The statement that Mormon was sixteen in the year that he led the Nephite armies gives us a small picture of timing. In Mormon 1:15 Mormon is fifteen years old. It was during that year that he was visited by the Lord. After that statement, we have verses 16 and 17 that emphasize Mormon’s desire to preach, and inability to do so by command of the Lord. The events were apparently moving quickly so that Mormon would be more needed for his militaristic talents than for his spirituality.
Mormon takes command of the Nephite armies at age 16. He was not the commander of the earlier battle, and this suggests that while the Lamanites retreated, the losses on the Nephite side were severe enough that either their commander himself was killed, or sufficiently incapacitated that he had to be replaced. This latter is the more likely, as Mesoamerican canons of warfare would have the Lamanites securing victory if they defeated and killed the opposing commander. Whatever the circumstances, there is a change in the Nephite military between the first battle and this next one, a change that requires that they turn to a sixteen year old man to be their leader. While that is indeed young, we should remember that in that cultural area it would have been quite likely that it was an age of majority, with most men accepting adulthood by that age.
The result of this battle is disastrous. The Nephite army simply refuses to engage the enemy and flees. While this must have been a crushing personal event for a newly minted leader of the army, there may be other circumstances at play here. The first is that the Nephite army did not fail to engage the Lamanites in the previous battle only years prior (no more than five, likely less). What has changed in the meantime. In this verse Mormon explicitly tells us that they Lamanites are now come “with exceedingly great power.” This is an interesting statement because it is not the typical statement about the Lamanite armies, which is that they have great numbers. In this case, they might come in great numbers, but that is not what is indicated as the reason why the Nephites fled. Indeed, the Nephites were fighting a defensive war which should require fewer battle-troops to at least create a standoff.
In spite of all of these things, the Lamanites come with “exceeding great power.” It is tempting to connect this statement with Mormon’s indication that now the Gadiantons have joined the Lamanites. Continuing with our assumption that the Gadiantons of Mormon’s day are to be seen as a Teotihuacán militaristic influence, this statement that the opposing army now came in “exceeding great power” makes a little more sense. We do not really know if the Teotihuacanos had any particular military innovation that made them militarily dominant, but we do have evidence that they were militarily dominant. The entrance of the Teotihuacanos into the Maya area appears to correspond to a new designation for war which epigraphers have labeled “star wars” because of the star imagery used to depict them. At this time, the precise nature of a “star war” is not understood, but it is clear that they became devastating types of war, and became the prominent type of warfare after the Teotihuacán contact.
If Mormon’s Nephite army is now facing a Teotihuacán-trained and led army, they may have had some indication of this new type of warfare, and fled to regroup. If this were the case, it may not be the cowardly flight that it initially appears to be, but rather a strategic retreat to understand and better prepare for this new type of enemy, one that is described differently from any previous army that the Nephites have faced.
Chronology: Three hundred and twenty seven years would be 318 A.D.