The "Mormon" people throughout the country were in a great state of alarm and also in great distress. They saw themselves completely surrounded by armed forces on the north, and on the northwest and on the south. Bogart, who was a Methodist preacher and a captain over a militia company of fifty soldiers, but who had added to this number out of the surrounding counties about one hundred more, which made his force about one hundred and fifty strong, was stationed at Crooked creek, sending out his scouting parties, taking men, women and children prisoners, driving off cattle, hogs and horses, entering into every house on Log and Long creeks, rifling their houses of their most precious articles, such as money, bedding and clothing, taking all their old muskets and their rifles, or military implements, threatening the people with instant death, if they did not deliver up all their precious things and enter into a covenant to leave the state or go into the city of Far West by the next morning, saying that they "calculated to drive the people into Far West, and then drive them to hell." Gillium also was doing the same on the northwest side of Far West; and Sashiel Woods, a Presbyterian minister, was the leader of the mob in Daviess county; and a very noted man of the same society was the leader of the mob in Carroll county. And they were also sending out their scouting parties, robbing and pillaging houses, driving away hogs, horses and cattle, taking men, women and children and carrying them off, threatening their lives, and subjecting them to all manner of abuses that they could invent or think of.
Under this state of alarm, excitement and distress, the messengers returned from the governor and from the other authorities, bringing the startling news that the "Mormons" could have no assistance. They stated that the governor said the "Mormons" had got into a difficulty with the citizens, and they might fight it out, for all he cared. He could not render them any assistance.
The people of De Wit were obliged to leave their homes and go into Far West, but did not do so until after many of them had starved to death for want of proper sustenance, and several died on the road there, and were buried by the wayside, without a coffin or a funeral ceremony; and the distress, sufferings, and privations of the people cannot be expressed.
All the scattered families of the "Mormon" people, with but few exceptions, in all the counties, except Daviess, were driven into Far West.
This only increased their distress, for many thousands who were driven there had no habitations or houses to shelter them, and were huddled together, some in tents and others under blankets, while others had no shelter from the inclemency of the weather. Nearly two months the people had been in this awful state of consternation; many of them had been killed, whilst others had been whipped until they had to swathe up their bowels to prevent them from falling out.
About this time General Parks came out from Richmond, Ray county. He was one of the commissioned officers sent out at the time the mob was first quelled, and went out to Diahman. My brother, Joseph Smith, Sen., and I went out at the same time.
On the evening that General Parks arrived at Diahman, the wife of my brother, the late Don Carlos Smith, came into Colonel Wight's about 11 o'clock at night, bringing her two children along with her, one about two and a half years old, the other a babe in her arms.
She came on foot, a distance of three miles, and waded Grand river. The water was then waist deep, and the snow three inches deep. She stated that a party of the mob—a gang of ruffians—had turned her out of doors and taken her household goods, and had burnt up her house, and she had escaped by the skin of her teeth. Her husband at that time was in Tennessee, [on a mission] and she was living alone.
This cruel transaction excited the feelings of the people of Diahman, especially of Colonel Wight and he asked General Parks in my hearing how long we had got to suffer such base treatment. General Parks said he did not know how long.
Colonel Wight then asked him what should be done? General Parks told him "he should take a company of men, well armed, and go and disperse the mob wherever he should find any collected together, and take away their arms." Colonel Wight did so precisely according to the orders of General Parks. And my brother, Joseph Smith, Sen., made no order about it.