Zion's Camp

Zion's Camp was an expedition of Latter Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith, from Kirtland, Ohio to Clay County, Missouri during May and June 1834 in an unsuccessful attempt to regain land from which the Saints had been expelled by non-Mormon settlers. In Latter Day Saint belief, this land had been destined to become a city of Zion, the center of the Millennial kingdom; and Smith dictated a command from God ordering him to lead his church like a modern Moses to redeem Zion "by power, and with a stretched-out arm."

Receiving word of the approaching Latter Day Saints, the Missourians formed militias, which outnumbered Smith's men. Smith then dictated another revelation stating that the church was presently unworthy to "redeem Zion" because of its lack of commitment to the United Order, or Law of Consecration, a form of religious communism They were told they must "wait a little season" until its elders could receive their promised endowment of heavenly power. The expedition was disbanded on July 25, 1834, during a cholera epidemic, and a majority of survivors returned to Ohio. Nevertheless, the failed expedition permitted Smith to determine the most faithful Latter-Day Saints among the group, and most Latter Day Saint leaders of the following years were selected from among these men.

A fundamental tenet of Latter Day Saint theology is that the biblical New Jerusalem will be built in the Americas, a belief established by 1829 and included in the Book of Mormon, a scripture of the religion. On July 20, 1831, Joseph Smith identified the location of this New Jerusalem as Jackson County, Missouri and began sending Latter Day Saint settlers there to establish a City of Zion, which was to be a Latter Day Saint millennial kingdom.

...
Wikipedia