Whilst we were in this situation, a young man of the name of Jedediah M. Grant, brother-in-law to my brother William Smith, came to see us, and put up at the tavern where General Clark made his quarters. He happened to come in time to see General Clark make choice of his men to shoot us on Monday morning, the 12th day of November. He saw them make choice of their rifles, and load them with two balls in each; and after they had prepared their guns, General Clark saluted them by saying, "Gentlemen, you shall have the honor of shooting the Mormon leaders on Monday morning at eight o'clock!"
But in consequence of the influence of our friend, the inhuman general was intimidated, so that he dared not carry his murderous designs into execution, and sent a messenger immediately to Fort Leavenworth to obtain the military code of laws.
After the messenger's return the general was employed nearly a whole week examining the laws; so Monday passed away without our being shot. However, it seemed like foolishness to me that so great a man as General Clark pretended to be should have to search the military law to find out whether preachers of the Gospel, who never did military duty, could be subject to court-martial.
However, the general seemed to learn that fact after searching the military code, and came into the old log cabin where we were under guard and in chains, and told us he had concluded to deliver us over to the civil authorities as persons guilty of "treason, murder, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing." The poor deluded general did not know the differences between theft, larceny, and stealing.
Accordingly, we were handed over to the pretended civil authorities, and the next morning our chains were taken off, and we were guarded to the court-house, where there was a pretended court in session, Austin A. King being the judge, and Mr. Birch the district attorney—the two extremely and very honorable gentlemen who sat on the court-martial when we were sentenced to be shot!
Witnesses were called up and sworn at the point of the bayonet; and if they would not swear to the things they were told to do, they were threatened with instant death; and I do know positively that the evidence given in by those men whilst under duress was false.
This state of things continued twelve or fourteen days; and after that time, we were ordered by the judge to introduce some rebutting evidence—saying that, if we did not do it, we should be thrust into prison.
I could hardly understand what the judge meant, for I considered we were in prison already, and could not think of anything but the persecutions of the days of Nero, knowing that it was a religious persecution, and the court an inquisition. However, we gave him the names of forty persons who were acquainted with all the persecutions and sufferings of the people.
The judge made out a subpoena and inserted the names of those men, and caused it to be placed in the hands of Bogart, the notorious Methodist minister; and he took fifty armed soldiers and started for Far West. I saw the subpoenas given to him and his company, when they started.
In the course of a few days they returned with almost all those forty men whose names were inserted in the subpoenas, and thrust them into jail, and we were not permitted to bring one of them before the court. But the judge turned upon us with an air of indignation and said, "Gentlemen, you must get your witnesses, or you shall be committed to jail immediately; for we are not going to hold the court open on expense much longer for you anyhow."