The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo

by B. H. Roberts

Elder John Taylor went to the governor and reminded him of his pledges of protection. Elder Taylor expressed his dissatisfaction at the course taken, and told the governor that if they were to be subject to mob rule, and to be dragged contrary to law to prison, at the instance of every scoundrel whose oath could be bought for a dram of whisky, his protection availed very little, and they had miscalculated the executive's promises.

In the meantime a drunken rabble had collected in the street in front of the Hamilton House, and Captain Dunn with some twenty men came to guard the prisoners to the jail. The Prophet's friends stood by him in these trying times and followed him through the excited crowd in the direction of the jail. Stephen Markham walked on one side of the Prophet and his brother Hyrum and Dan Jones on the other, and with their walking sticks kept back the rabble, which several times broke through the guard, while Elder Taylor, Willard Richards and John S. Fullmer walked behind them.

The jail was reached in safety and the prisoners given in charge of Mr. George W. Stigall, who first put them into the criminal's cell, but afterwards gave them the more comfortable quarters known as the "debtors' apartment." When night came the prisoners and their friends stretched themselves out on the floor of the old jail—and so passed the night of the twenty-fifth.

Governor Ford represents in his "History of Illinois," that these men were placed in prison to protect them from the rabble,^[[3]] but says not a word about the protests of the prisoners against being thrust into jail, or the illegal means employed in putting them there.

In the forenoon of the twenty-sixth, a lengthy interview took place between Governor Ford and Joseph in which the whole cause of the trouble was reviewed, the causes leading up to the destruction of the Expositor press, calling out the Legion on which the charge of treason was based, and all other affairs connected with the difficulties. Governor Ford condemned the action of the city council, but the course pursued by that body was ably defended by Joseph, and showed that even if they had been wrong in following the course they had taken, it was a matter for the courts to decide and not a thing for mobs to settle. In conclusion the Prophet told the Governor that he considered himself unsafe in Carthage, as the town was swarming with men who had openly sworn to take his life. He understood the governor contemplated going to Nauvoo, accompanied by the militia, to investigate certain charges about counterfeiting the United States currency, and if possible secure the dies and other implements used in manufacturing it, and Joseph demanded his freedom that he might go with him. The governor promised him that he should go.^[[4]]

The false mittimus on which Joseph and Hyrum Smith were thrust into prison, ordered the jailor to keep them in custody, "until discharged by due course of law." But on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, Frank Worrell appeared before the jail in command of the Carthage Greys and demanded that the prisoners be delivered up to the constable to be taken before Justice R. F. Smith for trial. Against this proceeding the jailor protested, as the prisoners were placed in his keeping until "discharged by due course of law," and not at the demand of a constable or military despot. But by threats amounting to intimidation, Worrell compelled the jailor against his conviction of duty to surrender the prisoners to him.

Meantime a mob had gathered at the door of the jail and seeing that things had assumed a threatening aspect, the Prophet stepped into the crowd, locked arms with one of the worst mobocrats, and with his brother Hyrum on the other arm, and followed by his faithful friends, proceeded to the court house. He had been unlawfully thrust into prison, and as illegally dragged out of it and exposed to imminent danger among his worst enemies.

The counsel for the Brothers Smith asked for a continuance until the next day as they were without witnesses, not having been notified when they would come to trial. A continuance was granted until noon the next day. A new mittimus was made out and the prisoners committed again to prison—their old quarters. But after the prisoners were again lodged in jail, and without consulting either them or their counsel, Justice R. F. Smith changed the time of trial from noon on the twenty-seventh until the twenty-ninth.

This change was made in consequence of a decision reached by Governor Ford and his military council to march all his troops into Nauvoo, except a company of fifty of the Carthage Greys that would be detailed to guard the prisoners. So Mr. R. F. Smith, acting, it will be remembered, in the double capacity of a justice of the peace and captain of the Carthage Greys, as a justice altered the date of the return of the subpoenas and excused the court until the twenty-ninth; that as a captain of a company of militia he might attend the military train entering Nauvoo in triumph!

The evening of the twenty-sixth was spent very pleasantly by the prisoners and their friends—John Taylor, Willard Richards, John S. Fullmer, Stephen Markham and Dan Jones. Hyrum occupied the principal part of the time in reading accounts from the Book of Mormon of the deliverance of God's servants from prison, and in commenting upon them, with a view, doubtless, of cheering his brother Joseph, since the Prophet had expressed himself as having a presentiment of uneasiness as to his safety, that he had never before experienced when in the hands of his enemies.