came “by thousands and by tens of thousands.” It might also be considered that a people who can build with iron and steel (2 Nepih 5:15; Jarom 1:8), and make armor, shields and bucklers (3 Nephi 3:26), certainly could make chariots, and in addition, since they ”cast up many highways and many roads, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place” (3 Nephi 6:8), we might suggest that there were places to travel by chariot, even if not all roads (steps and rope bridges) were conducive to such travel.
    It is also interesting that when the Savior came and spoke to the surviving Nephites after all the destruction, he additionally warned the Nephites “wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots” (3 Npehi 21:14)
    Even the Lord knew the Nephites had chariots.
    Reader: “If the Nephites had a Navy they could have certainly used it to their advantage in troop and supplies movement in war. It seems to me that all troop movements were on foot as manifested by the fatigue felt by both sides in their vigorous pursuits of one another.”

Response: Shipping for troop movement would only have been valuable moving up and down the coast, or going around the island to bring troops from one coast to the other. However, there would have been no value in moving troops overland. First of all, rivers flow down from the mountains to the coast, and bringing a ship into a river has limited value because of going against winds and currents. Besides, the interior of their island, even as big as it was, was high in the midst because of the hills and mountains that a ship would probably not reach very far inland.
    Thus, most of the movement of troops was by foot because of the terrain.
    In the U.S. today, while we move troops by ship overseas (across oceans), we do not move them across land that way—not even back in the days before mechanized vehicles. As for having a Navy, generally speaking, you need an enemy that you can reach by sea or to defend yourself against naval attack.
    An example of that is found in the beginning of the United States. While the U.S. had a coastal defense force of a handful of gunboats, it did not have a Navy until the days of Thomas Jefferson. Don’t be fooled by the Navy tracing their establishment back to 13 October 1775, since that was only for the procurement, fitting out, manning and dispatch of two armed vessels to cruise in search of munitions ship supplying the British Army in America—and it was disbanded after the end of the Revolutionary War. Before the Revolution, merchant ships at sea were protected by the British Navy, during the Revolution, U.S. merchant ships at sea were protected by the French Navy (Treaty of Alliance). However, after the war ended, American ships entering the Mediterranean, especially along the Barbary coast were subject to attack, stop, seizure, and enslavement, by Barbary corsairs and crews from the North African Ottoman provinces of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and the independent Sultanate of Morocco under the Alouite dynasty were the scourge of the Mediterranean, unless heavy ransoms were paid.

Along the North Africa coast bordering along the Western Mediterranean Sea, primarily Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, though the Muslim pirates operated along the African and South America coasts in the Atlantic and as far north as Iceland, mainly attacking English and European, and later American, ships in their slave trade
    When Thomas Jefferson was elected, he rejected the right of Barbary pirates stopping American ships and created the United States Department of the Navy in 1798, only after having paid a million dollars in ransom (one-sixth of the entire U.S. budget then).
    Reader: “I also believe that the width of the narrow neck of land is greatly underestimated by those who can't seem to imagine what kind of great warriors Nephite men were and may have been as fit as the Spartans and could have run the entire distance from sea east to sea west in a day and a half.”

Response: Like most islands, the Land of Promise was not an even circle or rectangle, but a piece of land that was narrower in some places and wider in others (we know this simply because of the nature of all land forms). Thus, the narrowest place was at the area called the “small” or “narrow neck of land.” Mormon tells us a Nephite could cross that area in a day and a half journey. A journey implies the movement from one place to another, “the travel of a day,” and while not restricting the pace of travel, suggests it would be a normal pace, leisurely movement, or what might be normal in any age, by any normal person. Today, the term is used for a “trip, expedition, excursion, tour, trek, and includes such movement as wandering, pilgrimage, or movement from one place to another."
    Its definitions do not suggest fast paced movement, running, racing or a pace out of the ordinary. What the Spartans could do, the Mojave Indians, or a long-distant runner from Kenya, the usage in Mormon’s description is to suggest a distance measurement, which in turn implies a normal pace since no conditions were attached.
    Thus, the narrow neck of land would probably be around 25 to 40 miles ascross, making the rest of the Land Southward and the rest of the Land Northward much wider. Our best guess of the width of the land around the narrow strip of wilderness was probably about 600 miles in width from sea to sea, perhaps a little wider further south, and maybe 2000 miles from the Land of Nephi to Ripliancum. Those are just guesses, based on the configuration of the island as we think it appeared before the destruction in 3 Nephi.
    Reader: “We know that runners were the main source of communication in ancient times and we underestimate that ability amongst them.”
    Response: Not just anyone was a runner to carry messages from one place to another in ancient times. In the case of the Romans, their runners were trained practically from birth, as was the case among the Inca. Typically, in most societies, the king or leader chose young men as runners who demonstrated both a speed and endurance at running, as well as the loyalty to the kingdom or leader. Runners were never the run of the mill person until modern times when it became a job, typically on bicycles. In the military, runners were important to transport messages that could mean the different between winning or losing battle and were chosen from the fastest men in the unit, often small in size, typically low in rank.
(See the next post, “Interesting Thoughts from a Reader and Our Responses – Part III,” for more information on the comments and responses regarding the Nephites and their activities)