The Missouri Persecutions

by B. H. Roberts

The saints by this time were in the wildest state of excitement, and running in every direction, many of the men taking refuge in an old blacksmith shop not far from the mill. The leader of the mob, numbering two hundred and forty, fired his gun, and after a pause of a few seconds about a hundred shots were fired into the old blacksmith shop, and at those fleeing for the protection of the woods. The mob then rode up to the shop and fired through the space between the logs until, as they thought, all had been killed or mortally wounded. They then entered, and among the dead and dying found Sardius Smith, a lad about twelve years old, who in his fear had crawled under the bellows for safety. He was dragged from his place of concealment by a Mr. Glaze, who placed the muzzle of his gun near the boy's head and literally shot off the top of it. The inhuman wretch afterwards shamelessly boasted of his damning deed. His brother, Alma, a boy of eight summers, was shot through the hip. He had seen his father and brother shot down, and fearing if he moved the heartless wretches would shoot him again, he remained quiet among the dead until he heard the voice of his mother gently calling his name in the darkness. She nursed him tenderly, prayerfully, and under the inspiration of heaven made such a collection of herbs and barks with which she dressed his wound that he recovered, grew to manhood, lived to a reasonably good old age, and lately died at Coalville, Summit County, Utah.

Thomas McBride, an old gray haired veteran of the American Revolution, was met by a number of the mob in front of Mr. Haun's house. The old man, trembling with age rather than from fear, surrendered his gun, saying: "Spare my life, I am a Revolutionary soldier." But the inhuman wretch to whom he made this simple, pathetic appeal, sufficient to have moved adamantine hearts, shot the veteran down with his own gun, and then a Mr. Rogers, of Daviess County, fell upon him and hacked him to pieces with an old corn cutter. And there lay the veteran soldier of the Revolution, covered with a score of unsightly wounds, either of which alone had been fatal—his brains oozing from his cracked skull, and his white hairs crimsoned with his gore! Oh, a hard fate to overtake one of that noble band, who gave the best years of his life to his country's service, that liberty might survive oppression!

As night drew her sable mantle over the ghastly scene about Haun's Mill, those who had escaped to the woods returned to learn the fate of their friends. I need not dwell upon the horrors of that awful night in which wives with bursting hearts sought for their husbands, and mothers searched for their sons among the mangled bodies of the dead. Nor need I pause to relate in detail the sights revealed by the morning light. According to the statement of the leaders of the mob, they had fired seven rounds each, making in all some sixteen hundred shots fired at a company in which there were not more than thirty men. Nineteen of the men and boys were killed outright in this inhuman butchery, and some twelve to fifteen were wounded more or less severely. The few men who escaped with their lives, the following day carried the bodies of the slain to an old vault which had been dug for a well, and there the butchered were interred in haste, as those performing these sad offices were under fear every moment that the mob would return to massacre the survivors of the tragedy of the day before.

This Haun's Mill butchery may very properly be regarded as the first fruits of Governor Boggs' exterminating order. On the twenty-eight of October, Colonel Jennings, of Livingston County, had entered into a treaty of peace with the saints at Haun's Mill, and each party agreed to use whatever of influence it possessed for peace; and while we cannot learn whether that same colonel was in the company which did the killing or not, still it is known that a few days after the massacre, he, in company with other leading men in upper Missouri, among whom was Mr. Ashby, member of the State legislature from Chariton, went about threatening the lives of the survivors, stealing their property, laying waste their crops and running off their stock. My own view of the circumstances is that after the treaty of peace entered into on the twenty-eighth, Colonel Jennings' men, with other mob forces, heard of the exterminating order of Governor Boggs, and gathered together under the leadership of Comstock and undertook to carry out the monstrous edict that was worthy only of a Nero, a Caligula, or a Domitian.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE BETRAYAL OF FAR WEST.

In the meantime the mob forces, called "the governor's troops," had gathered about Far West to the number of two thousand two hundred men, armed and equipped for war. The main body of these forces had marched from Richmond under the command of Major General Samuel D. Lucas, starting on the 29th of October. The following day he was joined by the forces of General Doniphan at the ford of Log Creek, not far from Far West. Here they received the exterminating order of Governor Boggs. This order made no provisions for the protection of the innocent, the "Mormons" were either to be exterminated or driven from the State, regardless of their guilt or innocence as individuals.

On the morning of the 30th, the citizens of Far West had been informed of the approach of large bodies of armed men from the south, and sent out a company of one hundred and fifty of their number to learn the character of these forces, whether they were friendly or otherwise. The scouting party was soon convinced that the intentions of the approaching forces were hostile, and found some difficulty themselves in returning to Far West without being captured by the mob militia. As they approached the city in the evening, they were discovered by General Doniphan, who received permission from General Lucas to try and capture them; but having a superior knowledge of the ground, they escaped.

Seeing these large bodies of men approach, what militia there was in Far West was drawn up in line just south of the city to oppose the advance of the formidable enemy. Both parties sent out a flag of truce, and they met between the two forces. In answer to the inquiry of the citizens of Far West as to who the mob forces were and what their intentions, the reply was, "We want three persons out of the city before we massacre the rest." ^[A] Hostilities, however, were postponed until the next day, and the mob began the work of encampment along the borders of a small stream called Goose Creek. During the night, the people in Far West constructed, as best they could, some rude fortifications south of the city, and were reinforced in the night by Lyman Wight and a small body of men from Diahman.