Massacre At Mountain Meadows

[gmormon]

I find it far more likely that Rockwell was rushing to get Eleanor to safety in Salt Lake City and out of the way of her hostile, obsessed and murderous estranged husband who had already tracked down and killed Parley P. Pratt.

Thanks! :good:I was trying to figure out what an OPR was.

[emeliza]

Steuss~

I am finding the book quite difficult to read as it tears at my heart strings. I am doing just a tad bit each day. I noticed it is affecting my mood a bit more than I thought it would. Guess I am not detaching that well. Hopefully your reading will go better.

[Scott Lloyd]

Thanks! :good:I was trying to figure out what an OPR was.

rofl, imnsho, the overuse of acronyms in Internet lingo can be more than a little confusing.

[Doctor Steuss]

Steuss~ I am finding the book quite difficult to read as it tears at my heart strings. I am doing just a tad bit each day. I noticed it is affecting my mood a bit more than I thought it would. Guess I am not detaching that well. Hopefully your reading will go better.

I'm having to go very slowly, and take lots of breaks (I'm only on page 37). Iâ??m a bit worried about when I come to chapter 13, but I imagine if I continue at the rate Iâ??m going (no more than 5 pages a day) that Iâ??ll probably be groovy.

Thank you Luv.

rofl, imnsho, the overuse of acronyms in Internet lingo can be more than a little confusing.

IDK my BFF Scott, I think it can be liberating.

[katherine the great]

Be that as it may, his logic is rock-solid.

Not very useful if no one can take him seriously.

[Scott Lloyd]

Not very useful if no one can take him seriously.

I don't concede that no one takes him seriously.

[katherine the great]

I don't concede that no one takes him seriously.

Would you take someone seriously who refers to our prophet as "Tommy boy Monson" or some other rude name? It's simply immature and provocative.

[Scott Lloyd]

Would you take someone seriously who refers to our prophet as "Tommy boy Monson" or some other rude name? It's simply immature and provocative.

I would undoubtedly find it disrespectful and offensive. But I would have trouble dismissing it out-of-hand if the logic was impeccable. That's all I'm saying.

[ttribe]

I would undoubtedly find it disrespectful and offensive. But I would have trouble dismissing it out-of-hand if the logic was impeccable. That's all I'm saying.

Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn here, but Katherine, Scott and Pahoran...perhaps this discussion would be better left to PM's or that thread about "kinder gentler". Incidentally, I tend to agree with Scott.

[Scott Lloyd]

Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn here, but Katherine, Scott and Pahoran...perhaps this discussion would be better left to PM's or that thread about "kinder gentler". Incidentally, I tend to agree with Scott.

I was about to suggest such a thing myself. Thanks.

[Pahoran]

Not very useful if no one can take him seriously.

Nanny Kate,

just for you, and anyone else who is so distracted by the poke that they can't follow the argument, I've edited my post.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Scott Lloyd]

I was just in Rick Turley's office interviewing him on another matter, but the conversation immediately turned to the book. Booksellers and others are appealing to him to find them copies of the book, as they are all gone, even though it is not officially released until this week. There won't be any more until after Labor Day.

I hope I'm not talking out of school, as I learned that he has been lurking here.

He said, "I've been reading you on-line."

I asked, "Church News or message board?"

"Message board," he replied.

Seems a Google search took him to this thread.

[katherine the great]

Nanny Kate,

just for you, and anyone else who is so distracted by the poke that they can't follow the argument, I've edited my post.

Regards,

Pahoran

Thank you.

[Jan]

I was just in Rick Turley's office interviewing him on another matter, but the conversation immediately turned to the book. Booksellers and others are appealing to him to find them copies of the book, as they are all gone, even though it is not officially released until this week. There won't be any more until after Labor Day.

I hope I'm not talking out of school, as I learned that he has been lurking here.

He said, "I've been reading you on-line."

I asked, "Church News or message board?"

"Message board," he replied.

Seems a Google search took him to this thread.

I was one of the lucky ones that got a book at the conference (it pays to come 2 days early to help box the books!). I started reading parts of it aloud to my husband and son as we started our drive home. He was raised in the Church and didn't remember learning anything about it til last year at the conference. He was so moved by the book that we decided to take 2 days getting home instead of one in order to stop by Mountain Meadow. We were there for about an hour before sunset. It was very moving. It shook him up quite a bit (I read the portion of the massacre itself just before arriving).

It's kind of shaken him up a bit - which I view as a good thing.

I wish the Church (or someone) would do more with the site in terms of laying out some more of the history - like they do at state and national parks and historical sites but, regardless, it was very hallowed ground.

Jan

[Analytics]

Question, Annie: where, exactly, did I purport to offer Bagley's position?

Feel free to tell me yourself. On post 53 you said,

Further, I am also aware of the "Brigham did it" conspiracy theory, and the various attempts that have been made to shore it up. I am quite au fait with the events surrounding the MMM, and can say with considerable confidence that Brigham didn't do it, and furthermore that being three hundred miles away, at the end of nothing we would recognise as a road, and in the absence of cell phones and owl post, he could not have done it.

By all means feel free to correct me, but I thought your point was that Bagley's theory is impossible because three hundred miles is too far for the message to be sent. Bagley says the alleged message was sent six weeks earlier. That is more than enough time for a message to be sent 300 miles--even without a cell phone.

The fact is that, from the day he heard they were coming until the day they marched into the valley, Brigham was concerned only with the army. Everything else was secondary. That he had no intention of murdering the Fancher party is proven to everyone's satisfaction--everyone honest and intelligent, that is--by the letter he wrote: the only message about the Fancher train that Brigham is proved to have sent, and it flatly contradicts the one Bagley--and you--so fervently wish he had sent.

Do you realize how disgustingly odious it is to accuse me of fervently wishing that anybody ordered a mass murder? You are a despicable human being.

[Pahoran]

Feel free to tell me yourself. On post 53 you said,

By all means feel free to correct me, but I thought your point was that Bagley's theory is impossible because three hundred miles is too far for the message to be sent. Bagley says the alleged message was sent six weeks earlier. That is more than enough time for a message to be sent 300 miles--even without a cell phone.

Only if he knew where they were going six weeks earlier. How, exactly, was he supposed to know that?

Something else: successful military operations are not accomplished simply by "sending a message," as Brigham knew perfectly well. While he was successfully conducting his campaign against Johnston's army, he was receiving daily reports, sending orders, etc.

But you are right about the time it took to send a message. It only took three days for Brigham's actual message--the one that flatly contradicted Bagley's wishful-thinking message--to get through.

Do you realize how disgustingly odious it is to accuse me of fervently wishing that anybody ordered a mass murder?

I don't know; is it more disgustingly odious than falsely accusing someone of ordering a mass murder?

You are a despicable human being.

Don't beat around the bush, Analytics; tell us what you really think.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Scott Lloyd]

I was one of the lucky ones that got a book at the conference (it pays to come 2 days early to help box the books!). I started reading parts of it aloud to my husband and son as we started our drive home. He was raised in the Church and didn't remember learning anything about it til last year at the conference. He was so moved by the book that we decided to take 2 days getting home instead of one in order to stop by Mountain Meadow. We were there for about an hour before sunset. It was very moving. It shook him up quite a bit (I read the portion of the massacre itself just before arriving).

It's kind of shaken him up a bit - which I view as a good thing.

I wish the Church (or someone) would do more with the site in terms of laying out some more of the history - like they do at state and national parks and historical sites but, regardless, it was very hallowed ground.

Jan

Imagine your first visit to Mountain Meadows with Turley and Walker as tour guides and Bagley (among others) along for the ride. That's how it was for me in 2007.

[Jaybear]

I don't know; is it more disgustingly odious than falsely accusing someone of ordering a mass murder?

Don't beat around the bush, Analytics; tell us what you really think.

If it is so vile, odious and unthinkable that Brigham Young would order the mass murder of unnarmed and innocent men, women and children, why then would religious zealots who considered Brigham Young to be a prophet of God proceed to murder unarmed and innocent men women and children?

[gmormon]

I was just in Rick Turley's office interviewing him on another matter, but the conversation immediately turned to the book. Booksellers and others are appealing to him to find them copies of the book, as they are all gone, even though it is not officially released until this week. There won't be any more until after Labor Day.

I hope I'm not talking out of school, as I learned that he has been lurking here.

He said, "I've been reading you on-line."

I asked, "Church News or message board?"

"Message board," he replied.

Seems a Google search took him to this thread.

The wonders of pre-ordering

Next time your with him can you ask him about Samuel Groves, Elijah Groves, and William R Davies. In the notes he had a reference to William Davies and I would like to know more about it. Also I would like to know if there are any indications of either Samuel or Elijah having anything more to do with MMM even inconclusive information.

This could be a PM or E-Mail thanks

[TAK]

Pahoran

QUOTE

This despite the fact that George A. Smith himself advised them to go the other way--around the northern shore of the Great Salt Lake--and they actually set out that way, before changing their minds and heading down south.

Really?? I have never heard this .. The only possible meeting is south of Harmony when Smith and Hamblin were camping across Corn Creek from the Fancher Train on their way back north to SLC.

Please enlighten us with a reference..

Still waiting for a reference .. "George A. Smith himself advised them to go the other way--around the northern shore of the Great Salt Lake"

[Scott Lloyd]

If it is so vile, odious and unthinkable that Brigham Young would order the mass murder of unnarmed and innocent men, women and children, why then would religious zealots who considered Brigham Young to be a prophet of God proceed to murder unarmed and innocent men women and children?

If being Mormon and a follower of Brigham Young were enough to transform one into a mass murderer, one could wonder why there weren't massacres all up and down the trail and, for that matter, throughout Utah territory. On the other hand, one could view this atrocity for what it very plainly is: an anomaly in Mormon history and a matter of group psychology arising from a unique and complex set of circumstances and events. But I suppose Jaybear and his ilk are not up to the intellectual energy such a nuanced understanding requires. Far less challenging to embrace a "September Dawn" paradigm.

[Scott Lloyd]

Duplicate post

[TAK]

Scott

But I suppose Jaybear and his ilk are not up to the intellectual energy such a nuanced understanding requires. Far less challenging to embrace a "September Dawn" paradigm.

Interesting.. Are you suggesting that mentally, to think like you - they must jump through many more hoops to get to the needed conclusion â?? Hence they must be weak?

[Doctor Steuss]

Thought Iâ??d share something that gave me a chuckle while reading. Itâ??s George Alfred Townsendâ??s comments after meeting George A. Smith:

Smith is one of us literary folks, a man of the stamp of Thackeray, Peter Force and Washington Irvingâ?¦ a collaborateur, lover of traditions and family reminiscences, and a pleasing, dignified raconteur and politician. He has no avarice, no love of war, no vindictiveness, and he is yet a sincere, hale, immovable Mormon[!].â?

Pg. 51 (Italics in original. Bolding and exclamation mine.)

I love it: â??Heâ??s a great guy. All around wonderful. But, yet he is still a Mormonâ?¦ It just donâ??t make any sense how a smart and groovy hombre could be a Mormon. Perplexing it is...â?

[Scott Lloyd]

ScottInteresting.. Are you suggesting that mentally, to think like you - they must jump through many more hoops to get to the needed conclusion â?? Hence they must be weak?

I stand by my comment, which, I trust, is comprehensible enough.

Thought Iâ??d share something that gave me a chuckle while reading. Itâ??s George Alfred Townsendâ??s comments after meeting George A. Smith:Pg. 51 (Italics in original. Bolding and exclamation mine.)I love it: â??Heâ??s a great guy. All around wonderful. But, yet he is still a Mormonâ?¦ It just donâ??t make any sense how a smart and groovy hombre could be a Mormon. Perplexing it is...â?

On a similar note, I have encountered nearly-universal acclaim for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, even among some who have no use or affinity for Mormons or Mormonism. Rather enigmatic, say I.