USA > Utah > History of Utah > Part 20
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The warrant required that the accused be brought before Justice Thomas Morrison, at Carthage, "or some other justice of the peace" in Hancock County. Taking advantage of this wording of the warrant they requested the privilege of going before one of the justices of Nauvoo. The constable, however, insisted on taking them to Carthage. They thereupon sued out writs of habeas corpus and were discharged, after a hearing, by the Municipal Court of Nauvoo.
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Subsequently, at the advice of Judge Jesse B. Thomas, who was visiting the city, Mayor Smith and his friends went before Justice Daniel H. Wells, who was still a non-Mormon, and were again examined and discharged; it appearing that their course in relation to the Expositor, while summary, was strictly legal under the charter and ordinances of Nauvoo.
The same day-June 16th-Mayor Smith issued a proclamation, stating why the act of abatement had been deemed necessary and de- claring that the city authorities were willing to appear, whenever the Governor should require it, before any high court in the State and answer for the correctness of their conduct. He also warned the lawless element, now reported to be gathering against Nauvoo, not to be precipitate in interfering with the affairs of that city. Governor Ford had previously been informed of the situation in detail, but no reply had been received from him.
The excitement caused by the abatement of the Expositor and the unwillingness of the Mormon leaders to be tried at Carthage, was intense. Armed men were now taking the field in deadly earnest. Carthage and Warsaw, the neighboring towns to Nauvoo, wore the aspect of military camps. Troops were training daily for the pending conflict. Fifteen hundred Missourians were reported to have joined the Warsaw forces, and five pieces of cannon and a supply of small arms had been forwarded to that point from Quincy and other places. The Warsaw Signal, edited by Thomas C. Sharp, was active in stirring up the spirit of mobocracy. It even advocated the massacre of the whole Mormon community .* The following is a sample of the mobocratic resolutions passed at Warsaw, published in the Signal, and afterwards adopted at Carthage by acclamation :
* Says Gregg's History of Hancock County : "There were at this time and even after- ward while the Mormons remained, four classes of citizens in the county: 1. The Mormons themselves. 2. A class called Jack-Mormons. * * * 3. Old citizens who were anti-Mormons at heart, but who refused to countenance any but lawful measures for redress of grievances ; and 4. Anti-Mormons who, now that the crisis had come, advocated ' war and extermination.'"
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Resolved that the time, in our opinion, has arrived, when the adherents of Smith, as a body, should be driven from the surrounding settlements into Nauvoo. That the Prophet and his miscreant adherents should then be demanded at their hands, and if not surren- dered a war of extermination should be waged to their entire destruction, if necessary for our protection.
The situation at Nauvoo was fast becoming serious. It was now the 18th of June, and no word had yet come from the Governor. Mobocratic threats were daily growing louder. Seeing no alternative, unless it were to quietly submit to the threatened assault and massacre, the Prophet, in his capacity of Mayor, now called out the Legion to defend the city, and proclaimed Nauvoo under martial law .*
" Will you stand by me," said he, as clothed in full uniform of Lieutenant-General of the Legion, he addressed his soldiers and fellow-citizens for the last time,-" Will you stand by me to the death, and sustain at the peril of your lives the laws of our country, and the liberties and privileges which our fathers have transmitted to us, sealed with their sacred blood ? ("Aye," shouted thousands.) It is well. If you had not done it, I would have gone out there (pointing to the West) and would have raised up a mightier people. (Drawing his sword and presenting it to heaven) " I call God and angels to witness that I have unsheathed my sword with a firm and unalterable determination that this people shall have their legal rights, and be protected from mob violence, or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground like water, and my body consigned to the silent tomb. While I live I will never tamely submit to the dominion of cursed mobocracy. I do not regard my own life. I am ready to be offered a sacrifice for this people. God has
Governor Ford, in after years, wrote as follows regarding the designs of the mob upon Nauvoo : "I gradually learned, to my entire satisfaction, that there was a plan to get the troops into Nauvoo and then begin the war, probably by some of our own party, or some of the seceding Mormons, taking advantage of the night to fire on our own force and then laying it on the Mormons. I was satisfied there were those among us fully capable of such an act, hoping that in the alarm, bustle and confusion of a militia camp the truth could not be discovered, and that it might lead to the desired collision."
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tried you. You are a good people ; therefore I love you with all my heart. You have stood by me in the hour of trouble, and I am willing to sacrifice my life for your preservation."
This was not the first time that the Prophet had predicted his own death. He felt that his enemies were thirsting for his blood, and that if once he fell into their power his days on earth were numbered. Neither, as seen, was it the first time that he had indicated the great West as the future home of his people. On the 20th of June he wrote for the immediate return of the absent Apostles.
Next day Governor Ford arrived at Carthage. Placing himself at the head of the troops there concentrated,-hitherto an armed mob, but now, by his act, transformed into regular militia, the Governor demanded that martial law at Nauvoo be abolished, and that the Mayor, the City Council and all persons concerned in the destruction of the Expositor press come to Carthage to be tried for riot.
The Governor's orders were obeyed. For a few hours only the Prophet hesitated. Life was still dear to him ; if not for himself for the sake of his friends and family. On the night of the 22nd he crossed the Mississippi, and in company with his brother Hyrum, Apostles Richards, Taylor and a few other friends, started for the Rocky Mountains. Messages from home intercepted him, inducing him to reconsider his design, and he returned to meet his doom. " We are going back to be butchered," said he, and resigned himself to his fate.
Having delivered up, at the Governor's demand, the arms of the Nauvoo Legion, the Prophet and his friends, seventeen in number, on the evening of the 24th set out for Carthage.
It was about midnight when they arrived there. Though so late, the town was alive and stirring, in anticipation of their arrival. They were immediately surrounded with troops, who yelled their exultation at having them in their power. Some of the soldiers- notably the Carthage Greys-were very abusive and threatened to
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shoot the Prophet and his party, who were thus voluntarily surren- dering themselves. Governor Ford pacified the would-be murderers and the threatened massacre was postponed.
Next day the Governor paraded the prisoners before the troops upon the public square, where the two principals were introduced as "Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith." At this the Carthage Greys again became angry and violent, deeming too much honor was being done " the d-d Mormons" by bestowing upon them such titles. Soon afterward the Greys revolted against their commander, General Miner R. Deming, who, fearing his own assassination, left Carthage .* Again the Governor placated the hostiles by assuring them that they should have " full satisfaction," while to the prisoners he pledged his honor and the faith of the State of Illinois that they should be pro- tected from violence and given a fair trial.
Before Justice Robert F. Smith, a captain in the Carthage Greys, the Prophet and his party were brought that afternoon and admitted to bail. Meanwhile Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been arrested for treason. This charge was based upon the calling out of the Legion and the placing of Nauvoo under martial law, proceedings construed into armed resistance to legal process. Nothing was done in this case until nightfall, when the accused, without a hearing, were thrust into Carthage jail by Justice Smith, now acting arbi- trarily in his capacity of Captain of the Greys. Governor Ford sanc- tioned this illegal act, claiming afterwards that it was necessary for the safety of the prisoners, though the latter at the time protested against the incarceration. John Taylor, Willard Richards and a few other friends accompanied Joseph and Hyrum to prison.
It was the beginning of the end. The plot was fast consummat- ing. Once more, and only once, did the two brothers emerge from that jail alive. Their doom was sealed. "The law cannot reach them," said their plotting murderers, "but powder and ball shall."
* General Deming is said to have suspected the murderous plot against the Mormon leaders, and being powerless to prevent its execution, determined to have nothing to do with the bloody deed.
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Governor Ford, next morning, granted an interview to the Prophet, coming to the prison for that purpose. Colonel Geddes and others accompanied him. During their conversation the Prophet charged the Governor with knowing positively that he and his brother were innocent of treason, and that their enemies had begun the troubles which had culminated in the present situation .* He also claimed that Ford had advised him to use the Legion in the way that he had, in the event of a threatened mobocratic assault upon Nauvoo. As to the Expositor affair, the Prophet said that he was willing to be tried again, and if found guilty to make suitable reparation. That was a matter, he maintained, for courts to decide, and not for mobs to settle. Such was the main substance of the interview. The Gov- ernor, at parting, renewed his promise that the prisoners should be protected, and pledged his word that if he went to Nauvoo-as he contemplated doing-he would take Joseph with him. Both promises were unkept.+
In the afternoon the two brothers were arraigned before Justice Smith at the Court House on the charge of treason. They asked for time to obtain witnesses. The request was reluctantly granted, and the court was adjourned until noon next day, to enable the pris- oners to send to Nauvoo-eighteen miles distant -- for their witnesses. Subsequently the military justice, without notifying the prisoners, postponed the trial until the 29th of June.
The last night of the brothers Joseph and Hyrum on earth was
* Ford in his history thus disposes of this question of the alleged treason of the Mor- mon leaders : "Their actual guiltiness of the charge would depend upon circumstances. If their opponents had been seeking to put the law in force in good faith, and nothing more, then an array of military force in open resistance to the posse comitatus and the militia of the state, most probably would have amounted to treason. But if those opponents merely intended to use the powers of the law, the militia of the state, and the posse comitatus as cats -paws to compass the possession of their persons for the purpose of murdering them afterwards, as the sequel demonstrated the fact to be, it might well be doubted whether they were guilty of. treason."
+ Governor Ford, who seems to have deferred utterly to his subordinates and the anti- Mormons at that time, failed to take the Prophet to Nauvoo because a council of his offi- cers convinced him that it "would be highly inexpedient and dangerous."
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shared with their friends John Taylor, Willard Richards, John S. Fullmer, Stephen Markham and Dan Jones. They occupied an up-stair room in the prison. Next day-the fatal 27th-Fullmer, Markham and Jones were excluded from the jail, and the four vic- tims selected for the sacrifice were left alone. They cheered each other with sacred songs and by preaching in turn to their guards. Some of these were "pricked in their hearts," being convinced that the prisoners were innocent. Their feelings becoming known to their superiors, they were promptly relieved and men of sterner stuff put in their place. During the day Cyrus H. Wheelock was permitted to visit the prisoners. Before he left he managed secretly to slip a small pepper-box revolver into Joseph's pocket. This weapon, which belonged to John Taylor, and a single-barreled pistol left by John S. Fullmer, with two stout canes, were their sole means of defense against the horde of armed assassins that soon afterward descended upon the jail.
Governor Ford, that morning, regardless of his pledge, had gone to Nauvoo, leaving the Prophet, whom he had promised to take with him, in prison. He had done more. Disbanding most of the militia, he had taken with him the McDonough County troops,-of all the militia the best ordered and least vindictive against the Mor- mons,-and left the unruly and turbulent Carthage Greys, who had revolted against their own commander, and repeatedly threatened the lives of the prisoners, to guard the jail. Colonel Buckmaster, one of the officers who accompanied the Governor to Nauvoo, informed his Excellency of the threats that had been made against the prisoners, and expressed a suspicion that the jail might be attacked in their absence. But Ford seemed to have implicit confi- dence in the Carthage troops, and refused to believe that they would betray their trust. He had previously ignored similar warnings from the Prophet's friends at Carthage. "I could not believe," said he, "that anyone would attack the jail whilst we were in Nauvoo, and thereby expose my life and the lives of my companions to the sudden vengeance of the Mormons, upon hearing of the death of their
Willard Richards,
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leaders." Captain Robert F. Smith, in the absence of General Deming, now commanded the Greys, who were encamped upon the public square, while Sergeant Frank A. Worrell, with eight men, had immediate charge of the prison.
Had the Governor connived at murder, or was he but the weak and pliant tool of men who undoubtedly had conspired against the lives of the prisoners ? Let the Final Judgment answer. Suffice it that late in the afternoon of that day-June 27th, 1844-while the Governor was at Nauvoo, haranguing the Mormons on the enormity of the crimes committed in destroying the Expositor press and placing the city under martial law, a portion of the disbanded Warsaw troops, one or two hundred strong, led by Levi Williams, a Baptist priest and Colonel of militia, returned to Carthage, stormed the jail, and with the connivance of the guards shot to death Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and all but fatally wounded John Taylor. Of the four captives, Willard Richards alone escaped unhurt. The prisoners heroically defended themselves, the Prophet using his revolver and wounding several of the assassins, while Willard Richards and John Taylor beat up and down with their walking sticks the guns thrust in at the prison door-way, diverting as best they could the direction of the deadly missiles. But the unequal fight could not long be maintained. Hyrum Smith fell first, John Taylor next, and the Prophet last. Attempting to leap from the window, Joseph was fired upon, and fell to the ground outside, dead. His murderers, who had blackened their faces to prevent recognition, only paused long enough to pour a final volley into the lifeless body of their chief victim, and then broke and fled in every direction.
A horror of fear fell upon all the inhabitants of Carthage after the bloody deed was done. Dreading the vengeance of Nauvoo, when the news should reach that city, they fled pell-mell, panic-stricken, pursued by naught save the phantoms of their own fears.
The news did reach Nauvoo, that night,-the Governor and his escort having previously left the city,-and great beyond description was the grief of the betrayed and stricken people. But no retaliation
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was attempted. Vengeance was left to heaven,-to heaven indeed ; for of that band of murderers who committed the crime, and that other band, equally guilty, who set them on, not one was ever brought to justice.
The day after the tragedy the bodies of the murdered brothers, accompanied by Willard Richards and Samuel H. Smith, were taken to Nauvoo for burial. John Taylor remained several days at Carthage, -too seriously wounded to admit of his immediate removal.
Of the absent Apostles, Parley P. Pratt was the first to return to Nauvoo. George A. Smith came next. Sidney Rigdon arrived a little later from Pittsburg. Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, Wilford Woodruff and Lyman Wight, who were in the Eastern States when the terrible tidings reached them, returned to Nauvoo on the 6th of August, forty days after the massacre.
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CHAPTER XIV. 1844-1845.
BRIGHAM YOUNG SUCCEEDS JOSEPH SMITH-THE MAN FOR THE HOUR-SIDNEY RIGDON REJECTED AND EXCOMMUNICATED-FACTIONS AND FOLLOWINGS-THE PROPHET'S MURDER PROVES AN IMPETUS TO MORMONISM-THE CRUSADE RENEWED-THE APOSTLES DRIVEN INTO RETIRE- MENT-THE "BOGUS BRIGHAM" ARREST-REPEAL OF THE NAUVOO CHARTER-JOSIAH LAMBORN'S OPINION OF THE REPEAL-GOVERNOR FORD ADVISES A MORMON EXODUS- THE PROPHET'S MURDERERS ACQUITTED-THE ANTI-MORMONS CHANGE THEIR TACTICS- THE TORCH OF THE INCENDIARY IN LIEU OF THE WRIT OF ARREST-SHERIFF BACKENSTOS --- THE MOBOCRATS WORSTED AND PUT TO FLIGHT-GOVERNOR FORD INTERPOSES TO RESTORE ORDER-GENERAL HARDIN AND THE COMMISSIONERS-THE MORMONS AGREE TO LEAVE ILLINOIS.
RIGHAM YOUNG succeeded Joseph Smith as leader of the Latter-day Saints. Sidney Rigdon claimed the leadership. It was to secure it that he came from Pittsburg on learning of the Prophet's death. Being his first counselor in the Presidency,- though Joseph, distrusting his fidelity, had long since virtually cast him off,-Elder Rigdon believed, or affected to believe, that this entitled him to the succession. A small faction of the Saints felt likewise.
But the hearts of the people, as a rule, were not with Sidney. Though an eloquent orator, he was not a leader,-at least not such a leader as the Saints now required; a man to grapple with great emer- gencies. He had shown too plainly of late years the white feather, to insure him the full confidence of his people at this critical point in their history. Besides, Sidney's claim, though plausible, was not valid according to Church polity. The First Presidency to which he had belonged was no more. Death had dissolved that council. The Prophet in life had taught that "where he was not there was no First Presidency over the Twelve." Next in order stood the Twelve-the 16-VOL. 1.
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Apostles-with Brigham Young as their President. Instinctively the people turned to Brigham, for they loved and trusted him, and by that "right divine," no less than of seniority and succession in the Priesthood, he became their President and spiritual guide.
Sidney Rigdon, after his rejection by the Saints, returned to Pittsburg. Soon afterward he was excommunicated. William Marks, William Smith, James J. Strang and others followed, being severed from the Church, some for immorality, others for refusing like Elder Rigdon to recognize the authority of the Apostles. Each prominent seceder had a limited following. 1
There were Rigdonites, Smithites, Strangites, and later, Cutlerites, Millerites and Josephites. The last-named were followers of the Prophet's son "young Joseph." This sect, which still exists, and calls itself the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," did not spring into existence until many years later, and was then organized out of the remnants of the earlier factions. But the main body of the Nauvoo Saints adhered to Brigham and the Twelve.
The chief Apostle was now in his forty-fourth year,-in the full, ripe vigor of his mental and physical powers. Though his life, like those of most of his brethren, had been one of toil and trial, and sickness, resulting from hardship and exposure, had more than once preyed upon his matured and well-knit frame, still he was a man of iron mould, and of no less iron will, whose practical wisdom and temperate habits had perpetuated in him the strength and vitality of youth, and carried forward a reserve fund of energy into his prime. His mind, a master mind, far-sighted, keen, profound, born to direct, to counsel and command, was therefore fittingly enshrined. Nature had made him great. Experience had educated that great- ness. Trials and afflictions to which weaker men had succumbed, had but developed this son of destiny and brought him to his plane and place.
He was unquestionably the man for the hour,-an hour big with events, whose birth would yet astonish the world. His colleagues, the Apostles, and the Saints in general regarded him as their divinely
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appointed leader,-quite as much so as the martyred Joseph before him. The exodus from Missouri, which he personally directed, and his subsequent management of the affairs of the British Mission, had shown something of his capacity and executive ability, but it remained for the exodus of his people to the Rocky Mountains, and the colonization of the great interior Basin, to fully demonstrate his rare genius as a leader and an organizer. A notable character in life's grand tragedy, one bloody scene of which had so lately closed, waiting at the wing he had caught his cue, and the stirring stage of Time was now ready for his advent.
The special meeting of the Saints, at which the claim of the Apostles to lead the Church had been recognized, and that of Elder Rigdon rejected, was held on the 8th of August, 1844. The same month witnessed the election of Brigham Young as Lieutenant- General of the Nauvoo Legion. Charles C. Rich was chosen Major- General. Amasa M. Lyman, previously ordained an Apostle, was admitted into the council of the Twelve, and that body then addressed an epistle to the Latter-day Saints in all the world, giving such advice and instruction as their situation and the times demanded. Wilford Woodruff was sent to Great Britain to preside over that important mission. With him went Elder Dan Jones, destined to head a very successful missionary movement in Wales. Parley P. Pratt was given charge of Church affairs in the Eastern States, and other Elders, besides many already in the field, were going forth to various parts of the Union. Among those now rising to prominence was Franklin D. Richards, the present Apostle and Church Historian.
Mormonism, its opponents discovered, was not dead, though the Church had sustained a heavy shock in the death of its Prophet and Patriarch. "The blood of the martyrs" is proverbially "the seed of the Church." The present case proved no exception. The murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith undoubtedly gave a strong impetus to Mormonism. Short-sighted indeed the wisdom (?) which thought it would do otherwise.
Immigration continued arriving at Nauvoo, where the Saints,
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under the direction of the Apostles, now hurried on the completion of the Temple. The exodus predicted and in a measure prepared for by their Prophet, was foreseen to be imminent, and it was their desire to finish this edifice,-another monument of religious zeal and self- sacrificing industry,-before taking up the cross of another painful pilgrimage and journeying toward the setting sun.
The anti-Mormons, their ranks now augmented by apostates, seemed bent upon compelling an early exodus. To this end they continued their former policy of trumping up charges against the chiefs of the Church. A murder, a theft, or any other crime,-and such things were frequent in that all but frontier region,-committed at or in the vicinity of Nauvoo, was at once laid to the Mormon leaders as principals or accessories, and forthwith the town would be inundated with sheriffs, constables and their posses, armed with writs of arrest, searching for the suspects. That some of these crimes were committed by citizens of Nauvoo is quite probable. But that all the stealing and killing in that region, or even the greater part of it was done by them, cannot be reasonably supposed, in spite of the awful examples set them.
Brigham and his brethren, with the memory of the murdered Joseph and Hyrum ever before them,-their Prophet and Patriarch, butchered in cold blood while in prison under the pledged protection of the State of Illinois,-determined not to be similarly ensnared. Instead of surrendering to the officers, therefore, they secreted them- selves whenever apprised of their approach, only to reappear when they had departed and all danger was over. The celebrated "bogus Brigham" arrest occurred during this period. The Apostles and other Elders were at the Temple, then nearing completion, when some officers came to the door with a warrant for the arrest of Brigham Young. William Miller, who resembled the President, throwing on Heber C. Kimball's cloak-similar in size and color to Brigham's-crossed the threshold and mutely surrendered to the officers, who, thinking they had secured their man, drove away with him to Carthage. The ruse was not discovered until they reached
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