Layton was a private soldier in Company C, under Capt. James Brown. There
is nothing of especial novelty in the narrative, nor does there seem
anything of prophecy when the Battalion passed through the Valley of the
San Pedro in December, 1846, through a district to which Layton was to
return, in 1883, as leader of a Mormon colony.

Layton was one of the number that remained in California after the
discharge of the Battalion, eventually rejoining the Saints, at Salt
Lake, by way of his native land, England.

In B. H. Roberts' very interesting little work on the Mormon Battalion is
told this story of the later patriarch of the Gila settlement:

"While Colonel Cooke was overseeing the ferrying of the Battalion across
the Colorado River, Christopher Layton rode up to the river on a mule, to
let it drink. Colonel Cooke said to him, 'Young man, I want you to ride
across the river and carry a message for me to Captain Hunt.' It being
natural for the men to obey the Colonel's order, he (Layton) tried to
ride into the river, but he had gone but a few steps before his mule was
going in all over. So Brother Layton stopped. The Colonel hallooed out,
'Go on, young man; go on, young man.' But Brother Layton, on a moment's
reflection, was satisfied that, if he attempted it, both he and his mule
would stand a good chance to be drowned. The Colonel himself was
satisfied of the same. So Brother Layton turned his mule and rode off,
saying, as he came out, 'Colonel, I'll see you in hell before I will
drown myself and mule in that river.' The Colonel looked at him a moment,
and said to the bystanders, 'What is that man's name?' 'Christopher
Layton, sir.' 'Well, he is a saucy fellow.'"