History of Utah, Part 63

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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JOHN HARTNETT,

Secretary.

By the Governor, A. CUMMING.

The migrating Saints were still in the south, though the bulk of the people had gone no farther than Utah County. Thither Gov-

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ernor Cumming and the Peace Commissioners followed them, advising them to return to their homes, and repeatedly pledging them protection. The Governor pleaded with them as a father might plead with his children. "There is no longer any danger," said he, "General Johnston and his army will keep faith with you. Everyone concerned in this happy settlement will hold sacred the amnesty and pardon of the President of the United States."

"We know all about it, Governor," replied Brigham Young. "We have on just such occasions seen our disarmed men hewn down in cold blood, our virgin daughters violated, our wives ravished to death before our eyes. We know all about it, Governor Cumming." Evidently the Mormon leader was waiting to see how · General Johnston would conduct himself on entering Salt Lake City,-how he would keep faith with the people as to the property they had left behind, before entrusting his life and theirs to the mercies of the troops.

On the 26th of June, Johnston's army, descending Emigration Canyon, entered Salt Lake Valley,* passed through the all but deserted city and crossing the Jordan camped upon the river bank about two miles from the center of town. The troops marched in the following order: Colonel C. F. Smith's battalion, constituting the vanguard; Colonel Alexander and the Tenth Infantry, with Phelps' battery; Colonel Waite and the Fifth Infantry, with Reno's battery; Colonel Loring's battalion of mounted rifles; Volunteers under Lieutenant-Colonel Bee; Second Dragoons under Colonel Cooke, constituting the rear guard. General Johnston accompanied the army. Some of the officers, it is said, were deeply moved by what they witnessed. Colonel Cooke, as he rode through the silent streets, bared his head in honor of the brave men, so recently his

* Mr. Stenhouse says that the troops were amused at beholding the Mormon breast- works in Echo Canyon. We think he is mistaken. It was the Mormons who were amused. The troops were mad that they had been kept out in the snow all winter, as much by the reputation of those " impregnable breastworks " as by the valor of the men defending them.

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foes, many of whom he had formerly led in their country's cause against Mexico. The troops on the march preserved excellent order, and true to the pledge given by their commander, molested neither person nor property. Three days they remained on the Jordan, and then marched to Cedar Valley, thirty-six miles southward, where a site for an encampment had been selected. There they founded Camp Floyd, so named in honor of the Secretary of War.

Early in July the Mormon leaders returned to their homes. Their people, who had followed them southward, and would willingly have gone to the ends of the earth at their bidding, also came back to re-inhabit and re-possess their homes and the fruits of their industry, which they had offered, as virtually as Abraham offered Isaac, a sacrifice at the shrine of religious duty.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

AFTER "THE WAR "-THE FEDERAL COURTS IN OPERATION-JUDGE SINCLAIR SEEKS TO RENEW THE STRIFE-HE SENTENCES A MURDERER TO BE HUNG ON SUNDAY-JUDGE CRADLEBAUGH'S ADMINISTRATION-THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE- CRADLE- BAUGH'S VAIN ATTEMPT TO FASTEN THE AWFUL CRIME UPON THE MORMON LEADERS-HE SUMMONS THE MILITARY TO HIS AID-THE COURT HOUSE AT PROVO SURROUNDED BY FEDERAL BAYONETS-THE CITIZENS PROTEST AND THE GOVERNOR PROCLAIMS AGAINST THE MILITARY OCCUPATION-A CONSPIRACY TO ARREST PRESIDENT YOUNG THWARTED BY GOVERNOR CUMMING-ATTORNEY-GENERAL BLACK REBUKES THE UTAH JUDGES-THE ANTI- MORMONS SEEK THE REMOVAL OF GOVERNOR CUMMING-COLONEL KANE TO THE RESCUE- HOW UTAH WAS AFFECTED BY JOHNSTON'S ARMY-HORACE GREELEY AT SALT LAKE CITY- MORE NEWSPAPERS-THE "VALLEY TAN" AND THE "MOUNTAINEER"-WILLIAM H. HOOPER DELEGATE TO CONGRESS-THE PONY EXPRESS-THE CIVIL WAR-CAMP FLOYD ABANDONED.

OON after the arrival of the Federal officials who accompanied and immediately followed Johnston's army to Utah, the three judges, David R. Eckels, Charles E. Sinclair, and John Cradlebaugh, were assigned to their respective districts, and the machinery of the United States courts was set in motion. Chief Justice Eckels, preferring the military atmosphere to which for several months he had been accustomed, took up his residence at Camp Floyd; Associate Justice Sinclair was assigned to the Third Judicial District, which, as now, embraced Salt Lake City, while Associate Justice Cradlebaugh, who was the last of the three to arrive, was appointed to the Second District, comprising the southern counties. The other officials were: John Hartnett, Secretary; Alexander Wilson, United States Attorney; Peter K. Dotson, Marshal, and Jacob Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs. It had been deemed proper by the authorities at Washington to separate the last-named office from that of Governor. All but one of the new officials were non-residents of Utah. The exception was the United States Marshal, Mr. Dotson.

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Judge Sinclair opened court at Salt Lake City in November, 1858. His first move was not a reassuring one to the people, who, trusting in the pledge given by Governor Cumming and the Peace Commissioners, that the Federal representatives would keep faith with the citizens and hold sacred the amnesty extended by President Buchanan, had abandoned their exodus and returned to their homes and various avocations. It seemed to them an attempt to ignore or override the President's decree; to render null and void his offer of pardon which the people had accepted. In short, Judge Sinclair, in charging the grand jury of his court, urged them to indict ex-Governor Young, Lieutenant-General Wells and other prominent Mormons for treason; also for intimidation of court and for polygamy. The Judge held that President Buchanan's pardon, while it was "a public fact in the history of the country," "ought to be brought judicially by plea, motion or otherwise." This meant that the decree of the Chief Magistrate of the nation was not to have full force and effect until he, Charles E. Sinclair, appointed by said Chief Magistrate an Associate Justice of Utah, had sat upon it and pronounced it valid; or, as Mr. Stenhouse puts it, "he wanted to bring before his court Brigham Young and the leading Mormons to make them admit that they had been guilty of treason, and make them humbly accept from him the President's clemency."

The vain-glorious attempt failed, as it deserved to do. A sensi- ble man, one not so anxious to re-open the wound then healing, to renew the strife which had just been brought to a close, was the United States Attorney, Alexander Wilson. He refused to present to the jury bills for indictments for treason, on the ground that the President's pardon had been presented by the Peace Commissioners and accepted by the people, whereupon peace had been proclaimed by the Governor of the Territory. An indictment was secured against James Ferguson for intimidation of court, the act of which occurred in Judge Stiles' district at Salt Lake City in 1854, and grew

* " The Rocky Mountain Saints," page 402.

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out of the rivalry existing between the Federal and Territorial officers and tribunals referred to in a former chapter. The case against Mr. Ferguson never came to judgment. As to polygamy, there being no law against the practice,-for it was not until 1862 that Congress legislated against polygamy as "bigamy,"-the grand jury failed to return any indictments on that score.

The only other act of Judge Sinclair's that causes his name to be remembered in Utah-barring his collusion with other officials to secure the arrest of Brigham Young on a trumped-up, baseless charge of counterfeiting-was his sentencing a man who had com- mitted murder to be executed on the Sabbath. This man was Thomas H. Ferguson, a non-Mormon, who, while drunk, had shot and killed his employer, Alexander Carpenter, another non-Mormon. The homicide occurred September 17th, 1859, and the execution-the day originally set having been changed-on Friday, the 28th of October .* Judge Sinclair was quite a young man, which may partly account for some of his idiosyncrasies.

Meantime Judge Cradlebaugh had begun operations in the Second Judicial District. This court convened at Provo on the 8th of March, 1859. The seat of the Second District was at Fillmore, the former capital of the Territory, and it was there, on the first Monday of November, 1858, that Judge Cradlebaugh should have opened court. Such was the appointment made for him before his arrival by Judges Eckels and Sinclair, constituting a majority of the supreme bench of Utah, empowered by Congress to arrange those matters. The appointment was made in August, 1858, but Judge Cradlebaugh did not arrive upon the scene of his labors until the first week in November. This was probably his reason for not

* Said the condemned man on the scaffold : " I was tried by the statutes of Utah Territory, which give a man the privilege of being shot, beheaded or hanged. But was it given to me ? No, it was not. All Judge Sinclair wanted was to sentence some one to be hanged, then he was willing to leave the Territory; and he had too much whiskey in his head to know the day he sentenced me to be executed on, and would not have known, if it had not been for the people of Utah laughing at him. It would have been on Sunday. A nice Judge to send to any country !"

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beginning on time; but why he did not open court at the place appointed, but arbitrarily changed it from Fillmore to Provo, in the absence of an avowed reason must be surmised. We surmise, there- fore, that it was in order to be nearer Camp Floyd; it being the design of Judge Cradlebaugh, in inaugurating the extraordinary pro- ceedings by him contemplated, to call to his aid the strong arm of the military. That design, as we shall see, was strictly carried out.

Judge Cradlehaugh proposed to investigate, among other things, the Mountain Meadows massacre, referred to previously. The facts relating to this terrible tragedy, as gathered from the most reliable sources,-some of which have never before been drawn upon,-will now be laid before the reader.

The summer of 1857 furnished the bloodiest page in all the history of Utah. The theme is approached by the chronicler with shuddering, and its recital must fill the heart of every reader with horror. There is a crime that is worse than murder-a massacre; and massacre never assumes form so horrid as when its victims are defenseless,-most dreadful of all when with the slain mingles the blood of helpless women and innocent children.

About midsummer of the year mentioned a large body of Missouri and Arkansas emigrants, en route to California, reached Salt Lake City. They traveled in two separate parties, and were well provided with stock, implements and the supplies constituting the usual emigrant outfit. For some days after their arrival, during which time they had repairs made in their vehicles and had their animals shod, they were in doubt as to which route of the two then commonly used to the Coast they should follow. At length the Arkansas party decided, probably upon the advice of General Charles C. Rich who was familiar with both, to take the northern route, which, it will be remembered, crossed Bear River and proceeded along the Humboldt. They started, but made only a few days' journey,-it was afterwards learned that they went no farther than Bear River-when for some reason, probably because southern California was their destination, the majority concluded to return

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and take the southern route, leading through southwestern Utah. Proceeding southward through the Utah settlements, the two com- panies, one of which, the Arkansas party, was led by a man named Fancher, and the other, the Missouri party, was under command of a Mr. Dukes, became separated by several days' journey. It is known that Dukes' company were delayed some time near Beaver. Here they had trouble with the Indians, one of whom they had shot. Being attacked, they corralled their wagons and sought protection in a rifle pit. Two of them were wounded, but the Indians were soon placated through the intervention of officers of the Utah militia, who distributed to them liberal contributions of beef. Fancher's party in the meantime kept moving ahead, and had penetrated the Indian country and were beyond the line of settlements before the Missouri company advanced from this camp.

It was a time of great anxiety if not of intense excitement in Utah. News had just come that the troops sent by President Buchanan were nearing the Territory, and every express brought reports of the brutal and infamous threats with which the camps of the soldiery resounded. In their wagons, they declared, were the ropes with which the Mormon leaders were to be hanged. With their recent experiences in Missouri and Illinois fresh in their minds, the settlers were naturally in a state of the utmost anxiety as to the developments of the future. Martial law was all but declared in Utah, and the people were fully warned as to the exceeding gravity of the situation. Under the circumstances it was their plain duty to watch for signs of hostility on the part of emigrants or others who sought to pass through the Territory.

Whatever may have been the conduct of these companies when they encountered the Utah outposts on the east, there seems to be no question that not long after their arrival in Salt Lake Valley they gave abundant evidence of their hostility and vindictiveness. During their entire journey through the Territory they appear to have conducted themselves in the most offensive manner. They swaggered through the towns, declaring their intention, as soon

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as they should have conveyed their women and children to a place of safety, to return with military force sufficient to complete such destruction of the Mormons as the United States soldiery might leave unfinished. They averred that the murdered leaders of the Church had received but tardily their deserts, and gave the impression, if they did not positively boast, that in their company were hands that had been reddened with the Prophet's blood. Nor were their offenses confined to harrowing and insulting words. They acted like a band of marauders, preying upon the possessions of those whose country they traversed, and committing all manner of petty indignities upon person and property. Still graver crimes were charged against them by the Indians. They were said not only to have wantonly shot some of the braves, but were known to have left poisoned beef where the savages would be likely to get it. Sev- eral deaths, attributed to this cause, occurred among the Indians near Fillmore, and numbers of their animals perished through drinking water from springs poisoned by the emigrants when about to break camp.

One result of this deliberate policy of exasperation was the attack by Indians on the rear party, the Missouri contingent, at its camp near Beaver. Dissuaded at that time from their design to take summary revenge for the atrocities committed against them, the Indians hung on the horizon of their foe, as the latter drove out past the last settlements, and when in the very heart of the Indian country the attack was renewed. Again the services of the Mormons, two or three of whom had been detailed to overtake and accompany the emigrants as guides and interpreters, stood the besieged in good stead. The enraged savages were bought off with the loose stock of the company, agreeing to leave unmolested the teams and wagons and take no life. These emigrants resumed their journey and reached their destination in safety .*

* Soon afterwards the Indians were persuaded by the president of the Southern Utah Indian mission-Jacob Hamblin-to surrender the stock, and all that had not been killed was delivered hy him to an agent who came to receive it in response to his notification that it was held subject to his order.

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For the leading party, however, a horrible fate was reserved. Though in the main composed of families that bore the appearance of respectability, there was a rough and lawless element in their ranks that lost no opportunity of exhibiting its bitterness and destructiveness. Against this company, as stated, was laid the fear- ful charge of injecting poison into the carcass of one of their oxen,* first having learned that the Indians would be likely to eat the meat, and of throwing packages of poison into the springs. In other ways they contrived to render themselves obnoxious to the settlers and hateful to the natives.

It is hinted, too, that coming from the state and some even from the county in which one of the Apostles, Parley P. Pratt, had been assassinated only a short time before, the blood-thirsty talk of the emigrants had intensified the feeling their other conduct had aroused among the people. In the spring of this same year Apostle Pratt had stood trial in Arkansas on the charge of having married the wife and abducted the children of Hector McLean, a Louisianian by birth but then a resident of California. The charge was not sustained, and the defendant was acquitted. But McLean's threat of vengeance and the solicitation of friends impelled the Apostle to seek safety in flight. Undertaking to make his way alone on horseback through a wild and sparsely settled country, he was intercepted by accomplices of McLean and held until the latter could come up and dispatch him. The assassin in his fury not only plunged his knife repeatedly into the body of his victim, but also shot him through the breast with a pistol snatched from the hand of a comrade. Neither principal nor accomplices in the tragedy were ever brought to justice, though the testimony at the coroner's inquest substantiated the facts here narrated.+

* This act was witnessed by men who camped near the emigrants at Corn Creek.

¡ Parley P. Pratt was murdered near Van Buren, Arkansas, May 13, 1857. George Q. Cannon was chosen to succeed him as one of the Twelve Apostles. His name was presented to the general conference of the Church by President Young, April 7, 1860. and he was ordained August 26th of that year.

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As the Arkansas emigrants drew farther away from the larger and stronger towns and approached the isolated and straggling set- tlements on the southern and western border, they grew more defiant in language and actions. Cedar City was the last place of any conse- quence on the route. Here their customary proceeding of burning fences, whipping the heads off chickens or shooting them in the streets or private dooryards, to the extreme danger of the inhabitants, was continued. One of them, a blustering fellow riding a grey horse flourished his pistol in the face of the wife of one of the citizens, all the time making insulting proposals and uttering profane threats. When the town marshal notified them that they were violating the city ordinances they set his authority at defiance, declaring they would fight before any of their party should be surrendered. They seemed to think they had completely intimidated the people, and as a parting threat told in some quarters that they were going to camp in the Mountain Meadows until they should have fattened their beef animals so that an invading auxiliary force, expected from the west, would have plenty of supplies. It is probable that they had chosen Mountain Meadows as the last point for a prolonged halt through a suggestion given them by Jacob Hamblin, a member of George A. Smith's party, whom they had met at Corn Creek, now Kanosh, fifteen miles south of Fillmore, about the 23rd of August. Knowing of Hamblin as a pioneer in the southern country, the emigrants asked him about the road, and inquired as to a suitable place to rest and recruit their teams before crossing the desert. He suggested to them the south end of Mountain Meadows, a few miles from his ranch, where there was plenty of good feed and water for the animals.

Apostle Smith was returning from a tour of the southern settlements, during which he had at almost every opportunity given pointed advice to the people on the crisis which seemed to be impending. He had only just returned to Utah after a year's absence, and as some of his family lived in Iron County, he had left Salt Lake City about the end of July to visit them. On this journey, both going and coming, he warned the people against wasting their

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grain or using it for horse-feed, as crops had been short for several years. He advised against selling to emigrants for this purpose, but distinctly urged the duty of furnishing strangers with what bread- stuffs they needed for themselves and families. That these emigrants and others were able to supply themselves with the necessaries of life for their long journey was directly due to this humane counsel and its general acceptance. The fact that he had never heard of the Arkansas emigrants before he met them at Corn Creek, where he camped near them one night on his way back to Salt Lake City, and that he immediately started east and heard no more of them until he reached Bridger, appears to have escaped the notice of those who subsequently sought to associate him with the tragedy at Mountain Meadows. He was as innocent of connection with that crime as a babe unborn.

The ill-starred company, traveling slowly, reached Beaver, Parowan and Cedar City in succession, passing the last-named place about the 27th or 28th of August. Here, as at Parowan, they were able to purchase grain, and though doubtless regarded with distrust, were treated with humanity. Proceeding a few miles farther they camped several days near some of the springs in the vicinity, trading stock with the settlers and buying more grain. Their insolent conduct continued, and yet they seemed loth to leave the last signs of civilization,-the society of a people whom they hated.

Meantime the Indians were becoming aroused at the reports which had reached them of this company's deeds at Corn Creek and other places. The red men shared in no small degree the excitement of the whole country over the prospects of early war. No doubt the horses and herds of the emigrants were also something of a tempta- tion to the savages.

Cedar was the most distant town from Salt Lake City on the line of travel to southern California, and for that reason the first point in the Territory which an expedition from that direction would reach. Their very remoteness made the settlers peculiarly alert and watchful for the first manifestations of that era of sanguinary distress that 45-VOL. 1.

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was universally believed to be impending. It was accordingly the custom for the more prominent citizens to meet together frequently to discuss the situation and exchange ideas and suggestions as to what course should be taken with reference to any emergency. In their scattered condition,-many of them living on farms and ranches several miles distant,-it was no easy task to secure attendance at such a meeting except by previous appointment. Thus it happened that Sunday, when the people were accustomed to assemble for relig- ious worship, came to be chosen for these brief consultations, the men folks meeting in council before the usual services began, or remaining a short time after they were concluded. Such was the case on Sunday, the 30th of August, the second or third day after the Arkansas company had passed through. The conduct of that com- pany in and near Cedar, and the knowledge of their lawlessness all along the line of previous settlements, associated with the ferocious threat that their early return as a mob of destroyers might be expected, caused earnest and even indignant allusion to them at this particular council. By some it was suggested that as they were about to enter the Indian country the savages would be likely to harass and plunder them to a degree that would prevent their promised return. It is probable that others were in favor of bringing them back and holding them as prisoners of war. What other suggestions, if any, were offered at the time is not known ; but it is a fact that it was then and there resolved that the Indians should be held in check, and the emigrants permitted to pass in safety. A dispatch to that effect was sent shortly afterward by Lieutenant-Colonel Haight to the presiding official at Pinto [or Painter] Creek.

The messenger who delivered this order remembers that on his return he met the emigrants just breaking camp for the last time before entering the Mountain Meadows. He was accompanied on his errand of peace by Philip Klingensmith, then Bishop of Cedar; and they had scarcely set out from that place before they met John D. Lee, to whom they communicated the object of their journey. Lee was a major in the militia; never a bishop in the Church-as so

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History of Utah, Part 63

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026