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81 - Roughing It by Mark Twain · Roughing It

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  Speaker 1: This is Appendix B of roughing It. This is a
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  Speaker 1: Roughing It by Mark Twain, Appendix B. The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
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  Speaker 1: The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long, and which
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  Speaker 1: they consider they still suffer in not being allowed to
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  Speaker 1: govern themselves. They have endeavored and are still endeavoring to repay.
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  Speaker 1: The now almost forgotten Mountain Meadows Massacre was their work.
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  Speaker 1: It was very famous in its day. The whole United
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  Speaker 1: States rang with its horrors. A few items will refresh
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  Speaker 1: the reader's memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri and
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  Speaker 1: Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City, and a few disaffected
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  Speaker 1: Mormons joined it for the sake of the strong protection
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  Speaker 1: it afforded for their escape. In that matter lay sufficient
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  Speaker 1: cause for hot retaliation by the Mormon chiefs. Besides these,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and forty five or one hundred fifty unsuspecting
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  Speaker 1: emigrants being in a part from Arkansas, where a noted
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  Speaker 1: Mormon missionary had lately been killed, and in part from Missouri,
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  Speaker 1: a state remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of
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  Speaker 1: the Saints when they were few and poor and friendless.
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  Speaker 1: Here were substantial additional grounds for lack of love for
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  Speaker 1: these wayfarers. And finally, this train was rich, very rich
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  Speaker 1: in cattle, horses, mules, and other property. And how could
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  Speaker 1: the Mormons consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the
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  Speaker 1: Israelitish tribes and not seize the spoil of an enemy
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  Speaker 1: when the Lord had so manifestly delivered it into their hand. Wherefore,
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  Speaker 1: according to Missus C. V. Waite's entertaining book The Mormon Prophet,
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  Speaker 1: it transpired that a revelation from Brigham Young, as Great
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  Speaker 1: Grand Archie or God, was dispatched to President J. C. Hate,
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  Speaker 1: Bishop Higbee, and J. D. Lee, Adopted son of Brigham,
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  Speaker 1: commanding them to raise all the forces they could muster
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  Speaker 1: and trust follow those cursed gentiles, so read the revelation,
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  Speaker 1: attack them disguised as Indians, and with the arrows of
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  Speaker 1: the Almighty, make a clean sweep of them, and leave
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  Speaker 1: none to tell the tale. And if they needed any assistance,
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  Speaker 1: they were commanded to hire the Indians as their allies,
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  Speaker 1: promising them to share the booty they were to be
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  Speaker 1: neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be
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  Speaker 1: punctual in sending the teams back to him before winter
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  Speaker 1: set in. For this was the mandate of Almighty God.
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  Speaker 1: The command of the Revelation was faithfully obeyed. A large
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  Speaker 1: party of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook
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  Speaker 1: the train of emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south
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  Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City and made an attack. But the
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  Speaker 1: emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses of their wagons, and
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  Speaker 1: defended themselves gallantly and successfully for five days. Your Missouri
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  Speaker 1: or Arkansas, gentleman, is not much afraid of the sort
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  Speaker 1: of scurvy apologies for Indians which the southern part of
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  Speaker 1: Utah affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred
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  Speaker 1: of them. At the end of the five days, the
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  Speaker 1: Mormons tried military strategy. They retired to the upper end
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  Speaker 1: of the meadows, resumed civilized apparel, washed off their paint,
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  Speaker 1: and then heavily armed, drove down in wagons to the
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  Speaker 1: beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce. When the emigrants
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  Speaker 1: saw white men coming, they threw down their guns and
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  Speaker 1: welcomed them with cheer after cheer, and all unconscious of
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  Speaker 1: the poetry of it, no doubt, they lifted a little
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  Speaker 1: child aloft dressed in white in answer to the flag
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  Speaker 1: of truce. The leaders of the timely White deliverers were
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  Speaker 1: President Hate and Bishop John D. Lee of the Mormon Church.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Cradlebaugh, who served a term as federal judge in
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  Speaker 1: Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells
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  Speaker 1: in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded.
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  Speaker 1: They professed to be on good terms with the Indians
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  Speaker 1: and represented them as being very mad. Also proposed to
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  Speaker 1: intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several hours,
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  Speaker 1: partly they having apparently visited, the Indians, gave the ultimatum
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  Speaker 1: of the savages, which was that the emigrants should march
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  Speaker 1: out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, even their guns.
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  Speaker 1: It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they would
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  Speaker 1: bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements.
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  Speaker 1: The terms were agreed to the emigrants, being desirous of
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  Speaker 1: saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired and
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  Speaker 1: subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men the emigrants
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  Speaker 1: were marched out, the women and children in front and
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  Speaker 1: the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear.
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  Speaker 1: When they had marched in this way about a mile,
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  Speaker 1: at a given signal, the slaughter commenced. The men were
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  Speaker 1: almost all shot down at the first fire from the guard.
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  Speaker 1: Two only escaped, who fled to the desert and were
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  Speaker 1: followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken
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  Speaker 1: and slaughtered. The women and children ran on two or
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  Speaker 1: three hundred yards further when they were overtaken, and with
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  Speaker 1: the aid of the Indians, they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals
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  Speaker 1: only of all the emigrant party were spared, and they
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  Speaker 1: were little children, the eldest of them being only seven
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  Speaker 1: years old. Thus, on the tenth day of September eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly,
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  Speaker 1: and bloody murders known in our history. The number of
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  Speaker 1: persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty. With unheard of temerity, Judge Cradlebaugh opened
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  Speaker 1: his court and proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre.
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  Speaker 1: And what a spectacle it must have been to see
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  Speaker 1: this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and
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  Speaker 1: his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory,
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  Speaker 1: deriding them by turns and by turns, breathing threatenings and slaughter.
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  Speaker 1: An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says
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  Speaker 1: of him and of the occasion. He spoke and acted
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  Speaker 1: with the fearlessness and resolution of a jackson. But the
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  Speaker 1: jury failed to indict or even report on the charges,
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  Speaker 1: while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and
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  Speaker 1: an attack on the u s troops intimated if he
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  Speaker 1: persisted in his course. Finding that nothing could be done
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  Speaker 1: with the juries, they were discharged with a scathing rebuke
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  Speaker 1: from the judge, and then, sitting as a committing magistrate,
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  Speaker 1: he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made arrests
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  Speaker 1: in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps
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  Speaker 1: of the Saints greater than any they had ever witnessed
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  Speaker 1: before since Mormondon was born. At last, accounts terrified elders
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  Speaker 1: and bishops were decamping to save their necks, and developments
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  Speaker 1: of the most startling character were being made implicating the
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  Speaker 1: highest Church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed
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  Speaker 1: upon the Gentiles during the past eight years. Had Harney
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  Speaker 1: been governor, cradle Boo would have been supported in his work,
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  Speaker 1: and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt
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  Speaker 1: in this massacre and in a number of previous murders,
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  Speaker 1: would have conferred gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with
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  Speaker 1: occasion to use them. But coming was the federal governor,
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  Speaker 1: and he, under a curious pretense of impartiality, sought to
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  Speaker 1: screen the Mormons from the demands of justice. On one
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  Speaker 1: occasion he even went so far as to publish his
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  Speaker 1: protest against the use of the U. S troops in
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  Speaker 1: aid of cradle Bough's proceedings. Missus C. V. Waite closes
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  Speaker 1: her interesting detail at the Great Massacre with the following
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  Speaker 1: remark and accompanying summary of the testimony. And the summary
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  Speaker 1: is concise, accurate, and reliable for the benefit of those
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  Speaker 1: who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt of
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  Speaker 1: Young and his Mormons in this transaction. The testimony is
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  Speaker 1: here collated and circumstances given, which go not merely to implicate,
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  Speaker 1: but to fasten conviction upon them by confirmation strong as
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  Speaker 1: proofs of Holy writ on the evidence of Mormons themselves
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  Speaker 1: engaged in the affair, as shown by the statements of
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  Speaker 1: Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U. S. Marshal Rogers. Two the
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  Speaker 1: failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it
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  Speaker 1: in his report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, also his
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  Speaker 1: failure to make any allusion to it whatever from the
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  Speaker 1: pulpit until several years after the occurrence. Three the flight
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  Speaker 1: to the mountains of men high in authority in the
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  Speaker 1: Mormon Church and state when this affair was brought to
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  Speaker 1: the ordeal of a judicial investigation. Four the failure of
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  Speaker 1: the Desiree News, the church organ and the only paper
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  Speaker 1: then published in the territory, to notice the massacre until
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  Speaker 1: several months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons
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  Speaker 1: were engaged in it. Five the testimony of the children
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  Speaker 1: saved from the massacre. Six the children and the property
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  Speaker 1: of the emigrants found in the possession of the Mormons,
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  Speaker 1: and that possession traced back to the very day after
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  Speaker 1: the massacre. Seven the statements of Indians in the neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: of the scene of the massacre. These statements are shown
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  Speaker 1: not only by cradle Bow and Rogers, but by a
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  Speaker 1: number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who was
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty nine Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the territory.
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  Speaker 1: To all these were such statements freely and frequently made
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  Speaker 1: by the Indians. Eight The testimony of R. P. Campbell,
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  Speaker 1: Captain's second Dragoons, who was sent in the spring of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine to Santa Clara to protect travelers on
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  Speaker 1: the road to California and to inquire into Indian depredations.
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  Speaker 1: End of Appendix B