These acts of barbarity were also committed by the soldiers under the command of General Lucas, previous to having received the Governor's order of extermination.
It was on the evening of the 30th October, according to the best of my recollections, that the army arrived at Far West, the sun about half-an-hour high. In a few moments afterwards, Cornelius Gillium arrived with his army and formed a junction.
This Gillium had been stationed at Hunter's Mills for about two months previous to that time, committing depredations upon the inhabitants, capturing men, women, and children carrying them off as prisoners and lacerating their bodies with hickory withes.
The army of Gillium were painted like Indians: some, more conspicuous than others, were designated by red spots; and he also was painted in a similar manner with red spots marked on his face, and styled himself the "DELAWARE CHIEF." They would whoop and halloo, and yell as nearly like Indians as they could, and continued to do so all that night.
In the morning, early, the colonel of militia [G. M. Hinkle] sent a messenger into the camp with a white flag, to have another interview with General Doniphan. On his return, he informed us that the governor's order had arrived.
General Doniphan said that the order of the governor was, to exterminate the Mormons, by God; but he would be damned if he obeyed that order, but General Lucas might do what he pleased.
We immediately learned from General Doniphan, that "the Governor's order that had arrived was only a copy of the original, and that the original order was in the hands of Major-General Clark, who was on his way to Far West with an additional army of 6,000 men."
Immediately after this, there came into the city a messenger from Haun's Mills, bringing the intelligence of an awful massacre of the people who were residing in that place, and that a force of two or three hundred detached from the main body of the army, under the superior command of Colonel Ashley, but under the immediate command of Captain Nehemiah Comstock, who, the day previous, had promised them peace and protection; but on receiving a copy of the Governor's order "to exterminate or to expel" from the hands of Colonel Ashley, he returned upon them the following day and surprised and massacred nearly the whole population of the place, and then came on to the town of Far West, and entered into conjunction with the main body of the army.
The messenger informed us that he himself, with a few others, fled into the thickets, which preserved them from the massacre; and on the following morning they returned and collected the dead bodies of the people, and cast them into a well; and there were upwards of 20 who were dead or mortally wounded; and there are several of the wounded now [1843] living in this city [Nauvoo].
One, of the name of Yocum, has lately had his leg amputated, in consequence of wounds he then received. He had a ball shot through his head, which entered near his eye and came out at the back part of his head, and another ball passed through one of his arms.