This was declared to be resistance to the law, and made use of to further influence the public mind against the Mormons. Mobs were therefore assembled and the work of violence inaugurated by kidnapping, whipping and otherwise abusing the Saints living in out-lying districts of Nauvoo. For protection the people thus abused fled to Nauvoo, and this was heralded abroad as the massing of the Mormon forces.
Governor Ford was kept informed of all that was transpiring in Nauvoo by the city authorities, and in answer to the question, "What course shall we pursue in the event of an armed mob coming against the city," he replied that Joseph Smith was Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion; it was his duty to protect the city and surrounding country, and issued orders to him to that effect. Thus qualified to act, by the Governor of the state, the Legion was called together and measures were taken for the defense of the city: as the mob forces grew bolder every day, Nauvoo was at last placed under martial law.
Footnotes
[1]. Ford's History of Illinois, p. 246.
[2]. Subsequently, at the instance of Judge Thomas, the circuit judge of the judicial district in which Nauvoo was located, the city council submitted to a new trial, on the same charge, before Squire Wells and were again acquitted.
CHAPTER XIV.
ARRIVAL OF GOVERNOR FORD IN CARTHAGE—MOB CONVERTED INTO MILITIA—ELDER TAYLOR AND DR. BERNHISEL GO TO CARTHAGE—DEMANDS OF GOVERNOR FORD—PLEDGES THE HONOR OF THE STATE FOR JOSEPH'S PROTECTION—JOSEPH STARTS FOR THE WEST—RETURNS—ARRIVAL AND RECEPTION AT CARTHAGE.
Meantime the mobocrats were active in making their misrepresentations to the governor. He finally determined to visit the scenes of the difficulty. He went from Springfield to Carthage, the head-quarters of the mob forces, and received them as the militia of the state.
His first move was to send a message to Nauvoo asking that a committee be appointed to represent to him the state of affairs in the county. Elder Taylor and Dr. J. M. Bernhisel were appointed that committee. Armed with affidavits and duplicates of documents which had been sent to the Governor at Springfield—he had missed the messengers bearing them by starting for Carthage—they left on the evening of the 21st of June, to wait upon the Governor, arriving in Carthage about eleven o'clock at night. The town was filled with a rabble more or less under the influence of liquor. The yelling and swearing would justify them in the belief that they had arrived in pandemonium.