The Mountain Meadows Massacre Children

Uncle Dale · September 18, 2007

... But I suppose you could start a thread asking for documentation about it...

Well, we could begin with the statements of some of the first MMM witnesses, saying that they

feared for their lives, when they gave tetsimony to Judge Cradlebaugh, etc. If they did not fear

their neighbor Lee, who was it they thought might kill them? Wasn't Lee a known killer by then?

Here's a useful source -- I'll post it to the web in a day or so...

UD

[29]
APPENDIX.
_______
MASSACRE AT THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS -- MURDER OF
THE PARISHES AND POTTER -- MURDER OF THE
AIKEN PARTY -- MURDER OF JONES AND
HIS MOTHER -- MURDER OF FORBES.
_______
HISTORY OF THE "DANITE" ORGANIZATION.
_______
Fort Bridger, Utah
December 4, 1857.
* * *
On the tenth day of September last, George W. Hancock, a merchant in the town of Payson, came to the
Indian settlements to look at some fat cattle that I proposed selling, and in course of conversation,
said that he had learned that the California emigrants on the southern route had got themselves into a
very serious difficulty with the Piedes, who had given them to understand that they could not pass
through their country, and on attempting to disregard this injunction, found themselves surrounded by
the Indians, and compelled to seek shelter behind their wagons. He said he had learned these facts from
an express man, who passed his house that morning with a message from the Indians to President Young,
inquiring of him what they must do with the Americans. The express man had been allowed one hundred
consecutive hours in which to perform the trip of nearly three hundred miles and return, which Mr.
Hancock felt confident he would do. On the day following, one of the Utah Indians, who had been absent
for some days gathering pine nuts, west of the Sevier lake, returned, and said that the Mormons had
killed all the emigrants. He said he learned this news from a band of the Piedes, but could not tell when
the fight occurred, or how many had been killed. One of the Utahs, named Spoods, came to the farm on the
morning of the 14th, having traveled all night, and also confirmed the report of the difficulty between
the emigrants and the Piedes, but stated that when his brother Ammon (chief, who lives in the Piede
country,) went to Iron county to persuade the Piedes to leave the road, the bishop told him that he had
no business with the Piedes, and had better leave; whereupon an altercation arose between the bishop and
the chief.
Spoods thought that the Piedes had been set upon the emigrants by the Mormons.
It soon began to be talked among the employes at the farm that all the emigrants on the southern road
had been killed by the Piede Indians, and the report
30
was confirmed by several other persons who visited the farm; but the Indians insisted that Mormons,
and not Indians, had killed the Americans.
This affair had become so much the subject of conversation, that, on the 17th, I started an Indian boy,
named Pete, who speaks the English language quite fluently, with instructions to proceed to Iron county
on a secret route, and to learn from the Piedes if possible, and also from the Utahs, what the nature of
the difficulty was, and who were the instigators of it. He returned on the 23d, and reported that he
only went to Ammon's village, in Beaver county, where he met a large band of the Piedes, who had just
returned from Iron county.
They acknowledged having participated in the massacre of the emigrants, but said that the Mormons
persuaded them into it. They said that about ten or eleven sleeps ago, John D. Lee came to this village,
and told them that Americans were very bad people, and always made a rule to kill Indians whenever they
had a chance. He said, also, that they had often killed the Mormons, who were friends to the Indians.
He then prevailed on them to attack the emigrants, who were then passing through the country, (about one
hundred in number,) and promised them that if they were not strong enough to whip them, the Mormons would
help them. The Piedes made the attack, but were repulsed on three different occasions, when Lee and the
bishop of Cedar City, with a number of Mormons, approached the camp of the emigrants, under pretext of
trying to settle the difficulty, and with lying, seductive overtures, succeeded in inducing the emigrants
to lay down their weapons of defense and admit them and their savage allies inside of their breastworks,
when the work of destruction began, and, in the language of the unsophisticated boy, "they cut all of
their throats but a few that started to run off, and the Piedes shot them!" He also stated that there
were some fifteen or sixteen small children that were not killed, and were in charge of the bishop.
Lee and the bishop took all the stock, (over a thousand head,) as also a large amount of money. The
Mormon version of this affair is that the Piedes went to the emigrant camp and asked for meat, and they
gave them beef with strychnine upon it, and that when Brigham learned this fact, he sent word back to
them "to do with the Americans as they thought proper." But I have not yet been able to learn that
the strynchnine had killed any of the Indians, or even made them sick. A report also reached the Indian
farm on Spanish Fork, about the 15th of September, that the Snake Indians, under a chief named Little
Soldier, had attacked an emigrant, named Squires, from Missouri, who was camped near Ogden, and driven off
all his cattle, (over four hundred,) together with all the mules and horses belonging to him. But the Utahs
made no hesitation in asserting that the Mormons took the stock themselves, and that they had learned all
about it from some Gosh-Utes who live in Rush valley.
In confirmation of the truth of this report of the Utahs, I learned a few days ago from Ben Simon, a
Delaware Indian, who lives with the Snakes in Weaber valley, that sometime in the early part of September,
Dimick B. Huntington, (interpreter for Brigham Young,) and Bishop West, of Ogden, came to the Snake village,
and told the Indians that Brigham wanted them to run off the emigrants' cattle, and if they would do so they
might have them as their own. Simon says the Snake chiefs consulted him about the propriety of undertaking
the theft, and he advised them to have nothing to do with the cattle, which course they concluded to adopt,
hut Huntington and West insisted on
31
their taking the stock; whereupon the chiefs told them that they did not want it, and if the Mormons wanted
it let them go and get it themselves, and so the interview ended. Simon thinks that if any of the Indians
had anything to do with it they were hired by the Mormons, and says that he knows that the Mormons got the
stock.
It may be objected by the incredulous that those charges are too vague and uncertain, and deficient in
point of names and dates; in answer to which I would say, that the commission of these crimes need no proof,
there existence being generally admitted. The only questions to be determined are who instigated them? and
whose testimony is deserving the most credit the Mormons or the Indians? And under existing circumstances
I am free to say that I prefer yielding my credence to the more unsophisticated. I have frequently been
told by the chiefs of the Utahs, that Brigham Young was trying to bribe them to join in rebellion against
the United States by offering them guns, ammunition, and blankets, on condition that they would assist in
opposing the advance of the United States troops into the Territory, and he has not only made these
overtures by his agents, but has at sundry times made them in person. How far he may have succeeded in his
plots of treason, at the expense of the government, may not as yet be fully known and understood, but one
thing is certain, that the more powerful tribes of the Utahs and Snakes have so far resisted all the
allurements that have been offered them and kept themselves untrammeled by this unholy alliance, and I am
proud to say that they manifest no inclination whatever to participate in it.
* * *
FORT BRLDGER, July 6, 1859.
MAJOR: I have the honor to inform you that, in pursuance of instructions received from the adjutant
general's office of this department, dated April 17, 1859, I left Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, on the 21st
of April, 1859, to proceed to Santa Clara, in order to protect travelers on the road to California, and to
inquire into certain depredations said to have been committed by the Indians in that vicinity.
My command consisted of one company of dragoons and two companies of infantry.
Nothing of interest occurred until my arrival at the Mountain Meadows, which are situated about one hundred
and fifty miles south of Camp Floyd, and on the southern rim of the basin. Here I found human skulls, bones,
and hair, scattered about, and scraps of clothing of men, women, and children. I saw one girl's dress,
apparently that of a child ten or twelve years of age. These were the remains of a party of peaceful
inhabitants of the United States, consisting of men, women, and children, and numbering about one hundred
and fifty, who were removing with their effects from the State of Arkansas to the State of California. These
emigrants were here met by the Mormons (assisted by such of the wretched Indians of the neighborhood as they
could force or persuade to join them), and massacred, with the exception of such infant children that the
Mormons thought too young to remember or tell of the affair. The Mormons had their faces painted so as to
disguise themselves as Indians.
The Mormons were led on by John D. Lee, then a high dignitary in the self-styled Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, and Isaac Haight, now a dignitary in the same.
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This affair began by a surprise. The emigrants were encamped near a spring, from which there is a ravine.
Along this ravine the Mormons and Indians crept to the spring during the night. When the emigrants arose in
the morning they were fired upon, and some twelve or fifteen of them killed. The emigrants then seized their
arms and defended themselves so bravely that, after four days, the Mormons and Indians had not succeeded
in exterminating them. This horrid affair was finished by an act of treachery. John D. Lee, having washed
the paint from his face, came to the emigrants and told them that if they would surrender themselves, and
give their property to the Indians, that the Mormons would conduct them safely back to Cedar City. The
emigrants then surrendered, with their wives and children. They were taken about a mile and a half from the
spring, where they, their wives, and their children, (with the exception of some infants,) were ruthlessly
killed.
The infants were taken to Cedar City, where they were either sold or given away to such of the Mormons as
desired them. It is a notorious fact that these infants never have been with the Indians. The property of
the emigrants was taken to Cedar City, where it was put up at public auction and sold.
These facts were derived from the children who did remember and could tell of the matter, from Indians,
and from the Mormons themselves. This affair occurred in the month of September, in 1857.
On leaving the Mountain Meadows, I proceeded on with my command to the river Santa Clara, where I arrived
on the 8th of May, 1859. I sent for Jackson, the chief of the tribe said to be most hostile to the Americans.
He acknowledged that he had committed some outrages on the people of the United States. He made the most
humble protestations of future good conduct, in which I put some reliance, if he is not encouraged to commit
overt acts by the Mormons. These Indians are a miserable set of root-diggers, and nothing is to be
apprehended from them but by the smallest and most careless party.
The commanding general having concluded that the objects of the expedition were accomplished, I returned
to Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, agreeably to his instructions.
I am sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. P. CAMPBELL,
Capt. Second Dragoons, Com'y Santa Clara Expedition.
Major F. J. PORTER,
Assistant Adjutant General U. S. Army.,
Camp Floyd, Utah Territory.
_____
12 c.
CAMP AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS,
Utah Territory, May 6, 1859.
CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report, that this morning, accompanied by the detachment of men furnished
by your orders, I proceeded to inter the remains of the men, women, and children of the Arkansas emigrant
train, massacred
33
by the Mormons at the Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, in the month of September, 1857.
At the scene of the first attack, in the immediate vicinity of our present camp, marked by a small defensive
trench made by the emigrants, a number of human skulls and bones and hair were found scattered about,
bearing the appearance of never having been buried; also remnants of bedding and wearing apparel.
On examining the trenches or excavations, which appear to have been within the corral, and within which it
was supposed some written account of the massacre might have been concealed, some few human bones, human
hair, and what seemed to be the feathers of bedding, only were discerned.
Proceeding twenty-five hundred yards in a direction N. 15 degrees W., I reached a ravine fifty yards distant
from the road, bordered by a few bushes of scrub oak, in which I found portions of the skeletons of many
bodies skulls, bones, and matted hair most of which, on examination, I concluded to be those of men. Three
hundred and fifty yards further on, and in the same direction, another assembly of human remains were found,
which, by all appearance, had been left to decay upon the surface. Skulls and bones, most of which I
believed to be those of women, some also of children, probably ranging from six to twelve years of age.
Here, too, were found masses of women's hair, children's bonnets, such as are generally used upon the
plains, and pieces of lace, muslin, calicoes, and other material, part of women's and children's apparel.
I have buried thirteen skulls, and many more scattered fragments.
Some of the remains above referred to were found upon the surface of the ground, with a little earth
partially covering them, and at the place where the men were massacred; some lightly buried, but the
majority were scattered about upon the plain. Many of the skulls bore marks of violence, being pierced with
bullet holes, or shattered by heavy blows, or cleft with some sharp-edged instrument. The bones were
bleached and worn by long exposure to the elements, and bore the impress of the teeth of wolves or other
wild animals.
The skulls found upon the ground near the spring, or position of first attack, and adjoining our camp,
were eight in number. These, with the other remains there found, were buried, under my supervision, at the
base of the hill, upon the hill-side of the valley.
At the rate 2,500 yards distant from the spring, the relative positions and general appearance of the
remains seemed to indicate that the men were there taken by surprise and massacred. Some of the skulls
showed that fire-arms had been discharged close to the head. I have buried eighteen skulls and parts of
many more skeletons, found scattered over the space of a mile towards the lines, in which direction they
were no doubt dragged by the wolves.
No names were found upon any article of apparel, or any peculiarity in the remains, with the exception of
one bone, the upper jaw, in which the teeth were very closely crowded, and which contained one front tooth
more than is generally found.
Under my direction, the above-mentioned remains were all properly buried, the respective locality being
marked with mounds of stone.
I have the honor to be, captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
CHARLES BREWER,
Assistant Surgeon United States Army.
Captain R. P. CAMPBELL,
Second Dragoons, Commanding Paymaster's Escort.
34
PROVO CITY, U. T., March 18, 1859.
SIR: I left Salt Lake City last Sunday to visit the southern Indians, and to bring the seventeen children,
remaining from the massacre in September, 1857, to Salt Lake City, or adjacent to it.
* * *
I am in possession of the facts of the murders in June and October, and have, within twenty days, received
highly important and reliable information of the Mountain Meadow butchering affair. With the facts in my
possession now, I may succeed in recovering some of the property. Facts in my possession warrant me in
estimating that there was distributed a few days after the massacre, among the leading church dignitaries,
$30,000 worth of property. It is presumable they also had some money.
I will make such inquiry about this extraordinary affair as contingent circumstances will admit. I know
that the Indians are bad enough; I am aware, also, that it is, and especially has been, exceedingly
convenient to implicate the Indians in all such cases.
* * *
I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. FORNEY,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, U. T.
Hon. J. W. DENVER,
Comm'r of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.[/o]
________
SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE, UTAH,
Great Salt Lake City, August, 1859.
SIR: It has been my intention, for some weeks past, to give you a more full statement than heretofore given
of the Mountain Meadow tragedy, and of the children saved from it. * * *
A massacre of such unparalleled magnitude on American soil must necessarily excite much interest in the
public mind. From information received from various sources during the last twelve months, I am enabled to
give you a reliable account of the emigrant company in question, and the children remaining, and also some
of the causes and circumstances of the inhuman massacre.
The company was composed of about thirty families, and one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty
persons, and, I think, principally from Johnston county, Arkansas.
I have deemed it a matter of material importance to make strict inquiry relative to the general behavior
and conduct of the company towards the people of this Territory in their journey through it, and am
justified in saying that they conducted themselves with propriety.
It is generally conceded that the said company was abundantly supplied with traveling and extra horses,
cattle, &c. They had about thirty good wagons, and about thirty mules and horses, and six hundred head of
cattle, when passing through Provo City, Utah Territory. At Corn Creek, fifteen miles from Fillmore City,
and one hundred and sixty-five miles south of this city, the company camped several days. At this place,
and within a few miles of the Indian farm, (commenced a few years ago for the Pah-vant tribe, and all
living on it,) it is alleged that the said emigrant company treated the Indians most inhumanly; such as
poisoning a spring with arsenic, and impregnating
35
dead cattle with strichnine. John D. Lee, living one hundred and fifty miles south of Fillmore, informed
me that about twenty Indians and some cattle died from drinking of the poisoned water, and Indians from
eating the poisoned meat.
Dr. Ray, of Fillmore City, assured me that one of his oxen died while the company was encamped in the
neighborhood, and that his wife, while engaged rendering the tallow of the dead ox, became suddenly ill,
and that a boy who was assisting her died in a few days.
I have not been apprised of any investigation at the time by the Indian officials who were then in the
Territory, or of an official investigation by the proper authorities of Fillmore. It seems obvious that
Dr. Ray's ox died about the time these unfortunate people were camped in the neighborhood. I cannot learn,
however, of any difficulty the company had with the Pah-vant Indians while camped near them. The ox died
unquestionably from eating a poisonous weed that grows in most of the valleys in this Territory, and it is
by no means uncommon for cattle to get poisoned and die from the effects of this weed. One or two Indians
died from eating of the dead ox, but I have not been apprised that this excited any of them against the
emigrants. And after strict inquiry I cannot learn that even one Pah-varit Indian was present at the
massacre. Those persons in Fillmore, and further south, who believe that a spring was poisoned with arsenic,
and the meat of a dead ox with strichnine, by said company, may be honest in their belief, and attribute
the cause of the massacre to the alleged poisoning. Why an emigrant company, and especially farmers, would
carry with them so much deadly poison is incomprehensible. I regard the poisoning affair as entitled to
no consideration. In my opinion, bad men, for a bad purpose, have magnified a natural circumstance for the
perpetration of a crime that has no parallel in American history for atrocity.
I hear nothing more of the emigrant company until their arrival in Mountain Meadow valley, about the 2d or
3d of September, 1857. This valley is seven miles in length east and west, and one to three wide a large
spring at each end. In about the centre, and from north to south-east, is what is termed the "rim of the
basin." East of this the waters go to the lakes of Utah Territory, and those west into the Pacific. The
valley is well hemmed in by high hills or mountains; is almost a continuous meadow, affording an abundance
of pasture.
At the spring in the east end is a house and corral, occupied in September, 1857, by Mr. Jacob Hamblin. It
is due to Mr. Hamblin to say that he left home several weeks before the company arrived in the valley,
and returned home several days after the massacre.
David Tulis (was living with Mr. Hamblin) says: "The company passed by the house on Friday, September 2d
or 3d, towards evening; that it was a large and respectable-looking company. One of the men rode up to
where I was working, and asked if there was water ahead. I said, yes. The person who rode up behaved
civilly. The company camped at the spring in the west end of the valley. I heard firing on Monday morning,
and for four or five mornings afterwards; if there had been firing during the day, I could not have heard
it on account of the wind.
I then asked Mr. Tulis the following questions, and received answers, to wit:
1. When you heard the firing first what was your opinion of its cause?
36
Answer. I believed it was the Indians fighting the emigrant company camped at the spring at the other end
of the valley
2. Why did you not notify the nearest settlement?
Answer. I thought or expected that the people of the nearest settlement knew of the fight.
3. Why did you suppose so?
Answer. Because I saw Indians riding back and forwards on the road.
4. Was you afraid?
Answer. I was a little timid.
5. How soon did you see white men?
Answer. Two or three days afterwards -- that is, after the massacre -- these persons looked like travelers.
I think they went to bury the dead.
6. Did you see many Indians during the fight?
Answer. During the fighting the Indians continued to run to and fro on the road.
7. How many were in the train?
Answer. I suppose 70 to 100; there seemed to be a good many women and children.
8. Did you hear any talk about the massacre?
Answer. Yes.
9. What did you hear was the cause of the massacre?
Answer. I heard afterwards; because the emigrant party poisoned the spring or some cattle at Corn creek.
10. What was your own opinion of the cause?
Answer. I thought there must have been some fuss with the Indians along the road somewhere. I heard that
the emigrant party had poisoned a spring at Corn creek.
11. What became of the property?
Answer. The Indians drove all the cattle and horses away. I heard they burned the wagons where they were
camped.
12. What was done with the children immediately after the massacre?
Answer. I heard the Indians took them to Cedar City. I also saw
the Indians drive some cattle towards Cedar City.
13. Did you ever see any of the property in the possession of whites?
Answer. No.
14. Did you ever hear any one talk about the property?
Answer. No.
15. Did you ever hear of any one escaping from the fight or massacre?
Answer. I heard of one ; and he was afterwards killed at the Muddy or Los Vagos river.
This is part of the statement of D. Tulis, made to me in presence of William H. Rodgers, April 13 last,
while on my trip to Santa Clara. He was traveling with us from Painter Creek.
I will give you a few extracts from the statements by Alfred, who is a civilized Shoshonee Indian, raised
by Mr. Jacob Hamblin, and was then and is still living with him. Alfred says:
"I saw the company passing our house about sun down. It was a large company. They camped at the spring in
the other end of the valley. A day or two after passing our house, I heard firing when in bed; it continued
all day four days.
37
Question. Why did you not go there?
Answer. I had not time; I was attending to the sheep. The time they were killed, I was ahout a mile from
them. I saw some Indians killing them. They shot some with arrows and guns, and others were killed with
clubs. I talked with some of the Indians (the day they were killed;) they were mad and I was afraid to
talk much to them. Some of the Indians, during the four or five days firing, rode to and fro towards
Painter Creek settlement, about ten miles east of the Mountain Meadow valley; they were riding over the
hills, and riding very fast.
Question. Why did you not, during the four or five days firing, notify the people of Painter Creek and
Cedar City of the fight ?
Answer. I told Mr. Tulis and those at the house, when I came in from herding, about the Indians fighting
the emigrants. Mr. Tulis told me to mind my business and attend to my herding. I saw the Indians killing
the whites.
Question. How did the emigrants get out of the corral?
Answer. They thought the Indians had all left, and then they started out and were coming to our house,
and when they were about a mile from the wagons, the Indians who were hid behind oak brush and sage fell
on them. I went to the place the same day and saw the dead lying about. Some were stript and some were
dressed. The Indians were mad, scolding and quarrelling. I saw the children going past our house. (Mr.
Hamblin's.) All the children stopped at our house.
Question. Who brought the children to Mr. Hamblin's house?
Answer. Mr. David Tulis brought them all to our house in a wagon about dark, the same evening of the day
of the massacre.
Question. Was Mr. Jacob Hamblin at home when the company arrived in the valley and the day of the massacre?
Answer. He left home several weeks before the company arrived, and returned several days after the massacre.
These persons lived at Mr. Hamblin's, and within three and a half miles of the spot where the killing was
done; yet neither were there, if one is to believe them,
I conclude from the most reliable information that the company promiscuously camped near the spring,
intending to remain some days to recruit the stock, preparatory to crossing the several deserts before
reaching California. They had no apprehension of serious danger when they first reached the valley, and for
several days afterwards, or from Friday until Monday morning. The company then corraled the wagons and made
a protective fort, by filling with earth the space under the wagons. I saw the evidences of this last April.
The Indians got into a state of tremendous excitement, through misrepresentations of the foulest character,
about the supposed poisoning at Corn Creek. * * *
In pursuance to arrangements, the first attack was made on the unfortunate company by Indians on Monday
morning, and continued daily until Friday morning, September 9. The camp was surrounded continually,
preventing any one from leaving the corral without hazarding life, during five or six days.
It is impossible to comprehend the immense suffering. On the fatal morning two wagons approached the corral,
and several whites effected a compromise, the emigrants giving up all their arms, with the assurance that
the lives of all should be saved and conducted back in safety to Cedar City. The company started under the
care and direction of white men; the wounded, old women, and children were taken in the two wagons. They
proceeded about one and
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a half mile toward Cedar, when suddenly, and in obedience to a signal, the work of death commenced. The
murderers were secreted in a few acres of oak brush and sage, the only thing of the kind I saw in the
valley. My impression is that from one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty were there murdered.
Several escaped; only three got out of the valley ; two of whom were soon overtaken and shot down. One adult
got as far as the Muddy, and was returning with two persons from California; but he was also overtaken and
shot by Indians.
From the evidence in my possession, I am justified in the declaration that this massacre was concocted by
white men and consummated by whites and Indians. The names of many of the whites engaged in this terrible
affair have already been given to the proper legal authorities.
I will in due time take the necessary steps for the recovery of the property, which was sold and divided
among certain parties.
The seventeen little children, all that I can learn of, were taken after the massacre to Mr. Hamblin's
house by John D. Lee, David Tulis, and others, in a wagon, either the same evening or the following morning.
The children were sold out to different persons in Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter Creek. Bills are now
in my possession from different individuals, asking payment from the government. I cannot condescend to
become the medium of even transmitting such claims to the department. * * *
Below is a list of the children recovered by me and brought to this city, fifteen of whom are now en route
to Arkansas, and two detained to give evidence:
John Calvin Sorel; Lewis and Mary Sorel; Ambrose Miram, and William Taggit; Frances Horn; Angeline, Annie,
and Sophronia or Mary Huff; Ephraim W. Huff; Charles and Annie Francher; Betsey and Jane Baker; Rebecca,
Louisa, and Sarah Dunlap; William (Welch) Baker.
I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. FORNEY,
Supt. Indian Affairs Utah Territory.
Hon. A. B. GREENWOOD,
Com. of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.
______
John D. Lee, a Mormon president, has knowledge of the whereabouts of much of the property taken from
these ill-fated emigrants, and, if I am not misinformed, in possession of a large quantity of it. Why not
make him disgorge this ill-gotten plunder, and disclose the amount escheated to and sold out by the Mormon
Church as its share of the blood of helpless victims? When he enters into a league with hell and a covenant
with death, he should not be allowed to make feasts and entertain government officials at his table as he
did Dr. Jacob Forney, superintendent of Indian affairs, while the rest of his party refused, in his hearing
and that of Lee, to share the hospitality of this notorious murderer THIS SCOURGE OF THE DESERT. This man
Lee does not deny, but admits that he was present at the massacre, but pretends that he was there to
prevent bloodshed; but positive evidence implicates him as the leader of the murderers too deeply for
denial. The children point him out as one of them that did the bloody work. He and other white men had
these children, and they never were in the hands of the Indians, but in those who murdered them, and Jacob
Hamlin and Jacob Forney know it. The children pointed out to
39
us the dresses and jewelry of their mothers and sisters that now grace the angelic forms of these murderers'
women and children. Verily it would seem that men and women alike combined in this wholesale slaughter.
This ill-fated train consisted of eighteen wagons, eight hundred and twenty head of cattle, household goods
to a large amount, besides money, estimated at eighty or ninety thousand dollars, the greater part of which,
it is believed, now makes rich the harems of this John D. Lee. Of this train a man, whose name is unknown,
fortunately escaped at the time of the massacre to Vegas, one hundred miles distant from the scene of blood,
on the California road. He was followed by five Mormons who, through promises of safety, &c., prevailed upon
him to begin his return to Mountain Meadows, and, contrary to their promises and his just expectation, they
inhumanly butchered him, laughing at and disregarding his loud and repeated cries for mercy; as witnessed
and told by Ira Hatch, one of the five. The object in killing this man was to leave no witness competent to
give testimony in a court of justice but God, whose ways are inscrutable, has thought proper, through the
instrumentality of the "babes and sucklings" recovered by us, to bring to light this most horrible tragedy,
and make known its barbarous and inhuman perpetrators.
Already a step has been taken by Judge Cradlebaugh in the right direction, of which we see the evidence
in the flight of presidents, bishops, and elders to the mountains, to escape the just penalty of the law
for their crimes. If the vengeance of the Lord is slow, it is equally sure. The Mormons, who know better,
have reported that the principals and, in fact, all the actors in this fearful massacre, were Indian
savages; but subsequent events have thrown sufficient light upon this mystery to fix the foul blot
indelibly upon the Mormon escutcheon. Many of the leaders are well known. John D. Lee was the
commander-in-chief. President Haight and Bishop Smith, of Cedar City, and, besides these, one hundred
actors and accomplices, are known to Judge Cradlebaugh and Dr. Forney. * * *
JAMES LYNCH.
James Lynch, being duly sworn, states on oath that all the material facts stated by him in the foregoing
affidavit, so far as he states the same as of his own knowledge, are true, and so far as he states the
same as from information derived from others, as also the conclusions drawn from the same, he believes to
be true, and further saith not.
JAMES LYNCH.
Sworn to and subscribed July 27, 1859.
D. K. ECKELS,
Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
The undersigned state on oath, that the foregoing affidavit has been carefully read to them; that they are
the identical persons named in it as having been employed by Dr. Jacob Forney to return with him to Salt
Lake City; that they went from Beaver City with said Forney south, and back again, and that we fully concur
in the statements made by James Lynch, Esq., in the foregoing affidavit, as to what we saw and heard on the
trip, and the conduct of Dr. Forney, superintendent of Indian affairs, and further say not.
THOMAS DUNN.
JOHN LOFINK.
Subscribed and sworn to before me July 27, 1859. D. B. ECKELS,
Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
40
SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE, UTAH,
Great Salt Lake City, September 22, 1859.
SIR: Your letter dated July 2, in which you request me to ascertain the names of white men, if any,
implicated in the Mountain Meadow massacre, reached me several weeks since, about 300 miles west of this
city.
I gave several months ago to the Attorney General and several of the United States judges the names of
those who I believed were not only implicated, but the hell-deserving scoundrels who concocted and brought
to a successful termination the whole affair.
The following are the names of the persons the most guilty: Isaac T. Haight, Cedar City, president of
several settlements south; Bishop Smith, Cedar City; John D. Lee, Harmony; John M. Higby, Cedar City;
Bishop Davis, David Tullis, Santa Clara; Ira Hatch, Santa Clara. These were the cause of the massacre,
aided by others. It is to be regretted that nothing has yet been accomplished towards bringing these
murderers to justice. * * *
I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. FORNEY,
Supe't Indian Affairs, Utah Territory.
Hon. A. B. GREENWOOD,
Commissioner Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.
_______
Extract from Superintendent Forney's annual report, of September 29, 1859.
MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE.
A company of emigrants from Arkansas, emigrating to California, arrived and camped at a spring in the west
end of Mountain Meadow valley on the 3d or 4th September, 1857. On the 9th of said month, and near the said
spring, one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty were inhumanly massacred. The lives of seventeen
children were spared, who were from two months to seven years old. This massacre was brought to my official
notice by a letter from the Hon. C. E. Mix, received June, 1858, instructing me to make inquiry, and
recover, if possible, certain children, who, it was supposed, were saved from the massacre and were supposed
to be living with Mormons and Indians. Sixteen of the surviving children were collected in July, 1858, and
were placed in a respectable family in Santa Clara, three hundred and fifty miles south of this city, and
were provided for by my directions. The seventeenth child was recovered last April. None of the children
were claimed by or were living with or among the Indians. They were taken from the field of slaughter the
evening of the day their friends were killed, and conveyed in a wagon to Mr. Hamblin's house, in the east
end of the valley, by John D. Lee and Daniel Tullis, and perhaps others. The following day the children were
divided out and placed in different Mormon families in Cedar City, Harmony, Santa Clara, &c., from whence
they were collected in pursuance of my directions. A massacre of such unparalleled magnitude on American
soil must sooner or later demand thorough investigation. I have availed myself during the last twelve months
of every opportunity to obtain reliable information about the said emigrant company, and the alleged causes
of and circumstances which led to their treacherous sacrifice.
Mormons have been accused of aiding the Indians in the commission of this
41
crime. I commenced my inquiries without prejudice or selfish, motive, and with a hope that, in the progress
of my inquiries, facts would enable me to exculpate all white men from any participation in this tragedy,
and saddle the guilt exclusively upon the Indians; but, unfortunately, every step in my inquiries satisfied
me that the Indians acted only a secondary part. Conflicting statements were made to me of the behavior of
this emigrant company, while traveling through the Territory. I have accordingly deemed it a matter of
material importance to make a strict inquiry to obtain reliable information on this subject; not that bad
conduct on their part could in any degree palliate the enormity of the crime, or be regarded as any
extenuation. My object was common justice to the surviving orphans. The result of my inquiries enables me
to say that the company conducted themselves with propriety. They were camped several days at Corn creek,
Fillrnore valley, adjacent to one of our Indian farms.
Persons have informed me that, whilst there encamped, they poisoned a large spring with arsenic and the
meat of a dead ox with strichnine. This ox died, unquestionably, from eating a poisonous weed, which grows
in most of the valleys here. Persons in the southern part of the Territory told me last spring, when on a
southern trip, that from fifteen to twenty Pah-vant Indians (of those on Corn Creek farm) died from drinking
the water of the poisoned spring and eating of the poisoned meat. Other equally unreasonable stories were
told me about these unfortunate people.
That an emigrant company, as respectable as I believe this was, would carry along several pounds of arsenic
and strichnine, apparently for no other purpose than to poison cattle and Indians, is too improbable to be
true. I cannot learn that the Pah-vants had any difficulty with these people. The massacre took place only
about one hundred miles south of Corn creek, and yet not any of those Indians were present. Bad white men
have magnified a natural cause to aid them in exciting the southern Indians, hoping that, by so doing, they
could be relied upon to exterminate the said company and escape detection themselves. Thus, on the Monday
morning subsequent to the Friday, 4th or 5th of September, the day they camped at the spring, the Indians
commenced firing upon them, and continued daily until and during the eighth day of their encamping, but
without accomplishing much. Several were killed, however, and a few wounded, When the company first
apprehended an attack, they formed a corral with their wagons, and filled up with earth to the wagon beds,
which made a protecting fort. White men were present and directed the Indians, John D. Lee, of Harmony, told
me, in his own house, last April, in presence of two persons, that he was present three successive
days during the fight, and was present during the fatal day. The Indians alone made their last attack on
the 8th of September. On the 9th, John D. Lee and others, whose names I gave in my letter of the 23d ultimo,
displayed a white flag, and approached the corral with two wagons, and had a long interview with the company, and
proposed a compromise. What there occurred has not transpired. The emigrant company gave up all their arms,
with the expectation that their lives would be spared, and they be conducted back to Panther creek and
Cedar city. The old women, children, and wounded were taken in the wagons, and the company proceeded
towards Panther creek, when, suddenly, at a signal, the work of death commenced, about one and a half miles
from the spring, at a place where there was about an acre of scrub-oak brush. Here
42
not less, I think, than one hundred and fifteen men, women, and children, were slaughtered by white men and
Indians. Three men got out of the valley, two of whom were soon overtaken and killed; the other reached
Muddy creek, over fifty miles off, and was overtaken and killed by several Indians and one white man.
Thus terminated the most extensive and atrocious massacre recorded in American history. Whoever may have
been the perpetrators of this horrible deed, no doubt exists in my mind that they were influenced chiefly
by a determination to acquire wealth by robbery. It is in evidence, from respectable sources, that material
changes have taken place in the pecuniary condition of certain individuals suspected of complicity in this
affair. It is to be regretted that no well-directed effort has been made to bring the guilty to trial and
punishment. I furnished to the proper officials the names of some of the persons who, I had reason to
suppose, were instigators and participators in this unparalleled massacre, and also with the names of
witnesses.
________
AFFIDAVIT OF HENRY HIGGINS.
Territory of Utah.
Cedar County ss:
Henry Higgins being sworn says, that he lived in Cedar City, in said Territory, about the month of
September, 1857, the time of the massacre at the Mountain Meadows. Some days before the massacre, he
saw the train going siuth through, towards the city, he being out herding at the time; train going south
a few days after, about sundown in the evening, he noticed a company of persons going out of Cedar City,
two wagons full, and others on horse-back, about 25 persons in all, all armed with guns. Nothing was
said about where they were going, he inquired, but was unable to find out. In the company that started
out he recollected the following persons: William Bateman, Egra Curtis, Samuel Pollock, Alexander
Loverage, John M. Higbee, and William Stewart.
Affiant further says, that he saw the same persons return with a lot of wagons and oxen, which were loaded
with plunder, there was twelve to fourteen of them, four or five yoke of oxen in each, they were driven to
Bishop P. K. Smith's, there unloaded. Some time after the effects were sold at the Tithing office -- and
further saith not.
HENRY HIGGINS.
Sworn and signed before me, this 20th of April, 1859.
JOHN CRADLEBAUGH,
Judge 2d District, U. S.
______
EXTRACT OF A LETTER OF WM. H. ROGERS TO THE VALLEY TAN.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/UT/utahmsc1.htm#022960
"Leaving the commands here
Leaving the commands here (Mountain Meadows) Judge Cradlebaugh and I proceeded forward to Cedar City, where
the Judge intended to remain some time, and make a thorough investigation if he could [concerning the massacre],
and persons engaged in it. Owing to some disadvantages in the location of Cedar City, a large portion of the
inhabitants that once dwelt there had moved away, and there was, in consequence, a good many vacant houses in
the place. Judge Cradlebaugh obtained the use of one of these to stay in, while he remained, and for the purpose
of a court room.
43
As soon as it became known that Judge Cradlebaugh intended holding a court, and investigating the circumstances
of the massacre, and that he would have troops to ensure protection, and enforce his writs if necessary; several
persons visited him at his room, at late hours of the night, and informed him of different facts connected with
the massacre. All these that called thus, stated that it would be at the risk of their lives if it became known
that they had communicated anything to him; and they requested the Judge if he met them in daytime, not to
recognize them as persons that he had seen before.
* * *
Such was the substance, if not the exact words, of a statement made by a man to Judge Cradlebaugh, in my
presence, who confessed that he participated in the horrible events which he related. He also gave Judge
Cradlebaugh the names of twenty-five or thirty men living in the region, who assisted in the massacre. He
offered to make the same statements in court, if protection was guaranteed to him. He gave as a reason for
divulging these facts, that they had tormented his mind and conscience since they occurred * * *
We had been in Cedar City but two days when Capt. Campbell arrived with his command, and informed the Judge
that he had received an express from General Johnston, to bring back with him all the troops in his command,
as the Mormons were assembling in the mountains, on the [south]. Judge Cradlebaugh was left without protection
for those who might be called as witnesses, or of arresting any persons who might flee or resist his writs.
Without assistance of this kind it was useless to attempt to hold a court, and we accordingly left on the
next day with Capt. Campbell's command for Camp Floyd.
* * *
WM. H. ROGERS.
DEputy U. S. Marshall, U. T.
(remainder not copied)

USU78 · September 18, 2007

Well, we could begin with the statements of some of the first MMM witnesses, saying that they feared for their lives, when they gave tetsimony to Judge Cradlebaugh, etc. If they did not fear their neighbor Lee, who was it they thought might kill them? Wasn't Lee a known killer by then?
Here's a useful source -- I'll post it to the web in a day or so...
As soon as it became known that Judge Cradlebaugh intended holding a court, and investigating the circumstances of the massacre, and that he would have troops to ensure protection, and enforce his writs if necessary; several persons visited him at his room, at late hours of the night, and informed him of different facts connected with the massacre. All these that called thus, stated that it would be at the risk of their lives if it became known that they had communicated anything to him; and they requested the Judge if he met them in daytime, not to recognize them as persons that he had seen before.

The above is troubling to the lawyer in me. What in the world is a civilian judge doing interviewing potential witnesses prior to a trial? He's acting like he's a territorial Assistant U.S. Attorney instead of a judge. A possible explanation is that this judge, armed as he was with military escort, was acting quasi in court martial . . . which presupposes martial law in Utah territory at the time.

Had martial law been declared? Was it part of the negotiated settlement that Cummings and BY affected? Was there a finding of causum bellum that would justify declaration of martial law? Or had hostilities, barely begun at most, then ceased?

I question Cradlebaugh's bona fides here. His actions, as well as the shady actions of alleged snitch(es), are highly problematic and deeply troubling.

Uncle Dale · September 18, 2007

The above is troubling to the lawyer in me. What in the world is a civilian judge doing interviewing potential witnesses prior to a trial? He's acting like he's a territorial Assistant U.S. Attorney instead of a judge. A possible explanation is that this judge, armed as he was with military escort, was acting quasi in court martial . . . which presupposes martial law in Utah territory at the time.
Had martial law been declared? Was it part of the negotiated settlement that Cummings and BY affected? Was there a finding of causum bellum that would justify declaration of martial law? Or had hostilities, barely begun at most, then ceased?
I question Cradlebaugh's bona fides here. His actions, as well as the shady actions of alleged snitch(es), are highly problematic and deeply troubling.

When I lived in Saipan, the locals used to say the same thing about neighboring Guam.

Perhaps the judges in Guam had more investigative authority because of Guam's long history as a

Spanish colony. European judges do investigative work. But if so, that is only culture and tradition, and

can play no part in the actual legal system itself, which is by law, American.

So why do judges in Guam have different authority than those in the Northern Mariana Islands? The

answer is that the former is a Territory and the latter is a Commonwealth (nearer a state in some ways).

Even in a Territory a prosecuting attorney has a function different from a federal district judge -- and

yes there was de facto martial law, if not de jure martial law in 1858-60. Cumming and Johnston were

always at odds over which had the ultimate authority and Cumming protested Cradlebaugh's activities

so loudly (it would seem) that the Dept. of War ordered that U. S. troops NOT be employed in making

arrests nor in maintaining protection of witnesses. That was the task of federal marshals (who were in

short supply). Troops were only to be used in extreme cases, such as guarding a court proceeding

while a riot was going on outside, etc.

This pulling back of Cradlebaugh's fangs effectively ended his investigative work in Cedar City and

Provo; and perhaps that was for the best. The 1875-76 trials were at least more "by the book."

What did Cradlebaugh's activities produce? Whether or not we believe the testimony he compiled, the

level of detail does indicate that the massacre was NOT simply carried out by Indians, who stole all

of the emigrants' possesions and burned all of their wagons before the Iron Co. Militia could arrive there.

If the leaders in Salt Lake City could plead ignorance of these sorts of facts, as late as 1872, it shows

that they were not listening to reports circulating so widely that even the "enemy Gentiles" were learning

bloody secrets, very soon after the massacre. Your wife's relative Klingensmith's covert testifying, from

1869 onward, until he came out openly as a prosecution witness, shows the detail of testimony available.

Again, we need not accept all of the details ---- but by 1872 it had become patently absurd, and

dangerous (from a possibly criminal aspect) to maintain that ONLY Indians had carried out the massacre.

Once Mormons made THAT change in their viewpoint, the criminal justice system could go forward with

the sort of investigation and prosecution efforts that SHOULD have been used in Cradlebaugh's day.

It was a difficult situation, handled (or mishandled) in such a way that many people who should have

faced very serious criminal charges, were never brought to justice.

Too bad about that -- can't change the past -- let's just make sure it doesn't happen again in our day.

Uncle Dale

.

Uncle Dale · September 18, 2007

I question Cradlebaugh's bona fides here.

Well, Horatio, he's dead and gone and John D. Lee has a recommend to the CK -- that's life, I guess.

I'll slowly add to the 1863 Cradlebaugh book, here:

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1860s/1863Crdl.htm

However, since most of his documnetation was previously published in Pres. Buchanan's 1860 addresses

to the Senate and House, I'll probably concentrate on getting those two texts on the web, before I

go back and finish up Cradlebaugh.

I'm still looking for Penrose's 1899 edition on the MMM, should you be in any large libraries in the

next few days, with some photocopying quarters in your pocket.

Yer Unk

Calm · September 18, 2007

I question Cradlebaugh's bona fides here. His actions, as well as the shady actions of alleged snitch(es), are highly problematic and deeply troubling.

USU, his boss, the US attorney general, felt the same way. I believe I posted that quote from Arrington, somewhere in this forum.

Uncle Dale · September 20, 2007

...the majority of all the other Mormons at that point were Americans....

We might just as well say that Jesus' followers were Jews -- that did not keep John the Evangelist

from saying some very hostile things about "the Jews."

Every day, after 1847, the ratio of USA-born Mormons to foreign-born Mormons deminished. The old

leaders tended to be from the States, but even top-level ones like John Taylor and George Q. Cannon

were foreign born.

When my British ggGrandfather, Samuel Broadhurst, loaded up his musket to go fight "Americans"

in the re-constituted "Nauvoo Legion" of 1857, he was not fighting his fellow countrymen, for he ahd

not yet even taken out his naturalization papers.

However, don't take my word for it --- go back and read the Deseret News for 1855-1859 ----

or better yet, the reports of travelers passing through Utah during that time.

In that period, when you see "American" recorded on the lips of a Utahan, it was said with a sneer.

Take, for example, the 1859 report of Judge Eckels, of the US First Judicial District for the Territory:

If the Mormon leaders were good men, carefully regarding the laws of mine and thine, which

unfortunately is not so, the wants of the people would cause many larcenies and encourage

violence. The character of the leaders, the wants of the people, the wickedness of some of their

revelations, and their hatred of the "damned Gentiles," all combine to produce a state of things

here to be controlled by no three judges without support.

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/186...0Buch.htm#H_36a

Of course a "damned Gentile" might well be a wandering Australian or Mexican, but 99% of the "enemy"

faced by the Mormons of Utah at the end of the 1850s were Americans.

Don't let 2007 "presentism" and modern talks on the 12th Article of Faith and D&C 134 fool you into

thinking there was no hatred for the "American" Gentiles in Utah in the 1850s. There is far too much

historical evidence available for anybody to deny these facts.

UD

.

Pahoran · September 20, 2007

We might just as well say that Jesus' followers were Jews -- that did not keep John the Evangelist from saying some very hostile things about "the Jews."
Every day, after 1847, the ratio of USA-born Mormons to foreign-born Mormons deminished. The old
leaders tended to be from the States, but even top-level ones like John Taylor and George Q. Cannon
were foreign born.
When my British ggGrandfather, Samuel Broadhurst, loaded up his musket to go fight "Americans"
in the re-constituted "Nauvoo Legion" of 1857, he was not fighting his fellow countrymen, for he ahd
not yet even taken out his naturalization papers.
However, don't take my word for it --- go back and read the Deseret News for 1855-1859 ----
or better yet, the reports of travelers passing through Utah during that time.
In that period, when you see "American" recorded on the lips of a Utahan, it was said with a sneer.
Take, for example, the 1859 report of Judge Eckels, of the US First Judicial District for the Territory:
If the Mormon leaders were good men, carefully regarding the laws of mine and thine, which
unfortunately is not so, the wants of the people would cause many larcenies and encourage
violence. The character of the leaders, the wants of the people, the wickedness of some of their
revelations, and their hatred of the "damned Gentiles," all combine to produce a state of things
here to be controlled by no three judges without support.
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/186...0Buch.htm#H_36a
Of course a "damned Gentile" might well be a wandering Australian or Mexican, but 99% of the "enemy"
faced by the Mormons of Utah at the end of the 1850s were Americans.
Don't let 2007 "presentism" and modern talks on the 12th Article of Faith and D&C 134 fool you into
thinking there was no hatred for the "American" Gentiles in Utah in the 1850s. There is far too much
historical evidence available for anybody to deny these facts.
UD.

Dale,

you have two remarkable talents in prodigious qualities. Unfortunately they tend to cancel each other out.

The first is your talent for turning up interesting old historical tidbits. This is very valuable, and I hope you will keep it up.

The second is your amazing ability to so completely and uncritically accept anything that attacks the Church of Jesus Christ, no matter how obviously useless it is as evidence.

Judge Eckels was not an LDS leader. Judge Eckels was not LDS at all. Therefore, Judge Eckels's statement is not an LDS source. His clever use of editorial quotes does not give a source for that expression. It is not therefore not evidence of LDS attitudes, but evidence only of his reaction to those attitudes, whatever they might in reality have been.

Also, Judge Eckels was not in Utah prior to 1857. He was there during the occupation only. If there were some Church members who viewed the occupying army in similar terms as the French of a later generation would view their occupiers, who, upon making even the slightest effort to be fair, could blame them?

Note also that his grotesque misintepretation of two passages of LDS scripture, which he supposes call for wholesale robbery and murder (they do not) and the dishonest tricks by which he tries to make his accusations stick, show him to be a completely hostile and unreliable witness of Mormon things.

Do by all means continue to tell us whenever you find some of this delightful old 19th century anti-Mormon melodrama. But please try to be at least a little bit careful about merely accepting it at face value.

Regards,

Pahoran

Uncle Dale · September 20, 2007

Do by all means continue to tell us whenever you find some of this delightful old 19th century anti-Mormon melodrama. But please try to be at least a little bit careful about merely accepting it at face value.
Regards,
Pahoran

That's your job, friend ---- if my characterization of past events gets overblown, I'll leave you

to be my watchdog and help make the corrections.

When the first RLDS missionaries toured Utah in the 1860s, their crop of converts tended to be the

"old Saints" who had been around for a few years, and were not fresh off the boat from Copenhagen.

Those "old Saints" recalled the earlier days and they shuddered at their memories of "The Reformation."

No doubt my RLDS perceptions have been colored by the tales those RLDS converts brought with

them, across the Idaho border into Malad City --- the LARGEST branch of the RLDS Church at that

time, and the branch where I was baptized (though the chapel had been moved north by my time).

What I know of "The Reformation" in Utah during the 1850s comes to me through that lens and I

admit that those "leavers" from Utah brought a sour view of life under Brigham. So did my own

direct ancestors, who were not all RLDS, but included some "jack Mormon" colonizers from Utah

who "went north" after the US Civil War.

But I do not just rely upon family traditions and RLDS traditions -- I also read the "Deseret News" and

the "Frontier Guardian" from that early period. I am not pleased with what I read there.

And I truly think that if the faithful LDS browsing this MB could be transplanted from their comfortable

living rooms in Boston, Wellington, and Osaka, to the Provo of 1855-57, they would be in for the shock

of their lives.

Times change -- things are better now. And, if you really pressed me on the issue, I might be forced

to admit that a few Saints in Utah in 1857 still loved their relatives, back in "America," and were not

too keen on the idea of building an independent nation called Deseret. Good folks, those...

Uncle "and those sorts were JSIII's first converts when he reached Ogden and Logan" Dale

.

Uncle Dale · September 20, 2007

...
Source? I believe they did have a lot of goods, and nice belongings, etc. But I'd like to
know where the info is coming from. And does our Governor take the opportunity to explain
how he nows the Mormons took all the booty? Ah, that's right, he only implies this.
...

If you would take the trouble to read the article you would see that the Arkansas Governor's information

comes from eyewitness accounts collected by Major Carleton within months after the massacre occurred.

Carleton provided the Governor with an abbreviated version of the same report he delivered to the

Secretary of War and which the Secretary passed on to Congress -- which printed Carleton's report in

1864 (again in 1868, I think), with another reprint in 1902.

Here's some light reading for you, written at the scene of the massacre, in 1859:

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1850s/1902Carl.htm

UD

.

USU78 · September 20, 2007

If you would take the trouble to read the article you would see that the Arkansas Governor's information comes from eyewitness accounts collected by Major Carleton within months after the massacre occurred. Carleton provided the Governor with an abbreviated version of the same report he delivered to the Secretary of War and which the Secretary passed on to Congress -- which printed Carleton's report in 1864 (again in 1868, I think), with another reprint in 1902.
Here's some light reading for you, written at the scene of the massacre, in 1859:
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1850s/1902Carl.htm

Which, of course, makes it double hearsay . . . and about a 99 on the "Typical of Polititions" Scale of accuracy. This is not to say that anybody along the trail of reporters is wilfully lying. It's just that the hearsay rules arose organically to deal with the inherent unreliability of certain statements. Given also the antiMormon bias in the country once Pillar One got toppled in an aggressive war of questionable legality, them there peculiar furriners living in the shadow of A.S. Johnston's heirs' cannon were tailor-made as the post-bellum Republicans' target.

USU "Hey, my great-great grandfather died in that so-called illegal war" 78

Uncle Dale · September 20, 2007

Which, of course, makes it double hearsay . . . and about a 99 on the "Typical of Polititions" Scale of accuracy. This is not to say that anybody along the trail of reporters is wilfully lying. It's just that the hearsay rules arose organically to deal with the inherent unreliability of certain statements. Given also the antiMormon bias in the country once Pillar One got toppled in an aggressive war of questionable legality, them there peculiar furriners living in the shadow of A.S. Johnston's heirs' cannon were tailor-made as the post-bellum Republicans' target.
USU "Hey, my great-great grandfather died in that so-called illegal war" 78

Which is exactly why Judge Cradlebaugh ought to have been allowed to have a federally-protected

investigation of those early reports coming out of Utah. To sort out the facts, while still fresh in the air.

You protest his sitting as a justice-of-the-peace-style investigative magistrate, but in a US Territory, just

reclaimed from the condition of rebellion, Cradlebaugh had that right and power. But Cumming saw to it

that the judge's protection was removed and that ended the investigations.

Why did not the local Mormon authorities carry out the investigations themselves? You ask about there

being martial law -- after the "peace conference," Johnston left local control in the hands of the Utah

peace officers. A Mormon marshal like "Brother Kay" might have done a little investigating. Local JPs

might have looked into the matter. Not every prosecutor in the Territory was a "wicked Gentile" outsider.

So, why were there no investigations? No warrants? No hearings? No indictments? No trials?

I think that, up through the year 1872, the answer was ----- that all of the native Utahans were either

saying, or believing (or both), that INDIANS had carried out the massacre, and that it was very difficult

to investigate INDIANS, and very hard to bring INDIANS to trial -- or to recover any of the Arkansas

wagon party's plundered possessions from the INDIANS.

Then, in 1872, "Brother Lee," was suddenly dropped like a hot stone --- and practically every single

Utahan, as if following the same script, admitted that the massacre was not planned and executed only by

the INDIANS. The sudden shift in popular perception was not a total change from black to white -- as

late as Joseph Fielding Smith's day, the "party line" was still INDIANS, joined by a handful of apostates

under Lee's evil, satantic, Judas-like mesmerizing influence.

Fast forward to 2007, and the Joseph Fielding Smith explanation seems to be breaking apart in the

Mormon consciousness, just as the Charles Penrose explanation broke apart in earlier times.

Now Haight, Dame, Higbee and a few other non-INDIANS are being looked at critically. Perhaps the

Turley books will even go so far as to say that George A. Smith and Daniel H. Wells could have done

a better job in forestalling the southern Utah hostilities.

Had such an admission been forthcoming in 1859, Cradlebaugh could have removed himself to the

lofty perch of the judicial bench and watched impassively as local prosecutors brought their cases

before the juries -- and history would have been different.

The Mormons' answer, from the pages of 1850s popular opinion ---> We need no judges in Zion. The

Saints of God have no reason to go brother upon brother in the courts of Caesar.

Uncle "restoring their judges and all as at first" Dale

.

USU78 · September 20, 2007

Which is exactly why Judge Cradlebaugh ought to have been allowed to have a federally-protected
investigation of those early reports coming out of Utah. To sort out the facts, while still fresh in the air.
You protest his sitting as a justice-of-the-peace-style investigative magistrate, but in a US Territory, just
reclaimed from the condition of rebellion, Cradlebaugh had that right and power. But Cumming saw to it
that the judge's protection was removed and that ended the investigations.
Why did not the local Mormon authorities carry out the investigations themselves? You ask about there
being martial law -- after the "peace conference," Johnston left local control in the hands of the Utah
peace officers. A Mormon marshal like "Brother Kay" might have done a little investigating. Local JPs
might have looked into the matter. Not every prosecutor in the Territory was a "wicked Gentile" outsider.
So, why were there no investigations? No warrants? No hearings? No indictments? No trials?
I think that, up through the year 1872, the answer was ----- that all of the native Utahans were either
saying, or believing (or both), that INDIANS had carried out the massacre, and that it was very difficult
to investigate INDIANS, and very hard to bring INDIANS to trial -- or to recover any of the Arkansas
wagon party's plundered possessions from the INDIANS.
Then, in 1872, "Brother Lee," was suddenly dropped like a hot stone --- and practically every single
Utahan, as if following the same script, admitted that the massacre was not planned and executed only by
the INDIANS. The sudden shift in popular perception was not a total change from black to white -- as
late as Joseph Fielding Smith's day, the "party line" was still INDIANS, joined by a handful of apostates
under Lee's evil, satantic, Judas-like mesmerizing influence.
Fast forward to 2007, and the Joseph Fielding Smith explanation seems to be breaking apart in the
Mormon consciousness, just as the Charles Penrose explanation broke apart in earlier times.
Now Haight, Dame, Higbee and a few other non-INDIANS are being looked at critically. Perhaps the
Turley books will even go so far as to say that George A. Smith and Daniel H. Wells could have done
a better job in forestalling the southern Utah hostilities.
Had such an admission been forthcoming in 1859, Cradlebaugh could have removed himself to the
lofty perch of the judicial bench and watched impassively as local prosecutors brought their cases
before the juries -- and history would have been different.
The Mormons' answer, from the pages of 1850s popular opinion ---> We need no judges in Zion. The
Saints of God have no reason to go brother upon brother in the courts of Caesar.
Uncle "restoring their judges and all as at first" Dale
.

Two words: "Conflict of Interest." BY plainly saw that any investigation by local [read Mormon] law enforcement would never be acceptable to Gentile sensibilities. Insisting noisily that Cummings do the dirty work saved BY from a probable trap. B "Teflon" Y was too cagey a politition to be maneuvered into an investigation that had to have a prescribed outcome in order to be seen as legitimizing of Mormondom, especially where he had no official [read legal] standing to order such. If he'd succumbed to the shouts to investigate, he'd have been overreaching and arrogant; if he'd insisted on Cummings doing his own verfluchte dirtywork, he risked accusations of coverup, but gave the impression [read demonstrates the reality] of helpful disinterestedness.

USU "Oh, I love to dance a little sidestep" 78

Uncle Dale · September 20, 2007

Two words: "Conflict of Interest." BY plainly saw that any investigation by local [read Mormon] law enforcement would never be acceptable to Gentile sensibilities. Insisting noisily that Cummings do the dirty work saved BY from a probable trap. B "Teflon" Y was too cagey a politition to be maneuvered into an investigation that had to have a prescribed outcome in order to be seen as legitimizing of Mormondom, especially where he had no official [read legal] standing to order such. If he'd succumbed to the shouts to investigate, he'd have been overreaching and arrogant; if he'd insisted on Cummings doing his own verfluchte dirtywork, he risked accusations of coverup, but gave the impression [read demonstrates the reality] of helpful disinterestedness.
USU "Oh, I love to dance a little sidestep" 78

Well then, if the "Lion of the Lord" was clean-handed, and he honestly believed that his adopted son was

equally blameless, then what was there to fear from Mormon juries hearing Mormon witnesses fingering

the Pi-utes?

Methinks Brigham ought to have worn his pants-knees a littler thinner in bowing down in prayerful

supplication to the Redeemer of Israel for a little more saintly discernment, if not redemption in Zion.

Cumming ended the affair -- and probably went south to the C.S.A. to curse Yankee lawyers in the same

accents he'd learned out among the Elders of Israel.

As for Cradlebaugh -- we could only have hoped that a certain young newspaperman from Hannibal, Mo.

had arrived at the dusty offices of the Territorial Enterprise, or its sister sheet The Golden Era, just a few

months earlier, so as to have added his peerless prose to the following florid account of affairs in Deseret:

"The Man for the Emergency"
The following very pert and sensible remarks we clip from the [san Francisco] Golden Era.
Emergencies have recently arisen in Mormondom which called for the energies of one who could act boldly and fearlessly, with a conscientious sense of right; one who would not succumb to Gubernatorial dictation or cower under his command, and such an one has been found in his honor, Judge Cradlebaugh.
We have on more than one occasion endeavored to defend his Excellency Gov. Cumming, against the accusation of Mormonism, but his recent action in opposition to Judge Cradlebaugh, manifested by his efforts in conjunction with the Mormons for the removal of the necessary military protection from the court at Provo convinces us that his sympathies at least are with that immortal association of patriotic and loyal American citizens.
Shake a measure of corn, and the large grains will rise to the top. So it is with a community. Agitate it and great minds, which might have slumbered on in obscurity, unconscious of their own might become conspicuous.
Judge Cradlebaugh of the U. S. District Court of Utah, may be cited as an example. He is making his mark in that Territory, if half that is written of him be true. Six months ago he was known as a young man of fair abilities but of years too few to successfully manage the important change in trusted to him; but he has shown himself the man for the emergency. Satisfied that many of the leading Mormons had taken part in, or instigated, the Mountain Meadow massacre, and the murder of Jones, Porter, Forbes, Parrish, and a dozen others during the past two years, he determined to bring them to punishment.
On the 8th of March he organized his court in Provo city. As there was no jail in the city he made a requisition on Gen. Johnston for a detachment of troops to guard the prisoners and give protection to the court. The local authorities and Mormons strongly objected to the presence of the troops and petitioned for their immediate removal, but without effect.
Governor Cumming who is represented as an admirer of Brigham and a tolerably good Mormon was prevailed upon by some mysterious influence to join in the request.
The judge however, did not feel disposed to gratify his Excellency, but on the contrary considerably augmented the military force around Provo. Grand and petit juries were sworn in but as the majority of their members were Mormons, they refused either to indict or convict. In his charge to the grand jury, the Judge, although his words fell like bombs among the Saints and shook Mormondom to its centre, openly accused elders and bishops of participating in the butchery of one hundred and forty immigrants at the Mountain Meadows, and mentioned the names of Mormons who had perpetrated other murders and robberies, and where witnesses might be found to establish their guilt. He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a jackson, but the jury failed to indict, or even to report on the charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack upon the troops was intimated if he persisted in his course. Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged on the 21st, with a scathing rebuke from the Judge. Sitting as a committing magistrate, he began the task alone. He examined witnesses, made arrests in every quarter and created a consternation in the camps of the Saints, greater even than was occasioned by the first arrival of the troops within the walls of Zion. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to save their necks and developments of the most startling character were being made, implicating the highest church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight years. All honor to the young Judge! -- Territorial Enterprise.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/UT/utahmsc1.htm#051059

Uncle "I could have danced all night -- and still have begged for more" Dale

.

USU78 · September 20, 2007

As for Cradlebaugh -- we could only have hoped that a certain young newspaperman from Hannibal, Mo. had arrived at the dusty offices of the Territorial Enterprise, or its sister sheet The Golden Era, just a few months earlier, so as to have added his peerless prose to the following florid account of affairs in Deseret:
He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a jackson, but the jury failed to indict, or even to report on the charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack upon the troops was intimated if he persisted in his course.
Uncle "I could have danced all night -- and still have begged for more" Dale

Or it may be that the members of the grand jury were not convinced that probable cause was averred supportive of the charges in the proposed indictment.

Not that we ought to give imbecilical Marman types the benefit of the doubt that, if sworn to do their duty as grand jurors, they actually took it seriously and did their level best to sort through the mess.

USU "Who knows who was and wasn't spilling the beans in them there days" 78

Uncle Dale · September 21, 2007

Uncle "I could have danced all night -- and still have begged for more" Dale
Or it may be that the members of the grand jury were not convinced that probable cause was averred supportive of the charges in the proposed indictment.
Not that we ought to give imbecilical Marman types the benefit of the doubt that, if sworn to do their duty as grand jurors, they actually took it seriously and did their level best to sort through the mess.
USU "Who knows who was and wasn't spilling the beans in them there days" 78

Luckily some fragments of the MMM testimony Cradlebaugh took down was reproduced in the publication

of Buchanan's 1860 report, and Cradlebaugh's 1863 speech -- supplemented with contemporary material

from Messrs. Lynch, Campbell, Rogers and Carleton -- all of which I have cited in this thread and placed

on the web.

So, it's time for a progress check --- how much closer am I to supplying Bro. Pahoran with any answers?

Unfortunately I have yet to locate any preserved copies of testimony from the two young MMM survivors

whom Judge Cradlebaugh detained in Utah for a few months. I assume such stuff is now preserved in

the back files of either the Dept. of Justice or State (Territorial records) in Washington, D. C.

Would be useful to read exactly what those survivors told the Judge -- and the contents may shed some

light on why the Mormons preserved the lives if a few of the children.

But I have come across another contemporary phenomenon, which may provide some insight --- why

did the Mormons of that era seek out and raise Indian orphans?

Up until Klingensmith began to spill beans like a broken DelMonte cannery, the sole eye-witness to really

say very much was Albert Hamblin -- an adopted Indian. At first I thought he was anomaly -- but it seems

he was not, and that frontier Mormons often raised these sons of "Cousin Lemuel" in their own homes.

Was it because the Indians did not want the cast-off tykes themselves? Or.........???

UD

Pahoran · September 21, 2007

Which is exactly why Judge Cradlebaugh ought to have been allowed to have a federally-protected investigation of those early reports coming out of Utah. To sort out the facts, while still fresh in the air.

Cradlebaugh? Of all people, Cradlebaugh?

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

We are talking about the same fellow, right? The Cradlebaugh whose crusading anti-Mormonism actually queered the original MMM investigations in the first place? The Cradlebaugh who dismissed his grand jury before it had a chance to bring down any indictments, then blamed them for failing to indict anyone?

The Cradlebaugh who makes Lillburn W. Boggs look like Thomas L. Kane? That Cradlebaugh?

You protest his sitting as a justice-of-the-peace-style investigative magistrate, but in a US Territory, just reclaimed from the condition of rebellion, Cradlebaugh had that right and power.

The "rebellion" was a fiction.

And, btw, do you know the correct term for a court in which the judge runs the prosecution? It is called an inquisition. His Honor, the Grand Inquisitor--and you approve of this fellow's antics?

But Cumming saw to it that the judge's protection was removed and that ended the investigations.

Yes, he and/or Johnston ordered the troop of soldiers Cradlebaugh was using as his private army back to their barracks. Who, this side of Ed Decker, thinks that was a bad thing?

Why did not the local Mormon authorities carry out the investigations themselves?

Perhaps because the secular authority of the "local Mormon authorities" ultimately derived from the governor, and said governor had made a finding to the effect that the MMM was covered by the Presidential amnesty.

Regards,

Pahoran

Uncle Dale · September 21, 2007

We are talking about the same fellow, right?...

Well then, if he was such a terrible fellow, no doubt his career ended then and there, when he tried

to find out who was committing all those non-existent murders in Utah, right?

I mean, he immediately went out and ended his vocation in some way that showed him up for the

fool he was -- in the eyes of all decent persons? Or...... did he go on to a new and better things in

some other Great Basin state?

I wonder?

We might also wonder if every single murder ever claimed within the borders of Utah Territory was

commited by wicked Gentiles. Or were suicides. Or were horrible accidents involving only one person,

the deceased????

Had Cradlebaugh been playing on a level legal field, he would not have needed to invoke his powers

to sit as an investigative magistrate. But the Utahans protested that they should be ruled only by

"Mountain Law," which was entirely different from English common law and Black Letter Law.

In Utah, legal disputes were settled by the local bishop or stake president, or a high council, and

there was no need to hold civil courts --- right???? Not until 1874, with the implementation of the

notable "Poland Act," were the civil courts of Utah put in proper order and regulated so as to make

it difficult for conspiring jurors to sabotage legal cases even before any evidence could be presented.

So, no need for functional civil courts until the 1870s when the Gentile population was becoming larger?

Perhaps so. Perhaps a "do not cross" zone 500 miles wide should have been established all around the

Territory before 1874 and all officials selected from only within the Territory -- and no outsiders allowed.

Trouble is, the national constitution would not allow for such things.

The nearest possible analogy was "Reconstruction" after the U. S. Civil War. But then, the southerners

never admitted to a "rebellion" there, either -- that they had only been acting within their "rights."

So then, how do Mormons of 2007 explain how 1858-60 SHOULD HAVE WORKED OUT, so that

John D. Lee and his partners in crime WOULD HAVE BEEN CHARGED AND SENTENCED in 1859?

I never hear an answer to that ---- The "let's have our cake and eat it" answer is that nothing good

ever happened because Cumming was a wimp; coupled with "we could do nothing because of having

Cumming ruling over us." So which was it? He can't serve as the excuse for both sides of the complaint.

In reading over the newspaper editorials of that period, I see a leading San Francisco paper saying that

only a couple of non-Mormons supported Cumming. Unfortunately those few supporters were top

Democrats in Washington, D. C. and Cradlebaugh seems to have been a Republican. He was recalled,

but never charged with official misconduct.

Thomas Alexander, in speaking of Bagley, says this: "[he] makes heroes of the anti-Mormons and

denigrates... others. Bagley's treatment, then, of Gov. Alfred Cumming, Col. Thomas L. Kane, Kanosh,

and with some exceptions Indian Superintendent Jacob Forney is generally negative. His heroes are

Carlton, Judge John Cradlebaugh, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, and Marshal Peter Dotson."

Likewise for all the newspapers in the USA, other than the "Deseret News" and occasionally Greeley's

"New York Tribune." And, I'm very much inclined to agree with that consensus. However, I think that

Forney was a good man in a difficult situation, and I'm inclined to accept Bancroft's attempts at looking

on both sides of the "Utah problem." I'm at least grateful for what little evidence was produced in the

MMM case before the LDS Church began to withdraw support for Lee in 1872-75. Without Cradlebaugh

we would have much less primary testimony, whatever you think of its value as useful evidence.

Time for some better answers. The Turley book is not the end of this discussion -- but the beginning.

UD

.

Uncle Dale · September 22, 2007

...
In reading over the newspaper editorials of that period...

I suppose I might as well share the links to some of the old sources I've been consulting --

this is still very rough and very incomplete -- but it's a start:

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1850s/MMMchild.htm

I'm still looking for any preserved official testimony from the survivor children themselves--

Harold D. Langley's To Utah With the Dragoons... 1858-1859, makes brief mention

on how public opinion regarding MMM affected the actions of Johnston's Army, but I have

yet to track down the sources mentioned there, to see if the children survivors are referred

to as hostages. In official US Government correspondence of that same period they are

called "captives" and "young prisoners," but not by people who had direct contact with them.

This may take a while...

UD

Uncle Dale · September 26, 2007

...
This may take a while...

In July of 1872 the Salt Lake Tribune published an interview with John D. Lee, by journalist J. H. Beadle

which I have not seen referenced in any of the MMM literature I've been reading.

As the interview was published before Lee's death, he had an opportunity to refute its contents -- but so

far as I can determine, he never denied the report (which was re-written and re-published in 1877).

I'll paste in below some excerpts from the 1872 article and from my comments, on that part of the account

which relates to the MMM survivor children.

Since John D. Lee reportedly adopted one (or two?) of the survivor children, and since Lee himself was an

adopted son of Brigham Young, that more or less made the Fancher boy Lee had taken an adopted

grandson of Brigham Young. See below:

INTERVIEW WITH JNO. D. LEE
OF MOUNTAIN MEADOWS NOTORIETY.
BY J. H. BEADLE.
_______
... Directly I asked, "Do you know any such man as John D. Lee?"
"That's what some folks call me."...
"Now to give you an idea what a hard set they [Fancher party] was, when Dr. Forney gathered
up the children -- fifteen, I believe they was -- two years after, and sent word back, their relations
sent answer they didn't want 'em, and wouldn't have anything to do with 'em. And that old Dr. Forney
treated the children like dogs, hammerin' 'em around with his big cane...."
"Before the last charge was made [at MMM] I went and tried to persuade the Indians to save the
women. But they said 'all was mean and all had to die.' Then I told them I would buy the children
of them, and seventeen children were saved." Soon after Lee commenced his account it had become
quite dark, and he seemed to become more easy and fluent. He continued with a voluminous account
of the distribution of the children, the arrival of Forney two years after the brutal conduct toward the
children..."
Note 2: Beadle's 1877 book version of his interview with Lee includes the following detail, missing from the above Tribune account:
"All the children was saved. The little boy that lived with us cried all night when he left us, and said
he'd come back to us as soon as he got old enough. Old Forney, when he come for 'em, got all in his
tent and would not let 'em visit or say good-by to anybody. One run away and hid under the floor of
the house, and Forney dragged him out and beat him like a dog with his cane. They say he murdered
the baby on the plains, because it was sickly and troublesome."
Note 3: John D. Lee's association with the survivor childern at Mountain Meadows is also mentioned in his 1877 book, Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, where he says:
"an Indian rushed to the front wagon, and grabbed a little boy, and was going to kill him. The lad got
away from the Indian and ran to me, and caught me by the knees; and begged me to save him, and
not let the Indian kill him. The Indian had hurt the little fellow's chin on the wagon bed, when he first
caught hold of him. I told the Indian to let the boy alone. I took the child up in my arms, and put him
back in the wagon, and saved his life. This little boy said his name was Charley Fancher, and that his
father was Captain of the train. He was a bright boy. I afterwards adopted him, and gave him to
Caroline. She kept him until Dr. Forney took all the children East. I believe that William Sloan, alias
Idaho Bill, is the same boy."
Note 4: John D. Lee's "Last Confession" contains a similar assertion regarding "Idaho Bill" -- "I got up,
saw the children, and among the others the boy who was pulled by the hair of his head out of the
waggon by the Indian and saved by me; that boy I took home and kept until Dr. Forney, Government
agent, came to gather up the children and take them East; he took the boy with the others; that boy's
name was William Fancher; his father was captain of the train; he was taken East and adopted by a
man in Nebraska, named Richard Sloan; he remained East several years, and then returned to Utah,
and is now a convict in the Utah Penitentiary, having been convicted the past year for the crime of
highway robbery. He is now known by the name of 'Idaho Bill,' but his true name is William Fancher.
His little sister was also taken East, and is now the wife of a man working for the Union Pacific Rairoad
Company, near Green River. The boy (now man) has yet got the scar on his chin caused by the cut on
the waggon-box, and those who are curious enough to examine will find a large scar on the ball of his
left foot, caused by a deep cut made by an axe while he was with me."
Note 5: A Sept. 29, 1857 excerpt from Wilfred Woodruff's Journal, first published in 1884 by Penrose, confirm's
Lee's claim to have taken and adopted at least one (perhaps two) of the survivor children:
"They then rushed into the corral and cut the throats of the women and children, except some eight or
ten children, which they brought and sold to the whites.... Brother Lee... had two of the children in his
house and he could not get but one to kneel down at prayer time and the other would laugh at her for
doing it and they would swear like pirates."
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/UT/tribune1.htm#072972

UD

.

USU78 · September 26, 2007

In July of 1872 the Salt Lake Tribune published an interview with John D. Lee, by journalist J. H. Beadle which I have not seen referenced in any of the MMM literature I've been reading.
As the interview was published before Lee's death, he had an opportunity to refute its contents -- but so far as I can determine, he never denied the report (which was re-written and re-published in 1877).
I'll paste in below some excerpts from the 1872 article and from my comments, on that part of the account which relates to the MMM survivor children.
Since John D. Lee reportedly adopted one (or two?) of the survivor children, and since Lee himself was an adopted son of Brigham Young, that more or less made the Fancher boy Lee had taken an adopted grandson of Brigham Young.

Interesting switch on the numbers of kids: the good becaned doctor took 15 kids . . . there were 17 survivors. If I recall correctly, my wife's aunt used this particular piece to support her thesis of a Klingensmith/Fancher girl not going back with dem Herrn Professor Doktor. Me? I'm sceptical . . . especially since the same piece that gives us the number discrepency gives us the unsubstantiated assertions of abuse and infanticide by the guy tasked with returning the kids to Arkansas.

Uncle Dale · September 26, 2007

Interesting switch on the numbers of kids: the good becaned doctor took 15 kids . . . there were 17 survivors. If I recall correctly, my wife's aunt used this particular piece to support her thesis of a Klingensmith/Fancher girl not going back with dem Herrn Professor Doktor. Me? I'm sceptical . . . especially since the same piece that gives us the number discrepency gives us the unsubstantiated assertions of abuse and infanticide by the guy tasked with returning the kids to Arkansas.

Here's what one investigator of the MMM children's story had to say, in a book published when most of

the survivors were still alive:

On June 29, seventeen of the children having been recovered, fifteen of them were sent East,
overland, in spring-wagons, escorted by soldiers. Every possible provision was made for their
comfort, and four women were sent with them to attend to their wants. Two boys about seven
years of age... were retained as witnesses. Those returned were... met at Fort Leavenworth
by Mr. Mitchell, whose great bereavement by this horrible affair has been mentioned. His little
grandchild was not among the saved, as he had hoped. With heart bowed down by the completeness
of his loss, he bore the little ones tenderly on to Carrollton and gave them into the arms of their
friends. It was a sad day in the little county-seat. Nearly every one had lost some relative
in the massacre...
The misfortunes of these children did not end with their return. In attempting to justify themselves
the Mormons have forged most shameful lies about them, and have so often repeated them that
they have obtained credence with outsiders. It was told, and currently believed in Utah, that Idaho Bill,
a noted desperado who served a long term in the Utah penitentiary for horse-stealing, was
Charley Fancher, and yet it can be proven by a large number of witnesses, whose characters are
above reproach, that this boy was raised by his uncle, H. B. Fancher, in Carroll County, Arkansas,
and died at his house some years ago.
It was told that the children were sent to the poor-house in St. Louis. There was just one of them that
went to St. Louis, but not to the poor-house. Sarah Dunlap, blind from her birth, and with one arm
shattered and crippled for life by a Mormon rifle-ball, went to the Institute for the Blind in that city.
They were all raised by their relatives and friends, and most of them still live in the neighborhood
of their former homes....
There is nothing in the character of any of them that any one need apologize for, and if there were,
the Mormons should be the last ones to upbraid them for it. Whatever any of them may lack of the
comforts or the accomplishments of life is due to the Saints. They have the money, the cattle, the
jewelry, and the other property that should have gone for the education and maintenance of these
orphans. Is it not enough that they should have been made to eat the bread of charity, and to make
their own ways over the rugged paths of struggling poverty, without being weighted down with slander?
...
Congress ought to make the Mormon Church disgorge the $70,000, or more, that it took from
these people...
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/188...Dunn.htm#pg309b

However, according to an eye-witness -- one of the very participants in the events by which these kids

came to live with various families in Utah -- and one of the very adopting parents there....

1. The children were such monsters that even their wicked Gentile relatives did not want them back

2. The children were so evil that some of them swore like pirates and would not pray to God

3. The children were such criminals that one of them ended his life as an infamous outlaw

4. The Gentiles cared so little about the children that they murdered one and put the rest in an orphanage

5. The man paid by the Gentiles to gather up and care for the terrible kids had to beat them with a cane

6. The boy who was Brigham's adopted grandson refused to return back east and was forced to go

Clearly these offspring of the Missouri persectors and the Arkansas Pratt-killers were the spawn of evil

and deserved nothing of the tender Christian kindness they had receieved from the good people of Utah.

Or ----- perhaps I've missed something here?

UD

Sleeper Cell · October 1, 2007

I suggest going on down the chain of command, through George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, Col. Dame, President Haight, and elders Higbee, Lee, etc.
What were the rules of combat engagement given the county militias and the Nauvoo Legion, regarding
the capture and holding of possible prisoners of war in the anticipated upcoming battles with Johnston's
dragoons? There must have been such rules issued the troops, for Brigham Young himself forbade the
spilling of innocent blood in quotes cited from him. That is at least one rule of engagement.
Would the killing of a Gentile, under the age of accountability, in the midst of combat with the Americans
in 1857-58, have been considered the shedding of innocent blood by the LDS soldiers? If so, then here
we at least have a possible reason why those kids measuring under the height of the typical eight year
old were spared, while those taller than the stick were murdered after the fighting at The Meadows.
But once spared, to what purpose? Again, I ask to see the rules of engagement, as set down by the
Department of War (headed by Pres. Wells) in the LDS Church during 1857-58.
If the actual document copies have not survived, there is certainly a body of perserved internal
communication between commanders and troops during 1857-58, from which proclamations, orders
and dispatches, we should be able to begin to discern what the rules of combat and captives were.

I discussed this with a family member who is currently serving as an army JAG. He pointed out that forbidding "the spilling of innocent bloodâ? and treating POWs humanely are not â??rules of engagementâ? at all, but are part of the â??law of war.â? One cannot infer anything from the absence of explicit orders not to murder prisoners, because a soldier is already obligated to obey the â??law of war,â? whether or not his commander issues â??rules of engagementâ? (or any other type of order) to that effect.

A â??rule of engagementâ? is a further constraint -- beyond those required by the law of war -- that is placed on soldiers by their military commanders. Civilian leaders, like Governor Young, and even civilian â??Departments of Warâ? usually do not issue â??rules of engagementâ? (as distinguished from general instructions).

If I understood my informant correctly, issuing formal written â??rules of engagementâ? is essentially a 20th century practice, although there are 19th century exceptions. One such exception occurred during the Utah War. General Wells apparently issued what was, essentially, a â??rule of engagementâ? to the northern militia operating against the invading Johnsonâ??s army:

Take no life, but destroy their [supply] trains and stampede and drive away their animals at every opportunity. (CHC, vol. IV, pg 280)

â??Take no lifeâ? has to be one of the most restrictive â??rule of engagementâ? ever issued to any army, let alone one preparing to engage an invading army. It sounds more like General Gandhi than General Patton..

I am not an attorney, let alone a military attorney. It is possible that I may have misunderstood what I was told. However, donâ??t be surprised if you find few written â??rules of engagementâ? for the Utah War in the church archives, or elsewhere. Other than the exception cited above, they probably never existed.

Uncle Dale · October 1, 2007

... However, donâ??t be surprised if you find few written â??rules of engagementâ? for the Utah War in the
church archives, or elsewhere. Other than the exception cited above, they probably never existed.

Yeah -- the best I could hope for would be to stumble across a letter written by somebody in the

Utah militia from that period, or some such thing.

My own ggGrandfather served at Fort Supply, under Anson Call in 1858, but he left no written recollections

from that period of his life in Utah. I know he carried a musket and is said to have never killed anybody --

but that's not much to go on.

How Utah soldiers would have protected themselves from attacking Indians, bandits or federal troops,

if they were not allowed to shoot back, is entirely beyond my comprehension. So, without substantial

documentation of such a combat order, I will assume it was not meant for actual battle engagements.

Still, there must have been some consensus in the Utah militia on how to treat wounded enemy soldiers,

or captives, etc. Perhaps, as you say, such rules were not written down.

Uncle Dale

Sleeper Cell · October 10, 2007

How Utah soldiers would have protected themselves from attacking Indians, bandits or federal troops,
if they were not allowed to shoot back, is entirely beyond my comprehension. So, without substantial
documentation of such a combat order, I will assume it was not meant for actual battle engagements.

The order pertained only to operations against Johnsonâ??s army, not conflicts with bandits or Indians. Shooting back at attacking Indians or bandits was not forbidden. Your question -- â??How would Utah soldiers â?¦ have protected themselves from â?¦ federal troops?â? -- is a good one. The short answer is that they couldnâ??t, except by retreating when fired upon and evading further contact. Apparently, this is precisely what they did.

According to my JAG informant, an individual soldier technically does not have an inherent right to right to self defense. The right to self defense is vested in his unit commander. The unit commander has the legal right to forbid his soldiers to return fire, even when they are being killed. (Yes, this was quite a surprise to me.) As you can imagine, he better have a very good reason for such an order. Of course, as a practical matter, a soldier is presumed to have the right to shoot back, unless doing so would violate the law of war, or unless specifically ordered not to.

Why would a general issue such an order? One possible reason could be that, under the circumstances, allowing his men to shoot back might be counterproductive to his strategic objectives. Perhaps General Wells had concluded that killing federal soldiers would do more harm than good (anger people back east, undercut potential critics of â??Buchananâ??s blunder,â?? result in a much stronger force being sent, etc.). On the other hand, disrupting supply lines without taking life would be just as effective in achieving his immediate objective (stopping the army), while furthering his long term objectives. Perhaps these included such things as garnering additional sympathy back east, and strengthening the position of those eastern politicians who opposed the war.

By wanting to see â??substantial documentationâ? for this order, I presume that you mean you would like to see an actual copy, rather than rely solely on a secondary source. According to B. H. Roberts, a copy of these orders â??fell into the hands of United States army officers and was reported to the administration by Fitz J. Porter, assistant adjutant general to Colonel Johnston. It was found on the person of Major Joseph Taylor, of Weber county, when he was captured early in October [1857]. Taylor â?¦ was captured by a squad of Captain Marcyâ??s troops, while â?¦ he was temporarily separated from his command.â? Roberts source was:: â?House Executive Documents, 35th Congress, 1st Session, x, No.71, p. 56, 57.â? (CHC Vol. 4, p. 279-280). Presumably these documents are still available in the appropriate Washington D.C archive.

However, the best substantiation of the existence of a â??rule of engagementâ? that ordered the northern militia to engage in combat operations against the army, but forbade them from taking life, is the fact that they didnâ??t take life, despite making a series of attacks that were sufficiently effective to achieve General Wellsâ?? immediate strategic objective (i.e., stop the army from advancing into Utah).

Still, there must have been some consensus in the Utah militia on how to treat wounded enemy soldiers,
or captives, etc. Perhaps, as you say, such rules were not written down.

Since the northern militia conduced combat operations under â??rules of engagementâ? that forbade them to kill enemy soldiers during combat operations (and since apparently, they didnâ??t kill enemy soldiers during combat operations), it is reasonable to conclude that any wounded or captured soldiers would have been treated humanely.

USU78 · October 12, 2007

Since the northern militia conduced combat operations under â??rules of engagementâ? that forbade them to kill enemy soldiers during combat operations (and since apparently, they didnâ??t kill enemy soldiers during combat operations), it is reasonable to conclude that any wounded or captured soldiers would have been treated humanely.

I know there are decendent's of the Utah Expeditionary Force's private contractors (freighters and whatnot) who, to this day, curse the Mormons for the actions taken in rem, but, given the then stakes as reasonably perceived by LDS leadership, the, dare I say, merciful albeit ultimately self-serving approach was justified in the event.

The Mexican Expeditionary Force of a mere 10 years earlier certainly wasn't shy of in personam actions of the most shocking nature, including against noncombatants and disarmed POWs.

USU "We'll rape all the married women and take all the unmarried women and girls as white slaves" 78

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