Good Mormon, America!

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE

FACT: On September 11, 1857 in a place called "Mountain Meadows" located in southern Utah, approximately 120 unarmed men, women and children were murdered.
[Edit: Most of the below is assembled from the links and sources cited below. I claim no right of original authorship to any word written on this page below this entry.
BACKGROUND:

1) Led by 52-year-old John T. Baker and Alexander Fancher, 45, a wagon train made up mainly of farm families from northwest Arkansas and Missouri was moving west to make new homes in California. Among an estimated 135 members, it numbered at least fifteen women, most young mothers. Dependent children made up the largest age group, more than sixty, or roughly half the total. Of these, more than twenty were girls between the ages of seven and eighteen. The rest were adult males, mostly heads of families, but they also included some teamsters and other hired hands.

The Arkansas company was relatively affluent. Most of its wealth took the form of a large herd of cattle, estimated by various observers to number from three hundred to a thousand head, not including other animals, work oxen, horses, or mules....

Since they were moving permanently, Baker-Fancher wagon train members

were also better off in other worldly possessions than typical emigrant parties on the California Trail. John W. Baker later placed the value of property his father took on the journey at "the full sum of ten thousand dollars." Besides animals, some thirty or forty wagons and equipment, members also carried varying amounts of cash to cover unforeseen costs on the journey.

2) The company arrived at Salt Lake City about the end of July where they hoped to replenish their stock of provisions. When the Arkansas families arrived at Salt Lake City, they found the Mormons in no friendly mood [causes included the impending 'Utah War', the previous 'persecutions' in Missouri, and

the recent death of Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas {May 1857}], and at once concluded to break camp and move on. They had been advised by Elder Charles C. Rich to take the northern route along the Bear River, but decided to travel by way of southern Utah. Passing through Provo, Springville, Payson, Fillmore, and intervening settlements, they attempted everywhere to purchase food, but without success. Toward the end of August they arrived at Corn Creek, some fifteen miles south of Fillmore, where they encamped for several days.

3) Continuing their journey, the emigrants proceeded to Beaver City, and then to Parowan. Arriving at Cedar City, they succeeded in purchasing about fifty

bushels of wheat, which was ground at a mill belonging to John D. Lee, former commander of the fort at Cedar, but then Indian agent, and in charge of an Indian farm near Harmony.

4) On the 5th of September, the company encamped about thirty miles to the south-west of Cedar in the southern end of what is known as the Mountain Meadows, which form the divide between the waters of the great basin and those that flow into the Colorado. It was Saturday evening when the Arkansas families encamped at Mountain Meadows. On the sabbath [Sunday, Sep 6, 1857] they rested, and at the usual hour one of them conducted divine service in a large tent, as had been their custom throughout their journey.
THE FIGHT:

1) At daybreak on Monday, September 7, 1857, while the men were lighting their campfires, they were fired upon without warning by a mixture of white men and Indians. Approximately twenty members of the company were immediately killed or wounded. The cattle were driven off. The survivors ran for their wagons, and quickly pushed them together so as to form a corral. The ambushers pressed the attack but were driven back. The company dug out the earth deep enough to sink their wagons almost to the top of the whe

els and quickly built a rifle-pit large enough to contain the entire company in the center of the enclosure. Due to the defenses of the Baker-Fancher party, the attackers, which numbered from three to four hundred, withdrew to the hills. On the crests of the hills they built parapets from which they shot down upon the Baker-Fancher party.

2) Some time during the night of September 10th, William A. Aden and two other young men left the make-shift fort, and after eluding their attackers started toward Cedar City to get help. Arriving at Leachy spring [over 15 miles from Mountain Meadows], they were challenged by William C. Stewart, a high priest and member of the Cedar City council, to whom Aden stated the n

ature of their mission. Stewart and another night guard opened fire, and the young artist from Tennessee [Aden] was killed--one report stating he was shot in the back. One of Aden's companions was wounded, but, with the other emigrant, escaped and succeeded in reaching their camp.

THE SEIGE AND PLANNING A MASSACRE:

1) The siege lasted four days [September 7 - 10] and though they fought bravely, the Baker-Fancher party had little hope of escape. All the outlets of the valley were guarded. Their ammunition was almost exhausted. Many were

wounded, including women and children, and their sufferings from thirst had become intolerable. Down in the ravine, and within a few yards of the make-shift fort, was a stream of water; but only after sundown could a scanty supply be obtained, and then at great risk, for this point was covered by the attackers who held the high ground. The emigrants were fired upon whenever they attempted to collect water or firewood.

2) On the morning of the fifth day [Sep 11] a wagon was seen approaching from the northern end of the meadow, and with it a company of the Nauvoo legion [Mormon militia]. When within a few hundred yards of the Baker-Fancher party's make-shift fort, the militia company halted, and one of them, W

illiam Bateman, accompanied by Lee, came forward with a flag of truce. Half-way between the Mormons and the corral, Bateman was met by one of the emigrants named Hamilton, to whom he promised protection for his party on condition that their arms were surrendered. Bateman assured Hamilton that they would be conducted safely to Cedar City. After a brief parley, each one returned to his comrades.

3) During the week of the seige, John D. Lee, with several other Mormons, encamped at a spring within half a mile of the emigrants' camp/fort. Lee was alleged, though not distinctly proven at his trial, to have induced the

Indians [by promise of booty] to make the initial attack; but, finding the resistance stronger than anticipated, Lee had sent for aid from the settlements of southern Utah. A company of Mormon militia, among whom were Isaac C. Haight (president of the Parowan "stake of Zion," and as such was the ecclesiastical agent in Iron county of President Brigham Young) and Major John M. Higbee, and which was afterward joined by Colonel William H. Dame, bishop of Parowan [UT], arrived at Lee's camp on the evening before the massacre [Sep 10].

4) One account of the pre-massacre activities of the attackers says "the men were summoned to prayers. These men knelt in the form of a 'praye

r circle.' With heads bowed in abject servility, and each right arm raised in the form of a square [a Mormon symbol of exacting obedience], those... [men] listened while one of the 'servants of the Lord' asked the blessing of their god upon the deeds they were about to enact, and for divine protection while they were 'avenging the blood of the prophets who died in Carthage jail [the site of the murder of Joseph Smith],' and the martyrs who perished in Missouri and Illinois."

5) It was collectively decided that Lee should conclude terms with the emigrants. Once Lee convinced the emigrants to surrender he was to instruct them to place their arms in the wagons, and to start moving the emigrants for Hamblin's rancho on the eastern side of the meadows, with the wagons a

nd arms, the young children, and the sick and wounded. The men and women, the latter in front, were to follow the wagons, all in single file. On each side of the single-file column of emigrants, the militia were to be drawn up, two deep, and with twenty paces between their lines. Within two hundred yards of the camp the men were to be brought to a halt, until the women approached a copse of scrub-oak, about a mile distant, and near to which Indians lay in ambush. The men were now to resume their march, the militia forming in single file, each one walking by the side of an emigrant, and carrying his musket on the left arm. As soon as the women were close to the ambush site, Higbee, who was in charge of the detachment, was to give the signal by saying to his command, "Do your duty;" whereupon the militia were to shoot down the men, the Indians were to slaughter the women and children, sparing only those of tender age, and Lee with some of the wagoners was to kill the sick and wounded. Mounted troopers were to be in readiness to pursue and slay those who attempted to escape, so that, with the exception of infants, no living soul should be left to tell the tale of the massacre. This was the plan.
THE MASSACRE:



1) Entering the make-shift fort, Lee found the emigrants burying two of their party who had died of wounds. Men, women, and children thronge

d around him, some displaying gratitude for their rescue, some distrust and terror. Bidding the men pile their arms in the wagons, to avoid provoking the Indians, he placed in them the women, the small children, and a little clothing. While thus engaged, one Daniel McFarland rode up, with orders from Major Higbee to hasten their departure, as the Indians threatened to renew the attack. The emigrants were then hurried away from the corral, the men, as

they passed between the files of militia, cheering their supposed deliverers. Half an hour later, as the women drew near the ambush site, the signal was given, and the butchery commenced. Most of the men were shot down at the first fire. Only three escaped from the valley; of these two were quickly run down and slaughtered, and the third was eventually killed at Muddy Creek, some fifty miles distant.

2) The women and those of the children who were on foot ran forward some two or three hundred yards, when they were overtaken by the Indians, among whom were Mormons in disguise. Some of the women fell on their knees, and with clasped hands begged in vain for mercy; some clutching the garments of their murderers, as they grasped them by the hair. Children pleaded for life, meeting with the steady gaze of innocent childhood the demoniac grin of the savages, who brandished over them uplifted knives and tomahawks. Their skulls were battered in, or their throats cut from ear to ear, and, while still alive, the scalp was torn from their heads. Some of the little ones met with a more merciful death, one, an infant in arms, being shot through the head by the same bullet that pierced its father's heart. Of the women none were spared, and of the children only those who were not more than seven years of age were left alive.
3) To two of Lee's wagoners, McMurdy and Knight, was assigned the duty, as it was termed, of slaughtering the sick and wounded. Carrying out their instructions, they stopped the teams as soon as firing was heard, and approached the wagons with loaded rifles where their victims lay. McMurdy was in front. "O Lord, my God," he exclaimed, "receive their spirits, it is for thy kingdom that I do this." Then, raising his rifle to his shoulder, he shot a wounded man through the brain who was lying with his head on a sick comrade's breast. The Mormons were aided in their work by Indians, who, grasping the helpless men by the hair, raised up their heads and cut their throats. The last victim was a little girl who came running up to the waGons, covered with blood, a few minutes after the disabled men had been murdered. She was shot dead within sixty yards of the spot where Lee was standing. The massacre was now completed, and after stripping the bodies of all articles of value, Lee and his associates went to breakfast, returning after a hearty meal to bury the dead.
BURYING THE DEAD:

1) The dead were dragged to a ravine near by and piled in heaps; a little earth was scattered over them, but so little that it was washed away by the

first rains, leaving the remains to be devoured by wolves and coyotes, the imprint of whose teeth was afterward found on their bones. It was not until nearly two years later that they were decently interred by a detachment of troops, sent for that purpose from Camp Floyd. On reaching Mountain Meadows, the men found skulls and bones scattered for the space of a mile around the ravine, whence they had been dragged by wild beasts. Nearly all the bodies had been gnawed by wolves, so that few could be recognized, and their dismembered skeletons were bleached by long exposure. Many of the skulls were crushed in with the but-ends of muskets or cleft with tomahawks; others were shattered by fire-arms, discharged close to the head. A few remnants of apparel, torn from the backs of women and children as they ran from their pursuers, still fluttered among the bushes, and nearby were masses of human hair, matted and trodden in the earth.
2) On the old camp ground of the emigrants Major Carleton of the United States Army and other kindly hands reared a monument of boulders which cover the remains of Captain Fancher and his company, which, the spring following the massacre, were buried by Jacob Hamblin in the rifle pit digged by the emigrants. Over the last resting-place of the victims was built a cone-shaped cairn, some twelve feet in height, and leaning against its northern base was placed a rough slab of granite, with the following inscription: "Here 120 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood, early in Sept. 1857. They were from Arkansas." Major Carleton also erected a rude cross upon which he carved the legend: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord."

THE SURVIVORS:

The survivors of the slaughter were seventeen children, from two months to seven years of age, who were carried, on the evening of the massacre, by John D. Lee, Daniel Tullis, and others to the house of Jacob Hamblin,25 and afterward placed in charge of Mormon families at Cedar, Harmony, and elsewhere. All of them were recovered in the summer of 1858, with the

exception of one who was rescued a few months later, and though thinly clad, they bore no marks of ill usage.In the following year they were conveyed to Arkansas, the sum of $10,000 having been appropriated by congress for their recovery and restoration.

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS:

1) Notwithstanding their utmost efforts, some time elapsed before the United States officials procured evidence sufficient to bring home the charge of murder to any of the parties implicated, and it was not until March 1859 that Judge Cradlebaugh held a session of court at Provo. At this date only six or eight persons had been committed for trial, and were now in the guard-house at Camp Floyd, some of them being accused of taking part in the massacre and some of other charges. All the efforts of Judge Cradlebaugh availed nothing, and soon afterward he discharged the prisoners and adjourned his court, entering on his docket the following minute: "The whole community presents a united and organized opposition to the proper administration of justice." When Cradlebaugh discharged the grand jury he had called to investigate the atrocity and other murders that Mormon officials had long ignored, he raised a question that the religion’s historians are still hard-pressed to answer honestly: why did Brigham Young do nothing but offer excuses for the crime and fail to undertake the most minimal investigation? The judge’s answer was direct: “The very fact that such an affair as the Mountain Meadows massacre should so long have been left uninvestigated, allows that there is some person high in the estimation of the people, by whose authority crime is committed.” [“Discharge of the Grand Jury,” The Valley Tan, 5 April 1859, 2/5–3/1.]

2) This antagonism between the federal and territorial authorities continued until 1874, at which date an act was passed by congress "in relation to courts and judicial officers in the territory of Utah," and commonly known as the Poland bill, whereby the summoning of grand and petit juries was regulated, and provision made for the better administration of justice. The first grand jury impanelled under this law was instructed by Jacob S. Boreman, then in charge of the second judicial district, to investigate the Mountain Meadows massacre and find bills of indictment against the parties implicated. A joint indictment for conspiracy and murder was found against John D. Lee, William H. Dame, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higbee, Philip Klingensmith, and others. Warrants were issued for their arrest, and after a vigorous search Lee and Dame were captured, the former being found hiding in a hog-pen at a small settlement named Panguitch, on the Sevier River.
3) After some delay, caused by the difficulty in procuring evidence, the 12th of July, 1875, was appointed for the trial at Beaver City in southern Utah. At eleven o'clock on this day the court was opened, Judge Boreman presiding. However, further delay was caused by the absence of witnesses, and the fact that Lee had promised to make a full confession, and thus turn state's evidence. In his statement Lee detailed minutely the plan and circumstances of the tragedy, from the day when the emigrants left Cedar City until the butchery at Mountain Meadows. He avowed that Higbee and Haight played a prominent part in the massacre, which, he declared, was committed in obedience to military orders. Leet said nothing as to the complicity of the higher dignitaries of the church, by whom it was believed that these orders were issued. The last was the very point that the prosecution desired to establish, its object, compared with which the conviction of the accused was but a minor consideration, being to get at the inner facts of the case. The district attorney refused, therefore, to accept the confession, on the ground that it was not made in good faith. Finally the case was brought to trial on the 23d of July, and the result was that the jury, of whom eight were Mormons, failed to agree, after remaining out of court for three days.
4) Lee was then remanded for a second trial, which was held before the district court at Beaver City between the 13th and 20th of September, 1876, Judge Boreman again presiding. Lee was convicted of murder in the first degree, and being allowed to select the mode of his execution, was sentenced to be shot.

5) The case was appealed to the supreme court of Utah, but the judgment was sustained, and it was ordered that the sentence should be carried into effect on the 23d of March, 1877. William H. Dame, Isaac C. Haight, and others who had also been arraigned for trial, were soon afterward discharged from custody.
THE EXECUTION OF JOHN D. LEE:

1) About ten o'clock on the morning of the 23d of March, 1877, a party of armed men alighting from their wagons approached the site of the massacre. Among them were the United States marshal, William Nelson, the district attorney, a military guard, and a score of private citizens. In their midst was John Doyle Lee. Over the wheels of one of the wagons blankets were placed to serve as a screen for the firing party. Some rough pine boards were then nailed together in the shape of a coffin, which was placed near the edge of the cairn, and upon it Lee took his seat until the preparations were completed.
2) The marshal now read the order of the court, and, turning to the prisoner, said: "Mr Lee, if you have anything to say before the order of the court is carried into effect, you can do so now." Rising from the coffin, he looked calmly around for a moment, and then with unfaltering voice repeated in substance the statements already quoted from his confession. "I have but little to say this morning," he added. "It seems I have to be made a victim; a victim must be had, and I am the victim. I studied to make Brigham Young's will my pleasure for thirty years. See now what I have come to this day! I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner. I cannot help it; it is my last word; it is so. I do not fear death; I shall never go to a worse place than I am now in. I ask the Lord my God, if my labors are done, to receive my spirit."
3) A Methodist clergyman, who acted as his spiritual adviser, then knelt by his side and offered a brief prayer, to which he listened attentively. After shaking hands with those around him, he removed a part of his clothing, handing his hat to the marshal, who bound a handkerchief over his eyes, his hands being free at his own request. Seating himself with his face to the firing party, and with hands clasped over his head, he exclaimed: "Let them shoot the balls through my heart. Don't let them mangle my body." The word of command was given; the report of rifles rang forth on the still morning air, and without a groan or quiver the body of the criminal fell back lifeless on his coffin.
Links:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/mmmbiblio.html
http://1857massacre.com/default01.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2005/pa_bagley.htm
http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/meadowscontents.htm
http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/bancroftshistoryo

futah_chapter20.htm

http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexb.htm#Mountain%20Meadows%20Massacre
http://www.tcr.org/tcr/essays/EPrize_Meadows.pdf
http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_mass.htm
http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=129
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/leetrial.html
http://www.irr.org/mit/Blood-of-the-prophets-review.html

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bagley, Will. Blood of the prophets: Brigham Young and the massacre at Mountain Meadows.
Brooks, Juanita. The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Carleton, James Henry. The Mountain Meadows Massacre: A special report.
Denton, Sally. American massacre: The tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857.
Fielding, R. Kent. The Tribune reports of the trials of John D. Lee for the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, November, 1874-April, 1877.
Foote, Kenneth E. Shadowed ground: America's landscapes of violence and tragedy.
Gibbs, Josiah F. The Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Lee, John Doyle. Confessions of John D. Lee.
Lee, John Doyle. Journals of John D. Lee: 1846-47 and 1859.
Lee, John Doyle. The Lee trial! : An expose of the Mountain Meadows Massacre : Being a condensed report of the prisoner's statement, testimony of witnesses, charge of the judge, arguments of counsel, and opinions of the press upon the trial.
McMurtry, Larry. Oh what a slaughter: Massacres in the American West, 1846-1890.
United States. Dept. of the Interior. Message of the President of the United States, communicating, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, information in relation to the massacre at Mountain Meadows, and other massacres in Utah Territory.

POSTSCRIPT (mostly from http://www.cesnur.org/testi/morm_01.htm
):

"While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was working to rebuild a monument to victims of the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre, the skeletal remains of at least 29 slain emigrants were accidentally dug up by a church contractor on August 3, 1999."

"The story of those bones, and what happened to them in the summer of 1999, adds another excruciating chapter to the history of a crime that many of Utah's pioneer descendants can neither confront nor explain."

"Like a grim jigsaw puzzle, University of Utah forensic anthropo

logist Shannon Novak, experienced in historical crime and warfare sites, has meticulously re-assembled the bones of people who met violent ends around the globe."

"Her investigation, along with a handful of other scientists, archaeologists and state antiquities officials, confirm much of the documentary record. However, they also provide chilling new evidence that contradicts some conventional beliefs about what happened during the massacre."


"For instance, written accounts generally claim the women and older children were beaten or bludgeoned to death by Indians using crude weapons, while Mormon militiamen killed adult males by shooting them in the back of the head. However, Novak's partial reconstruction of approximately 20 different skulls of Mountain Meadows victims show:
-- At least five adults had gunshot exit wounds in the posterior area of the cranium -- a clear indication some were shot while facing their killers.. One victim's skull displays a close-range bullet entrance wound to the forehead;
-- Women also were shot in the head at close range. A palate of a female victim exhibits possible evidence of gunshot trauma to the face, based on a preliminary examination of broken teeth;
-- At least one youngster, believed to be about 10 to 12 years old, was killed by a gunshot to the top of the head.


Other findings by Novak from the commingled partial remains of at least 29 individuals -- a count based on the number of right femurs in the hundreds of pieces of bone recovered from the gravesite -- back up the historical record;
-- Five skulls with gunshot entrance wounds in the back of the cranium have no "beveling," or flaking of bone, on the exterior of the skull. This indicates the victims were executed with the gun barrel pointing directly into the head, not at an angle, and at very close range;
-- Two young adults and three children -- one believed to be about 3 years old judging by tooth development -- were killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. Although written records recount that children under the age of 8 were spared, historians believe some babes-in-arms were murdered along with their mothers;
-- Virtually all of the "post-cranial" (from the head down) bones displayed extensive carnivore damage, confirming written accounts that bodies were left on the killing field to be gnawed by wolves and coyotes."


"Typically with history, the winning side writes the story," Novak says.. "This is giving the dead a chance to speak."

http://1857massacre.com/MMM/voices_of_the_dead.htm and http://www.cesnur.org/testi/morm_01.htm