Finally

[gmormon]

[gmormon]

Please no spoilers...i want see if john d lee gets off this time🤓🤓🤓

[Pyreaux]

Which way does the book lean? Does it try to claim Brigham Young ordered John Dd Lee to commit the massacre as John claimed, or does it absolve Brigham Young as the order was to leave them alone from the letterpress copybook available at the trial?

Edited May 17, 2023 by Pyreaux

[gmormon]

Have not got a copy yet, (mine is on backorder and wont be available till after May 30.) However i doubt there will be any blame on Brigham Young. There will be new information available from new resources.

I personally want to know why John D Lee was the only one executive for it. I mean specifically of those others from Southern Utah who where there with him

Edited May 17, 2023 by gmormon

[JAHS]

4 minutes ago, gmormon said:

Have not got a copy yet, (mine is on backorder and wont be available till after May 30.) However i doubt there will be any blame on Brigham Young. There will be new information available from new resources.

I personally want to know why John D Lee was the only one executive for it. I mean specifically of those others from Southern Utah who where there with him

Besides Lee who was in charge of it, probably hard to positively identify all those involved after the fact. They did not have cell phones back then.

[Hamilton Porter]

2008, buddy.

[gmormon]

There are other named individuals whom have been named in other books and I personally suspect others, my wife's gggaunt was one of john d lee's wives. However proof would be nice. 

Look at the rolls for the local navou legion units that where active at that time

17 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

2008, buddy.

What????

[Hamilton Porter]

Just now, gmormon said:

There are other named individuals whom have been named in other books and I personally suspect others, my wife's gggaunt was one of john d lee's wives. However proof would be nice. 

Look at the rolls for the local navou legion units that where active at that time

What????

Book was published 2011. Wherev you been?

[gmormon]

5 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Book was published 2011. Wherev you been?

This is the second book that deals with the aftermath...look at the title

[Nevo]

I pre-ordered the book a couple of months ago. It has been a long wait (over 10 years), but I hope worth it. I've always been very impressed with Richard Turley and I look forward to seeing Barbara Jones Brown's contribution. Before this, the only full-length studies of MMM and it's aftermath were Juanita Brooks' 1950 classic and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets (2002), which didn't have the benefit of all of the archival sources that Turley and his co-authors have had access to.  

Volume 1 more or less absolved Brigham Young of ordering the massacre, but I don't expect Volume 2 will let him off the hook in the cover-up.

[Nevo]

10 hours ago, gmormon said:

Please no spoilers...i want see if john d lee gets off this time🤓🤓🤓

Some of Lee's descendants probably think this happened in 1961, when his excommunication was posthumously reversed and his priesthood blessings restored. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve authorized the action "after considering all the facts available."

I wonder if they would have made a different choice if they had been able to read Walker, Turley, and Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Or maybe they thought 84 years in hell was long enough. Who knows.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

I pre-ordered the book a couple of months ago. It has been a long wait (over 10 years), but I hope worth it. I've always been very impressed with Richard Turley and I look forward to seeing Barbara Jones Brown's contribution. Before this, the only full-length studies of MMM and it's aftermath were Juanita Brooks' 1950 classic and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets (2002), which didn't have the benefit of all of the archival sources that Turley and his co-authors have had access to.  

Volume 1 more or less absolved Brigham Young of ordering the massacre, but I don't expect Volume 2 will let him off the hook in the cover-up.

Bagley's book was, in my view, deeply flawed because of it's fabricated "troubling new evidence" used to implicate Brigham Young as a before-the-fact accomplice.

See this 2010 thread: Bagley Slanders B. Young = Lots of Attention / Bagley's Slander Proven Bogus and Dishonest = No Attention

An excerpt:

Quote

Quote

Serious errors in historical scholarship, however, severely undermine the fundamental arguments in his book. First, there are several important primary sources that he did not use accurately. Historians must verify the facts they use and avoid misusing information to support their interpretations. Bagley fails on both counts, because he seems to be driven by his passion to blame Brigham Young for this tragic event. For example, Bagley sees Young's offer to give the Piedes, a band of the Paiutes, "all the cattle that had gone to Cal[ifornia] the south rout" as the formation of an alliance (114). To make this point, Bagley quotes D. B. Huntington, Brigham Young's interpreter, as saying that the Piedes were "afraid to fight the americans & so would raise [allies]" (114). Instead, Huntington's journal for September 1 1857 says the Piedes "would raise grai"1 (fig. 1). Replacing the word "grain" with "allies" substantially changes the meaning, but most readers will not be aware of Bagley s changing these words.

According to Bagley, this entry (read with "allies" interpolated into it) proves that "the atrocity was not a tragedy but a premeditated criminal act initiated in Great Salt Lake City" (p. 378), and that "if any court in the American West (excepting, of course, one of Utah's probate courts) had seen the evidence [the Dimick Huntington diary] contained, the only debate among the jurors would have been when, where, and how high to hang Brigham Young" (p. 425 n. 42). Bagley goes on to argue that these Indian chiefs then traveled from the meeting (in Salt Lake City) to Cedar City and participated in the massacre.

Bagley's critics have made three basic arguments against Bagley's thesis:

A. Bagley Interpolated "Allies" for "Grain" When Quoting Huntington's Journal. Coates notes that "[in] the context of the rest of the entry grain makes sense: the Piedes would raise grain rather than take the cattle." But Bagley's interpolation, read without context, suggests that the Indians wanted to on the warpath (that they wanted to "raise allies").

B. The Timing of the Meeting Made it Unlikely or Impossible for the Indians who Participated in the Meeting to Have Been Present for the Massacre. Crocket observed that "Bagley's chronology is problematic to the point of impossibility. Tutsegabit and Youngwuds did not have time to get from Salt Lake City to Mountain Meadows and return to Salt Lake City by 16 September 1857 or, as Huntington says, by 10 September 1857."

C. The Meeting was a Discussion About the Indians Going After the Army's cattle, not the Fancher Party's cattle. (See Crocket's review for a detailed explanation).

As to the first point above (interpolating "allies" for "grain"), there seems to be no legitimate dispute that Bagley was flat-out wrong. 
...
 

Moreover, even Bagley appears to have backtracked on his interpolation. BOTP was first published in 2002. It was reviewed by Crocket and Coates in 2003. It was published in paperback in 2004. What is interesting, however, is that the 2004 edition "interpolates" the word "grain" instead of "allies." The interpolation is odd because

A) the reader is apparently given no indication that the text of the book has been altered from the original edition,

B) interpolating "grain" is unnecessary because that word is actually in the text of Huntington's journal, and

C) Bagley "corrected" the faulty interpolation, but left his conclusions - that Huntington's journal was evidence of Brigham Young's complicity in the massacre - intact.

The version of BOTP currently on Amazon is searchable using Amason's "Look Inside!" feature. As presently published, page 114 of BOTP no longer carries the interpolation of "allies," and instead quotes Huntington's journal as talking about "grain." However, on page 378, Bagley discusses - and deems incorrect - Juanita Brooks' analysis of the massacre ("that unfortunate circumstance played a part in the fate of the emigrants"). Bagley states:

Quote

Brooks never saw Dimick Huntington's journal and its evidence that the atrocity was not a tragedy but a premeditated criminal act initiated in Great Salt Lake City. Although she lacked the documentation presented here that links Brigham Young to facilitating the murders...

In sum:

1. Bagley committed historical malpractice by "rigging" the evidence. He interpolated "allies" for "grain" in an attempt to implicate Brigham Young.

2. Bagley presented this dishonest interpolation as "troubling new evidence," that this "evidence" showed that the massacre "was not a tragedy but a premeditated criminal act initiated in Great Salt Lake City," and that this evidence "links Brigham Young to facilitating the murders."

3. Crocket and Coates caught on to Bagley's dishonest interpolation.

4. Bagley, apparently without admitting or acknowledging his having been caught in rigging the evidence, tweaked the most recent published form of Blood of the Prophets to take out the interpolation of "allies" and replace it with the word that actually appeared in the text ("grain").

5. However, even though Bagley has technically and quietly retracted his dishonest interpolation, he has left intact the conclusions he drew from that dishonest interpolation (that it is "troubling new evidence," that this "evidence" showed that the massacre "was not a tragedy but a premeditated criminal act initiated in Great Salt Lake City," and that this evidence "links Brigham Young to facilitating the murders").

6. As recently as 2007, Bagley has maintained his specious usage of Huntington's journal. Check out this excerpt from a "2007 update" from Bagley:

Quote

In 1991 I had transcribed the diary of his Indian interpreter and brother-in-law, Dmick Huntington, at the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or the Mormons). Its contents demonstrated that the depth of Young’s involvement was an open question.

 

Thanks,

-Smac

[Hamilton Porter]

9 hours ago, gmormon said:

This is the second book that deals with the aftermath...look at the title

Silly me. I got tricked by the identical cover.

[gmormon]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

Some of Lee's descendants probably think this happened in 1961, when his excommunication was posthumously reversed and his priesthood blessings restored. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve authorized the action "after considering all the facts available."

I wonder if they would have made a different choice if they had been able to read Walker, Turley, and Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Or maybe they thought 84 years in hell was long enough. Who knows.

I think the problem is that John D Lee was the only one executed. If other of those who where directly involved in the massacre had also been prosecuted and sentenced to jail and/or executions history would have a different image perspective of Mountain Meadows. John Lee should have been tried along with a whole bunch of local men. He didn't do it by himself and he wasn't the highest rank local leader involved either. 

[Calm]

14 hours ago, JAHS said:

Besides Lee who was in charge of it, probably hard to positively identify all those involved after the fact. They did not have cell phones back then.

What about Haight?  He went into hiding iirc. 

[pogi]

6 hours ago, Nevo said:

Some of Lee's descendants probably think this happened in 1961, when his excommunication was posthumously reversed and his priesthood blessings restored. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve authorized the action "after considering all the facts available."

I wonder if they would have made a different choice if they had been able to read Walker, Turley, and Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Or maybe they thought 84 years in hell was long enough. Who knows.

I wonder what new/different information they had in 1961 that differed from the information they based his original excommunication on in 1870.  After "considering all the facts available" now, it seems like they should reverse the reversal.  Could such a thing be done? 

Thankfully, this is all largely symbolic in the end as none of it will trump God's final judgment against a mass murderer.  No posthumous reversal of excommunication and restoration of priesthood blessings based on faulty information will take him out of hell (spirit prison) if that is where he belongs. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by pogi

[Navidad]

I have the highest regard for both Rick and Barbara. I am sure their book will be accurate, historical, and well-balanced. I look forward to getting it. Perhaps I can get a review copy in advance!

[T-Shirt]

15 hours ago, Nevo said:

I pre-ordered the book a couple of months ago. It has been a long wait (over 10 years), but I hope worth it. I've always been very impressed with Richard Turley and I look forward to seeing Barbara Jones Brown's contribution. Before this, the only full-length studies of MMM and it's aftermath were Juanita Brooks' 1950 classic and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets (2002), which didn't have the benefit of all of the archival sources that Turley and his co-authors have had access to.  

Volume 1 more or less absolved Brigham Young of ordering the massacre, but I don't expect Volume 2 will let him off the hook in the cover-up.

I've been reading it today. I have not read the whole thing but have skipped around to the topics I find most interesting. I don't get the impression, so far, that they have implicated Brigham Young for the cover-up. I'll keep reading.

Edited May 18, 2023 by T-Shirt

[Nevo]

6 hours ago, pogi said:

I wonder what new/different information they had in 1961 that differed from the information they based his original excommunication on in 1870.  After "considering all the facts available" now, it seems like they should reverse the reversal.  Could such a thing be done?

 Gregory Prince and Wm. Robert Wright's biography of David O. McKay states that Juanita Brooks' "careful research, combined with consistent pleas to church leaders by the Lee family, eventually resulted in McKay's decision to have a committee investigate the matter. The committee, chaired by Apostle Delbert L. Stapley, recommended to McKay that Lee's membership be restored" (David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, 54). President McKay's office journals may give more detail, but I haven't looked. Juanita Brooks's biography of Lee wasn't published yet, so they must have been going by her Mountain Meadows Massacre book and maybe the diaries of Lee that Brooks had edited. It would be interesting to know what specific things they considered in making their decision.

In theory it would be possible to "reverse the reversal." Prince and Wright cite a second-hand source claiming that Elder Stapley threatened to do just that if Brooks publicized Lee's reinstatement. Brooks did mention it at the end of her biography of Lee published in 1962, but the reinstatement wasn't rescinded (although Stapley supposedly "strongly recommended to McKay that she be excommunicated").

[Nevo]

3 hours ago, T-Shirt said:

I've reading it today. I have not read the whole thing but have skipped around to the topics I find most interesting. I don't get the impression, so far, that they have implicated Brigham Young for the cover-up. I'll keep reading.

I better cancel my order, then

Here's John G. Turner in Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet:

Quote

It remains unclear exactly what southern Utah leaders privately told Young about the massacre in the fall and winter of 1857–58. Even if they attempted to shroud their own participation and that of other southern Utah Mormons, their explanations would likely not have satisfied the church's president. Brigham Young was not a gullible man. He knew as well as anyone that the Paiutes would not have made an unprompted attack on the Arkansas company, and he soon heard rumors of what had actually taken place. Young feared that full knowledge of Mormon responsibility for the massacre would foment anti-Mormon sentiment across the country and embolden federal judges, giving him good reason for wanting the truth buried in the shallow red dirt of southern Utah.

In June 1858, Jacob Hamblin, who knew of Mormon leadership of the attack, gave the apostle George A. Smith an "account of the Massacre at Mountain meadows." Hamblin's visit prompted Young to send Smith to southern Utah, accompanied by several others. The group visited the site of the massacre, stayed with John D. Lee in Harmony, and then held hearings in Cedar City and Parowan. "John D. Lee and a few other white men were on the ground during a portion of the combat," Smith wrote Young after the conclusion of his investigation. By this point, Smith—and Young—must have known a great deal about the actions of the massacre's ringleaders. Yet Lee, Haight, and others appeared to remain not just in good standing but in Young's own personal favor. Over time, Young's inaction led many observers, Mormon and Gentile, to reach the conclusion that he condoned the slaughter. (Turner, Brigham Young, 281–282)

Will Bagley agreed that Brigham Young must have known most of the details by June 1858: "Since Hamblin's report in June 1858, the facts were already well known to Mormon leaders. Smith was sent south not to learn the truth but to devise an explanation church leaders could provide to external enemies, non-Mormon allies, and the increasing number of loyal members who had questions about the affair" (Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 212).

Leonard Arrington, on the other hand, thought that "a perusal of the evidence in the Mormon Church Archives and in government reports suggests that Brigham had accepted John D. Lee's account of September 1857 at face value, and that he did not know the full extent of Mormon involvement until the early 1860s—possibly as late as 1865" (Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses, 279).

I think it's unlikely that Brigham Young remained in the dark about "the full extent of Mormon involvement" until 1865, but I'll be interested in seeing what Turley and Brown have to say.

[T-Shirt]

13 hours ago, Nevo said:

In June 1858, Jacob Hamblin, who knew of Mormon leadership of the attack, gave the apostle George A. Smith an "account of the Massacre at Mountain meadows." Hamblin's visit prompted Young to send Smith to southern Utah, accompanied by several others. The group visited the site of the massacre, stayed with John D. Lee in Harmony, and then held hearings in Cedar City and Parowan. "John D. Lee and a few other white men were on the ground during a portion of the combat," Smith wrote Young after the conclusion of his investigation. 

From the book:

His [George A. Smith] August 17 [1858] letter to Young claimed the emigrants “conducted themselves in a hostile manner” not only “towards the Indians,” but also “the [white] citizens,” threatening to destroy the town of Fillmore, boasting of their participation in the murderous mobs of Missouri and Illinois, and poisoning a spring and ox at Corn Creek that killed Proctor Robison. In the settlements further south, the letter claimed, the emigrants planned to “fatten their stock” to sell to the approaching troops, then “help to kill every ‘God damned Mormon.’ ” Most significantly, George A. echoed the words of his cousin Jesse when he added, “It is reported that John D. Lee and a few other white men were on the ground during a portion of the combat, but for what purpose, or how they conducted, or whether indeed they were there at all, I have not learned.”

Turley, Richard E.; Jones Brown, Barbara. Vengeance Is Mine (p. 151-52). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

[T-Shirt]

18 hours ago, Nevo said:

I think it's unlikely that Brigham Young remained in the dark about "the full extent of Mormon involvement" until 1865, but I'll be interested in seeing what Turley and Brown have to say.

The book says it was likely the Spring of 1863 when Young's attitude towards Lee started to change. See the other thread for additional comments.

Edited May 18, 2023 by T-Shirt

[Navidad]

On 5/18/2023 at 10:05 AM, T-Shirt said:

From the book:

His [George A. Smith] August 17 [1858] letter to Young claimed the emigrants “conducted themselves in a hostile manner” not only “towards the Indians,” but also “the [white] citizens,” threatening to destroy the town of Fillmore, boasting of their participation in the murderous mobs of Missouri and Illinois, and poisoning a spring and ox at Corn Creek that killed Proctor Robison. In the settlements further south, the letter claimed, the emigrants planned to “fatten their stock” to sell to the approaching troops, then “help to kill every ‘God damned Mormon.’ ” Most significantly, George A. echoed the words of his cousin Jesse when he added, “It is reported that John D. Lee and a few other white men were on the ground during a portion of the combat, but for what purpose, or how they conducted, or whether indeed they were there at all, I have not learned.”

Turley, Richard E.; Jones Brown, Barbara. Vengeance Is Mine (p. 151-52). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

The important thing to me isn't what George A Smith wrote to Young, but what Turley and Brown say about what he wrote. For me, the content of his letter does not pass the historical smell test.

[gmormon]

Still waiting for my copy...has anybody else got theirs yet?

[T-Shirt]

12 minutes ago, gmormon said:

Still waiting for my copy...has anybody else got theirs yet?

I got the Kindle version awhile ago. It was an instant download.