The Rocky Mountain Saints/Chapter 17
- THE PROPHET RESOLVED TO FIGHT IT OUT.
- Faith struggles with Fate
- Treason in the Camp of the Saints
- Joseph and the leading Mormons delivered over to Gen. Lucas
- The Prisoners tried by Court-Martial
- Sentenced to be shot next Morning
- Gen. Doniphan protests against their Execution
- The Prophet and his Brethren sent to Jail
- The Revelations contradicted by Facts.
On the day of the Haun's Mills massacre, the Governor's army was surrounding Far West, and camped within a mile of that place for the night. The militia of Far West (Mormons) threw up some temporary fortifications through the night, and the women gathered their most valuable effects, anticipating a fight in the morning and probably a hasty departure. The Mormons evidently concluded to fight it out, though the Gentile militia outnumbered them five to one. It was at this time that General Atchison retired from command.
With such disparity of numbers and equipments, the Mormons could not have entertained any great hopes of success. The Prophet doubtless counted upon heavenly aid as well as upon the desperation of his brethren—fighting as they were for their families and firesides. It is an ever-recurring feature in religious history that repeated evidences of defeat are never accepted as lessons of premonition. On the contrary, as failure succeeds failure and the cause seems hopelessly lost, faith rises with increased grandeur, and the believer expects every instant to witness a Red Sea victory over again. The whole spirit and genius of Joseph's life was this abounding confidence.
At this time temporary success to the Mormons was possible; but it would have demanded an unfailing series of miracles to have made it available. The whole country was in sympathy with the mob, the militia, and the Governor. Temporary defeat then to the militia was certain to have insured their ultimate success. Unless the heavens had truly decreed the overthrow of all things that opposed the Saints, there was little chance of victory, and the "treason" of Colonel Hinkle was from that standpoint an opportune ram in the thicket.
This officer was an elder in the Church and in the command of the Caldwell militia. He had faced the mob when it was purely mob, and had exhibited no lack of personal devotion. When he saw the Governor's officers surrounding Far West, it is due to him to suppose that his time for second sober thought had been reached. He sought an interview with General Lucas on the morning of the 31st. The General and the principal officers met him. Col. Hinkle wanted to know if there could not be some compromise or settlement of the difficulty without a resort to arms. General Lucas made him acquainted with the Governor's orders for extermination or expulsion from the State, and submitted to him the following propositions:
- To give up their [the Church's] leaders to be tried and punished.
- To make an appropriation of their property, all who have taken up arms, to the payment of their debts, and indemnify for damage done by them.
- That the balance should leave the State, and be protected out by the militia, but to be permitted to remain under protection until further orders were received from the Commander-in-Chief.
- To give up the arms of every description, to be receipted for.
Colonel Hinkle asked for time to consider these propositions, and General Lucas gave him till the following morning to decide, requiring of him in the mean time to deliver over Joseph Smith, Junr., Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Parley P. Pratt, and George W. Robinson, as hostages for his faithful compliance with the terms. On his part the General pledged himself and his officers that in the event of the Colonel declining to accept those terms, the hostages should be returned in the morning; but in case the terms were accepted, that the hostages would be held for trial as a part of the first stipulation. To bring the persons called for, Col. Hinkle was allowed till "one hour by sun in the evening," and the troops were ordered to be ready to march against Far West half an hour earlier. The afternoon was already advanced.
Colonel Hinkle waited upon the Prophet and his friends named, and informed them that the officers of the militia desired to talk with them, hoping that the difficulty which threatened would be settled without having occasion to carry into effect the exterminating orders of the Governor. Joseph and his friends immediately complied with this request, and, accompanied by Colonel Hinkle, went out to the place of rendezvous with General Lucas. They were immediately seized as prisoners.
It is asserted by the Mormon historian that Col. Hinkle, when he met with General Lucas, said: "Here are the prisoners I agreed to deliver to you." Henceforth he was branded as a traitor by the Mormons.
With a full knowledge of the facts occurring at the time, a modification of this charge may be entertained. Col. Hinkle was evidently satisfied that "the Lord" was not going to fight the battles of the Saints, and he was as fully convinced that General Lucas would fight those of Missouri. Aware of the numerical superiority and advantages of his enemies, with no possibility of final success on the part of his friends, there was nothing left him but to surrender. Most persons would have preferred to have acquainted Joseph and the leading Mormons with the terms submitted by the Missouri generals, and to have left the decision and responsibility with them; Colonel Hinkle's contrary course was probably prompted by the conviction that the Saints would never consent to give up their leaders, and that within two hours the fight would commence in which helpless women and children would be slaughtered in the general vengeance with which they were threatened. Colonel Hinkle had previously exhibited no cowardice; he gained nothing by giving up the leaders, but knew well that he would lose all by doing so, and from the fact that the Mormon authorities, with all their undying hate against him, have never affixed other crime to his name, it is pretty certain that Colonel Hinkle was not corrupted by the hopes of personal advantages.
The Prophet and his associates were marched through the lines of the militia amid yells and whoopings and general rejoicing. At night they were forced to make their couch on the earth without either mattress or covering, much to their chagrin, and correspondingly to the enjoyment of the Missourians. A Mormon of the name of Carey had "got his skull split" in the morning of this day; no medical attendance or anything to assuage the sufferings of this unfortunate were permitted him, but in the evening he was taken home by his brethren and died in a few hours.
Next morning—November 1st—Joseph's brother Hyrum and Amasa Lyman were brought into camp, and a court-martial was immediately held, composed "of nineteen militia officers, and seventeen preachers of various sects, who had served as volunteers against the Mormons,"[1] and the Prophet and his associates were condemned to be shot in the public square of Far West, in the presence of their families and friends!
While the court-martial was being held, the troops, breaking through the feeble restraint that was imposed upon them, committed all sorts of excesses in Far West. The General commanding had previously demanded the arms of the Mormons; they were, therefore, now helpless and unable to resist the insult and outrage of their women, or to protect their own lives. General Doniphan opposed the decision of the court-martial to shoot the Prophet and the leaders of the Church, and to his firmness and the determination that neither he nor his brigade should take part in "a cold-blooded murder," the lives of the Mormon chiefs were, fortunately for the honour of Missouri, at that time spared.[2]
After gratifying his troops with a march through the streets of Far West, and to let the Mormons see their force, General Lucas ordered General Wilson to escort the prisoners to Independence, Jackson county, the headquarters of the former. It was with some difficulty that the Mormon prisoners obtained permission to bid good-bye to their families; and, that over, they were hurried away from their destitute families, and from the afflicted and sadly grieved Saints.
At a time of such deep affliction it would be heartless cruelty to mock the faith of any sincere people, such as the Mormons have proved themselves to be; but in an impartial history of Mormonism it is but proper that a "revelation," given only six months and a few days preceding that event, concerning that same Far West, should be placed together with the narrative of the final expulsion of the Saints from that highly favoured land.
"Let the city, Far West, be a holy and consecrated land unto me, and it shall be called most holy, for the ground upon which thou standest is holy; therefore, I command you to build a house unto me, for the gathering together of my Saints that they may worship me; and let there be a beginning of this work, and a foundation, and a preparatory work this following summer, and let the beginning be made on the fourth day of July next; and from that time forth let. my people labour diligently to build a house unto my name, and in one year from this day let them recommence laying the foundation of my house; thus let them from that time forth labour diligently until it shall be finished from the corner-stone *hereof unto the top thereof, until there shall not anything remain that is not finished."[3]
In their efforts at harmonizing the failures of revelation with facts, the Mormon Apostles apply that other convenient revelation that tells them how, when "the Lord" commands the Saints to do anything and their enemies hinder them, He will not require it at their hands. This explanation is good, so far as settling with whom rests the responsibility, but it changes in nothing the inference here of "the Lord's" ignorance of the forthcoming expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, and His utter inability to prevent it. At the time when this revelation was given, the Prophet Joseph was in excellent and robust faith, and his sentiments on that occasion express his sanguineness in the future. In the same revelation he calls upon the Saints to—
"Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations, and that the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defence, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth."
With all these predictions in favour of the future greatness of Far West, and the glory that awaited Independence in the erection of the Great Temple that was to be "recommenced and continued till completion," no ordinary men could have been carried away prisoners from the one place to the other without strange questionings about the predictions of the modern Prophet; but Joseph was in no way discouraged.
On the way to Independence some of the brethren were cast down and disheartened. On the second morning of their travels Joseph cheered them with a revelation. "Be of good courage, brethren," said he; "the word of the Lord came to me last night, that our lives should be given to us, and that, whatsoever we may suffer during this captivity, not one of our lives shall be taken."
On their arrival at Independence they were treated kindly by some and rudely by others. Among the strangers visiting the Prophet and Apostles some woman asked questions. This afforded Joseph the opportunity of preaching to her and her companions, which the Mormon historian claims was the fulfilment of a prediction "that a sermon should be preached in Jackson county by one of our elders before the close of 1838." On just as slight a foundation has the fulfilment of many a prediction been claimed.
- ↑ Rev. Mr. Caswell's "Prophet of the Nineteenth Century," p. 178.
- ↑ "This is the same Gen. Doniphan who, as colonel of a regiment of Missouri volunteers, afterwards conquered Chihuahua, and gained the splendid victories of Bracito and Sacramento. Among all the officers of the Missouri militia operating against the Mormons, Gen. Doniphan was the only one who boldly denounced the intended assassination of the prisoners under the colour of law. So true it is that the truly brave man is most apt to be merciful and just."—"History of Illinois," p. 260.
- ↑ "Revelation given at Far West, April 26, 1838, making known the will of God concerning the building up of this place and of the Lord's House," etc.