The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 66

Then by Lee's direction the chief shot one of them, and Lee threw the other down and cut her throat. Hamblin said that an Indian boy conducted him to the place where the girls' bodies lay, a long way from the rest, up a ravine, unburied and with their throats cut. One of the little children saved from the ma.s.sacre was taken home by Hamblin, and she said the murdered girls were her sisters. Richard F. Burton, who visited Utah in 1860, mentions, as one of the current stories in connection with the ma.s.sacre, that, when a girl of sixteen knelt before one of the Mormons and prayed for mercy, he led her into the thicket, violated her, and then cut her throat.*

* "City of the Saints," p. 412.

As soon as the slaughter was completed the plundering began. Beside their wagons, horses, and cattle,* they had a great deal of other valuable property, the whole being estimated by Judge Cradlebaugh at from $60,000 to $70,000. When Lee got back to the main party, the searching of the bodies of the men for valuables began. "I did hold the hat awhile," he confesses, "but I got so sick that I had to give it to some other person." He says there were more than five hundred head of cattle, a large number of which the Indians killed or drove away, while Klingensmith, Haight, and Higbee, leaders in the enterprise, drove others to Salt Lake City and sold them. The horses and mules were divided in the same way. The Indians (and probably their white comrades) had made quick work with the effects of the women. Their bodies, young and old, were stripped naked, and left, objects of the ribald jests of their murderers. Lee says that in one place he counted the bodies of ten children less than sixteen years old.

* Superintendent Forney, in his report of March, 1859, said: "Facts in my possession warrant me in estimating that there was distributed a few days after the ma.s.sacre, among the leading church dignitaries, $30,000 worth of property. It is presumable they also had some money."

When the Mormons had finished rifling the dead, all were called together and admonished by their chiefs to keep the ma.s.sacre a secret from the whole world, not even letting their wives know of it, and all took the most solemn oath to stand by one another and declare that the killing was the work of Indians. Most of the party camped that night on the Meadows, but Lee and Higbee pa.s.sed the night at Jacob Hamblin's ranch.

In the morning the Mormons went back to bury the dead. All these lay naked, "making the scene," says Lee, "one of the most loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined." The bodies were piled up in heaps in little depressions, and a pretence was made of covering them with dirt; but the ground was hard and their murderers had few tools, and as a consequence the wild beasts soon unearthed them, and the next spring the bones were scattered over the surface.

This work finished, the party, who had been joined during the night by Colonel Dame, Judge Lewis, Isaac C. Haight, and others of influence, held another council, at which G.o.d was thanked for delivering their enemies into their hands; another oath of secrecy was taken, and all voted that any person who divulged the story of the ma.s.sacre should suffer death, but that Brigham Young should be informed of it. It was also voted, according to Lee, that Bishop Klingensmith should take charge of the plunder for the benefit of the church.

The story of this slaughter, to this point, except in minor particulars noted, is undisputed. No Mormon now denies that the emigrants were killed, or that Mormons partic.i.p.ated largely in the slaughter. What the church authorities have sought to establish has been their own ignorance of it in advance, and their condemnation of it later. In examining this question we have, to a.s.sist us, the knowledge of the kind of government that Young had established over his people--his practical power of life and death; the fact that the Arkansans were pa.s.sing south from Salt Lake City, and that their movements had been known to Young from the start and their treatment been subject to his direction; the failure of Young to make any effort to have the murderers punished, when a "crook of his finger" would have given them up to justice; the coincidence of the ma.s.sacre with Young's threat to Captain Van Vliet, uttered on September 9, "If the issue continues, you may tell the government to stop all emigration across the continent, for the Indians will kill all who attempt it"; Young's failure to mention this "Indian outrage" in his report as superintendent of Indian affairs, and the silence of the Mormon press on the subject.* If we accept Lee's plausible theory that, at his second trial, the church gave him up as a sop to justice, and loosened the tongues of witnesses against him, this makes that part of the testimony in confirmation of Lee's statement, elicited from them, all the stronger.

* H. H. Bancroft, in his "Utah," as usual, defends the Mormon church against the charge of responsibility for the ma.s.sacre, and calls Judge Cradlebaugh's charge to the grand jury a slur that the evidence did not excuse.

Let us recall that Lee himself had been an active member of the church for nearly forty years, following it from Missouri to Utah, travelling penniless as a missionary at the bidding of his superiors, becoming a polygamist before he left Nauvoo, accepting in Utah the view that "Brigham spoke by direction of the G.o.d of heaven," and saying, as he stood by his coffin looking into the rifles of his executioners, "I believe in the Gospel that was taught in its purity by Joseph Smith in former days." How much Young trusted him is seen in the fact that, by Young's direction, he located the southern towns of Provo, Fillmore, Parowan, etc., was appointed captain of militia at Cedar City, was president of civil affairs at Harmony, probate judge of the county (before and after the ma.s.sacre), a delegate to the convention which framed the const.i.tution of the State of Deseret, a member of the territorial legislature (after the ma.s.sacre), and "Indian farmer" of the district including the Meadows when the ma.s.sacre occurred.

Lee's account of the steps leading up to the ma.s.sacre and of what followed is, in brief, that, about ten days before it occurred, General George A. Smith, one of the Twelve, called on him at Was.h.i.+ngton City, and, in the course of their conversation, asked, "Suppose an emigrant train should come along through this southern country, making threats against our people and bragging of the part they took in helping kill our prophet, what do you think the brethren would do with them?" Lee replied: "You know the brethren are now under the influence of the 'Reformation,' and are still red-hot for the Gospel. The brethren believe the government wishes to destroy them. I really believe that any train of emigrants that may come through here will be attacked and probably all destroyed. Unless emigrants have a pa.s.s from Brigham Young or some one in authority, they will certainly never get safely through this country." Smith said that Major Haight had given him the same a.s.surance. It was Lee's belief that Smith had been sent south in advance of the emigrants to prepare for what followed.

Two days before the first attack on the camp, Lee was summoned to Cedar City by Isaac Haight, president of that Stake, second only to Colonel Dame in church authority in southern Utah, and a lieutenant colonel in the militia under Dame. To make their conference perfectly secret, they took some blankets and pa.s.sed the night in an old iron works. There Haight told Lee a long story about Captain Fancher's party, charging them with abusing the Mormons, burning fences, poisoning water, threatening to kill Brigham Young and all the apostles, etc. He said that unless preventive measures were taken, the whole Mormon population were likely to be butchered by troops which these people would bring back from California. Lee says that he believed all this. He was also told that, at a council held that day, it had been decided to arm the Indians and "have them give the emigrants a brush, and, if they killed part or all, so much the better." When asked who authorized this, Haight replied, "It is the will of all in authority," and Lee was told that he was to carry out the order. The intention then was to have the Indians do the killing without any white a.s.sistance. On his way home Lee met a large body of Indians who said they were ordered by Haight, Higbee, and Bishop Klingensmith, to kill and rob the emigrants, and wanted Lee to lead them. He told them to camp near the emigrants and wait for him; but they made the attack, as described, early Monday morning, without capturing the camp, and drove the whites into an intrenchment from which they could not dislodge them. Hence the change of plan.

During the early part of the operations, Lee says, a messenger had been sent to Brigham Young for orders. On Thursday evening two or three wagon loads of Mormons, all armed, arrived at Lee's camp in the Meadows, the party including Major Higbee of the Iron Militia, Bishop Klingensmith, and many members of the High Council. When all were a.s.sembled, Major Higbee reported that Haight's orders were that "all the emigrants must be put out of the way"; that they had no pa.s.s (Young could have given them one); that they were really a part of Johnston's army, and, if allowed to proceed to California, they would bring destruction on all the settlements in Utah. All knelt in prayer, after which Higbee gave Lee a paper ordering the destruction of all who could talk. After further prayers, Higbee said to Lee, "Brother Lee, I am ordered by President Haight to inform you that you shall receive a crown of celestial glory for your faithfulness, and your eternal joy shall be complete." Lee says that he was "much shaken" by this offer, because of his complete faith in the power of the priesthood to fulfil such promises. The outcome of the conference was the adoption of the plan of treachery that was so successfully carried out on Friday morning. The council had lasted so long that the party merely had time for breakfast before Bateman set out for the camp with his white flag.*

* Bishop Klingensmith, one of the indicted, in whose case the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi in order that he might be a witness at Lee's first trial, said in his testimony: "Coming home the day following their [emigrants'] departure from Cedar City, met Ira Allen four miles beyond the place where they had spoken to Lee. Allen said, 'The die is cast, the doom of the emigrants is sealed.'" (This was in reference to a meeting in Parowan, when the destruction of the emigrants had been decided on.) He said John D. Lee had received orders from headquarters at Parowan to take men and go, and Joel White would be wanted to go to Pinto Creek and revoke the order to suffer the emigrants to pa.s.s. The third day after, Haight came to McFarland's house and told witness and others that orders had come in from camp last night. Things hadn't gone along as had been expected, and reenforcements were wanted.

Haight then went to Parowan to get instructions, and received orders from Dame to "decoy the emigrants out and spare nothing but the small children who could not tell the tale." In an affidavit made by this Bishop in April, 1871, he said: "I do not know whether said 'headquarters' meant the spiritual headquarters at Parowan, or the headquarters of the commander-in-chief at Salt Lake City." (Affidavit in full in "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 439.)

Several days after the ma.s.sacre, Haight told Lee that the messenger sent to Young for instructions had returned with orders to let the emigrants pa.s.s in safety, and that he (Haight) had countermanded the order for the ma.s.sacre, but his messenger "did not go to the Meadows at all." All parties were evidently beginning to realize the seriousness of their crime. Lee was then directed by the council to go to Young with a verbal report, Haight again promising him a celestial reward if he would implicate more of the brethren than necessary in his talk with Young.*

On reaching Salt Lake City, Lee gave Young the full particulars of the ma.s.sacre, step by step. Young remarked, "Isaac [Haight] has sent me word that, if they had killed every man, woman, and child in the outfit, there would not have been a drop of innocent blood shed by the brethren; for they were a set of murderers, robbers, and thieves."

* "At that time I believed everything he said, and I fully expected to receive the celestial reward that he promised me. But now [after his conviction] I say, 'd.a.m.n all such celestial rewards as I am to get for what I did on that fatal day'." "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 251.

When the tale was finished, Young said: "This is the most unfortunate affair that ever befell the church. I am afraid of treachery among the brethren who were there. If any one tells this thing so that it will become public, it will work us great injury. I want you to understand now that you are NEVER to tell this again, not even to Heber C. Kimball.

IT MUST be kept a secret among ourselves. When you get home, I want you to sit down and write a long letter, and give me an account of the affair, charging it to the Indians. You sign the letter as farmer to the Indians, and direct it to me as Indian agent. I can then make use of such a letter to keep off all damaging and troublesome inquirers." Lee did so, and his letter was put in evidence at his trial.

Lee says that Young then dismissed him for the day, directing him to call again the next morning, and that Young then said to him: "I have made that matter a subject of prayer. I went right to G.o.d with it, and asked him to take the horrid vision from my sight if it was a righteous thing that my people had done in killing those people at the Mountain Meadows. G.o.d answered me, and at once the vision was removed. I have evidence from G.o.d that he has overruled it all for good, and the action was a righteous one and well intended."*

* For Lee's account of his interview with Young, see "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 252-254.

When Lee was in Salt Lake City as a member of the const.i.tutional convention, the next winter, Young treated him, at his house and elsewhere, with all the friendliness of old. No one conversant with the extent of Young's authority will doubt the correctness of Lee's statement that "if Brigham Young had wanted one man or fifty men or five hundred men arrested, all he would have had to do would be to say so, and they would have been arrested instantly. There was no escape for them if he ordered their arrest. Every man who knows anything of affairs in Utah at that time knows this is so."

At the second trial of Lee a deposition by Brigham Young was read, Young pleading ill health as an excuse for not taking the stand. He admitted that "counsel and advice were given to the citizens not to sell grain to the emigrants for their stock," but a.s.serted that this did not include food for the parties themselves. He also admitted that Lee called on him and began telling the story of the ma.s.sacre, but a.s.serted that he directed him to stop, as he did not want his feelings harrowed up with a recital of these details. He gave as an excuse for not bringing the guilty to justice, or at least making an investigation, the fact that a new governor was on his way, and he did not know how soon he would arrive. As Young himself was keeping this governor out by armed force, and declaring that he alone should fill that place, the value of his excuse can be easily estimated. Hamblin, at Lee's trial, testified that he told Brigham Young and George A. Smith "everything I could" about the ma.s.sacre, and that Young said to him, "As soon as we can get a court of justice we will ferret this thing out, but till then don't say anything about it."

Both Knight and McMurphy testified that they took their teams to Mountain Meadows under compulsion. Nephi Johnson, another partic.i.p.ant, when asked whether he acted under compulsion, replied, "I didn't consider it safe for me to object," and when compelled to answer the question whether any person had ever been injured for not obeying such orders, he replied, "Yes, sir, they had."

Some letters published in the Corinne (Utah) Reporter, in the early seventies, signed "Argus," directly accused Young of responsibility for this ma.s.sacre. Stenhouse discovered that the author had been for thirty years a Mormon, a high priest in the church, a holder of responsible civil positions in the territory, and he a.s.sured Stenhouse that "before a federal court of justice, where he could be protected, he was prepared to give the evidence of all that he a.s.serted." "Argus" declared that when the Arkansans set out southward from the Jordan, a courier preceded them carrying Young's orders for non-intercourse; that they were directed to go around Parowan because it was feared that the military preparations at that place, Colonel Dame's headquarters, might arouse their suspicion; and he points out that the troops who killed the emigrants were called out and prepared for field operations, just as the territorial law directed, and were subject to the orders of Young, their commander-in-chief.

Not until the so-called Poland Bill of 1874 became a law was any one connected with the Mountain Meadows Ma.s.sacre even indicted. Then the grand jury, under direction of Judge Boreman, of the Second Judicial District of Utah, found indictments against Lee, Dame, Haight, Higbee, Klingensmith, and others. Lee, who had remained hidden for some years in the canyon of the Colorado,* was reported to be in south Utah at the time, and Deputy United States Marshal Stokes, to whom the warrant for his arrest was given, set out to find him. Stokes was told that Lee had gone back to his hiding-place, but one of his a.s.sistants located the accused in the town of Panguitch, and there they found him concealed in a log pen near a house. His trial began at Beaver, on July 12, 1875. The first jury to try his case disagreed, after being out three days, eight Mormons and the Gentile foreman voting for acquittal, and three Gentiles for conviction. The second trial, which took place at Beaver, in September, 1876, resulted in a verdict of "guilty of murder in the first degree." Beadle says of the interest which the church then took in his conviction: "Daniel H. Wells went to Beaver, furnished some new evidence, coached the witnesses, attended to the spiritual wants of the jury, and Lee was convicted. He could not raise the money ($1000) necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, although he solicited it by subscription from wealthy leading Mormons for several days under guard."**

* Inman's "Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 141

** "Polygamy," p. 507.

Criminals in Utah convicted of a capital crime were shot, and this was Lee's fate. It was decided that the execution should take place at the scene of the ma.s.sacre, and there the sentence of the court was carried out on March 23, 1877. The coffin was made of rough pine boards after the arrival of the prisoner, and while he sat looking at the workmen a short distance away. When all the arrangements were completed, the marshal read the order of the court and gave Lee an opportunity to speak. A photographer being ready to take a picture of the scene, Lee asked that a copy of the photograph be given to each of three of his wives, naming them. He then stood up, having been seated on his coffin, and spoke quietly for some time. He said that he was sacrificed to satisfy the feelings of others; that he died "a true believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ," but did not believe everything then taught by Brigham Young. He a.s.serted that he "did nothing designedly wrong in this unfortunate affair," but did everything in his power to save the emigrants. Five executioners then stepped forward, and, when their rifles exploded, Lee fell dead on his coffin.

Major (afterward General) Carlton, returning from California in 1859, where he had escorted a paymaster, pa.s.sed through Mountain Meadows, and, finding many bones of the victims still scattered around, gathered them, and erected over them a cairn of stones, on one of which he had engraved the words: "Here lie the bones of 120 men, women, and children from Arkansas, murdered on the 10th day of September, 1857." In the centre of the cairn was placed a beam, some fifteen feet high, with a cross-tree, on which was painted: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it." It was said that this was removed by order of Brigham Young.*

* "Humiliating as it is to confess, in the 42d Congress there were gentlemen to be found in the committees of the House and in the Senate who were bold enough to declare their opposition to all investigation. One who had a national reputation during the war, from Bunker Hill to New Orleans, was not ashamed to say to those who sought the legislation that was necessary to make investigation possible, that it was 'too late.'" "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 456.

CHAPTER XVII. -- AFTER THE "WAR"

With the return of the people to their homes, the peaceful avocations of life in Utah were resumed. The federal judges received a.s.signments to their districts, and the other federal officers took possession of their offices. Chief Justice Eckles selected as his place of residence Camp Floyd, as General Johnston's camp was named; Judge Sinclair's district included Salt Lake City, and Judge Cradlebaugh's the southern part of the state.

Judge Cradlebaugh, who conceived it to be a judge's duty to see that crime was punished, took steps at once to secure indictments in connection with the notorious murders committed during the "Reformation," and we have seen in a former chapter with what poor results. He also personally visited the Mountain Meadows, talked with whites and Indians cognizant with the ma.s.sacre, and, on affidavits sworn to before him, issued warrants for the arrest of Haight, Higbee, Lee, and thirty-four others as partic.i.p.ants therein. In order to hold court with any prospect of a practical result, a posse of soldiers was absolutely necessary, even for the protection of witnesses; but Governor c.u.mming, true to the reputation he had secured as a Mormon ally, declared that he saw no necessity for such use of federal troops, and requested their removal from Provo, where the court was in session; and when the judge refused to grant his request, he issued a proclamation in which he stated that the presence of the military had a tendency "to disturb the peace and subvert the ends of justice." Before this dispute had proceeded farther, General Johnston received an order from Secretary Floyd, approved by Attorney General Black, directing that in future he should instruct his troops to act as a posse comitatus only on the written application of Governor c.u.mming. Thus did the church win one of its first victories after the reestablishment of "peace."

An incident in Salt Lake City at this time might have brought about a renewal of the conflict between federal and Mormon forces. The engraver of a plate with which to print counterfeit government drafts, when arrested, turned state's evidence and pointed out that the printing of the counterfeits had been done over the "Deseret Store" in Salt Lake City, which was on Young's premises. United States Marshal Dotson secured the plate, and with it others, belonging to Young, on which Deseret currency had been printed. This seemed to bring the matter so close to Young that officers from Camp Floyd called on Governor c.u.mming to secure his cooperation in arresting Young should that step be decided on. The governor refused with indignation to be a party to what he called "creeping through walls," that is, what he considered a roundabout way to secure Young's arrest; and, when it became rumored in the city that General Johnston would use his troops without the governor's cooperation c.u.mming directed Wells, the commander of the Nauvoo Legion, who had so recently been in rebellion against the government, to hold his militia in readiness for orders. Wells is quoted by Bancroft as saying that he told c.u.mming, "We would not let them [the soldiers] come; that if they did come, they would never get out alive if we could help it."* The decision of the Was.h.i.+ngton authorities in favor of Governor c.u.mming as against the federal judges once more restored "peace." The only sufferer from this incident was Marshal Dotson, against whom Young, in his probate court, obtained a judgment of $2600 for injury to the Deseret currency plates, and a house belonging to Dotson, renting for $500 year, was sold to satisfy this judgment, and bought in by an agent of Young.

* "History of Utah," p. 573, note.

To complete the story of this forgery, it may be added that Brewer, the engraver who turned state's evidence, was shot down in Main Street, Salt Lake City, one evening, in company with J. Johnson, a gambler who had threatened to shoot a Mormon editor. A man who was a boy at the time gave J. H. Beadle the particulars of this double murder as he received it from the person who lighted a brazier to give the a.s.sa.s.sin a sure aim.* The coroner's jury the next day found that the men shot one another!

* "Polygamy," p. 192.

Soon all public attention throughout the country was centred in the coming conflict in the Southern states. In May, 1860, the troops at Camp Floyd departed for New Mexico and Arizona, only a small guard being left under command of Colonel Cooke. In May, 1861, Governor c.u.mming left Salt Lake City for the east so quietly that most of the people there did not hear of his departure until they read it in the local newspapers. He soon after appeared in Was.h.i.+ngton, and after some delay obtained a pa.s.s which permitted his pa.s.sage through the Confederate lines. When the Southern rebellion became a certainty, Colonel Cooke and his force were ordered to march to the East in the autumn, after selling vast quant.i.ties of stores in Camp Floyd, and destroying the supplies and ammunition which they could not take away. Such a slaughter of prices as then occurred was, perhaps, without precedent. It was estimated that goods costing $4,000,000 brought only $100,000. Young had preached non-intercourse with the Gentile merchants who followed the army, but he could not lose so great an opportunity as this, when, for instance, flour costing $28.40 per sack sold for 52 cents, and he invested $4,000.

"For years after," says Stenhouse, "the 'regulation blue pants' were more familiar to the eye, in the Mormon settlements, than the Valley Tan Quaker gray."