On the following day, November 1st, 1838, we were marched into a hollow square just outside of the city, where we delivered up about 630 guns, grounded our arms, and advanced to the center of the square, where the small arms and swords were left in a pile. The late Bishop McRae gave six cuts with his sword and a pointer in the ground and left his sword sticking there. We were left without the means of self-defense and at the mercy of a conscienceless set of ignorant, prejudiced people, many of whom, like St. Paul before his conversion, acted as if they were doing God’s service in destroying property and abusing the Mormons. My widowed mother’s house was plundered and my sister, now living here in Utah, had her clothes taken from her in open day, leaving her destitute of her necessary apparel.
General Wilson, who was one of the mobbers in Jackson County, was in company with Joseph Smith soon after he was condemned to be shot. Joseph asked General Wilson what he had done that he should be treated with such indignity, stating that he had always been a supporter of the Constitution and of good government. Wilson’s reply was:
“I know it, and that is the reason I want to kill you, or have you killed.”
Subsequently this same Wilson said to P. P. Pratt and others:
“We Jackson County boys know how it is, [p.38] and therefore have not the extreme hatred and prejudice which characterizes the rest of the troops. We know perfectly well from the beginning that the Mormons have not been the aggressors at all. As it began in 1833 in Jackson County, Mo., so it has been ever since.… We mob you without law; the authorities refuse to protect you according to law, you then are compelled to protect yourselves, and we act upon the prejudices of the public, who join our forces and the whole is legalized for your destruction and our gain … When we drove you from Jackson County we burned 203 of your houses, plundered your goods, destroyed your press, type and paper, books, office and all—tarred and feathered old Bishop Partridge—as exemplary an old man as you can find anywhere. We shot down some of your men, and if any of you returned the fire, we imprisoned you and had you on trial for murder. D—d shrewdly done, gentlemen; and I came d—d near kicking the bucket myself; for on one occasion while we were tearing down houses, driving families and destroying and plundering goods, some of you good folks put a ball through my son’s body, and another through the arm of my clerk, and a third pierced my shirt collar and marked my neck. No blame, gentlemen; we deserved it, and let a set of men serve me as your community have been served, and I’ll be d—d if I would not fight till I died.”
Most certainly this was an honest confession, and I can certify to nearly all of his acknowledgments, for I have been driven from my home and robbed of my hard-earned property more than once. There are many others besides General Wilson who have acknowledged to the same things, for I have personally heard them.
When the brethren were being hurried away, as prisoners, from their homes, P. P. Pratt says:
“I went to General Moses Wilson in tears, and stated the circumstances of my sick, heart-broken, destitute family, in terms which would have moved any heart that had a latent spark of humanity yet remaining, but I was only answered with an exultant laugh and a taunt of reproach by this hardened murderer. Halting at the door of Hyrum Smith, I heard the sobs and groans of his wife at Hyrum’s parting. She was then near confinement and needed more than ever the comfort and consolation of a husband’s presence. As we returned to the wagon we witnessed the sad, parting of Sidney Rigdon and his family, and in the same wagon was Joseph Smith, while his aged father and mother came up overwhelmed with tears, and took each of the prisoners by the hand with a silence of grief too great for utterance.
Little encouragement was left to those grief-stricken parents, for they knew so well that they were in the hands of a mob who had snatched and dragged them away as if they were murderers. Fresh to their minds was recalled a scene that took place in earlier days, when, close to their own thresholds, a demon in human form, in the dark hour of the night, had fired at their son, just barely missing him. There were fifty-six citizens thus dragged away from their homes, without any earthly hope of deliverance, only as in God they put their trust. Judge King said to H. C. Kimball:
“Joe Smith is not fit to live.”