Soon the State was alive with mobs determined on the extermination of the saints; soon those mobs numbered ten thousand armed men; soon also were they converted into a State army, officered by generals and major-generals, with the governor as the commander-in-chief of a boldly avowed religious crusade, with rival priests as its "inspiring demons."
One feature, all worthy of note, in this Hebraic drama of Mormondom, is that while modern Israel was ever in the action inspired by archangels of the new covenant, the anti-Mormon crusade was as constantly inspired by sectarian priests at war with a dispensation of angels.
Even the mobber, Captain Comstock, who was bold enough to perpetrate a Haun's Mill massacre, was in consternation over the magic prayers of a few stricken women who honored the God of Israel in the hour of direst calamity.
Thus throughout Missouri. And so the exterminating order of Governor Boggs prevailed like the edict of a second Nebuchadnezzar.
There was a Mormon war in the State. So it was styled.
Mobs were abroad, painted like Indian warriors, committing murder, robbery, burning the homesteads of the saints, and spreading desolation.
Next, one thousand men were ordered into service by the Governor, under the command of Major-General Atchison and Brigadier-Generals Park and Doniphan.
This force marched against the saints in several counties. A Presbyterian priest, Rev. Sashel Woods, was its chaplain. He said prayers in the camp, morning and evening. 'Twas a godly service in an ungodly crusade, but the Rev. Sashel Woods was equal to it. The Philistines drove modern Israel before them, and their priest prayed Jehovah out of countenance.
In Far West a thousand men of our Mormon Israel flew to arms, and in Davies county several hundred men assembled for defence. Colonel David Patten, an apostle, with his company put to flight some of the mob; but the crusaders in general drove the saints from settlement after settlement.
Hundreds of men, women and children fled from their homes to the cities and strongholds of their people. From Davies county and the frontiers of Caldwell the refugees daily poured into the city of Far West. Lands and crops were abandoned to the enemy. The citizens in the capital of the saints were constantly under arms. Men slept in their clothes, with arms by their side, ready to muster at a given signal at any hour of the night.