He was determined that they should die and made his preparations for the commission of the murder before he had even decided what charge to bring against the prisoners. While this matter was pending, Brother Jedediah Grant, then a young man, put up at the same tavern with the General at Richmond. He saw Clark select the men to shoot Joseph and his fellow prisoners, and he heard the day of the execution fixed as Monday, November 12th, 1838. He saw the men who were selected load their rifles with two bullets each, and after this was done he heard General Clark say to them:
Gentlemen, you shall have the honor of shooting the Mormon leaders next Monday morning at eight o'clock.
Colonel Price, who had immediate charge of the prisoners, permitted all manner of abuse to be heaped upon them. They were kept chained together like wild beasts; left to lie upon the bare floor without any covering. When they might have forgotten their sufferings of body and mind in slumber, the inhuman guards kept them awake by yelling ribald songs and jests and by shrieks of laughter. Parley P. Pratt, who was one of the prisoners confined with Joseph, writes of one of these painful nights as follows:
In one of those tedious nights we had lain as if in sleep, till the hour of midnight had passed, and our ears and hearts had been pained, while we had listened for hours to the obscene jests, the horrid oaths, the dreadful blasphemies and filthy language of our guards, Colonel Price at their head, as they recounted to each other their deeds of rapine, murder, robbery, etc., which they had committed among the Mormons while at Far West and vicinity. They even boasted of defiling by force wives, daughters and virgins, and of shooting or dashing out the brains of men, women and children.
I had listened till I became so disgusted, shocked, horrified, and so filled with the spirit of indignant justice, that I could scarcely refrain from rising upon my feet and rebuking the guards, but I had said nothing to Joseph or anyone else, although I lay next to him, and knew he was awake. On a sudden he arose to his feet and spoke in a voice of thunder, or as the roaring lion, uttering, as near as I can recollect, the following words:
"Silence! Ye fiends of the infernal pit! In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still. I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die this instant!"
He ceased to speak. He stood erect in terrible majesty. Chained, and without a weapon, calm, unruffled, and dignified as an angel, he looked down upon his quailing guards, whose knees smote together, and who, shrinking into a corner, or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon, and remained quiet until an exchange of guards.
I have seen ministers of justice, clothed in ministerial robes, and criminals arraigned before them, while life was suspended upon a breath in the courts of England; I have witnessed a congress in solemn session to give laws to nations; I have tried to conceive of kings, of royal courts, of thrones and crowns; and of emperors assembled to decide the fate of kingdoms; but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon, in an obscure village of Missouri.
More than fifty of the brethren from Far West were also held in captivity at Richmond; failing to find authority or excuse for trying any of these men by court martial, Clark informed them that the whole party would be turned over to the civil authorities. A court was convened with Austin A. King presiding, and Thomas C. Burch the state's attorney, for the prosecution. The first act of this strange tribunal was to send out a body of mobocratic soldiers, armed with guns instead of civil process, to bring in witnesses, who, when they arrived, were sworn at the point of the bayonet. Nearly forty persons gave evidence for the prosecution. Though they all swore in a general way monstrous crimes against the accused, not one definite charge was maintained. When the defense were asked for their witnesses they named as many as fifty, any of whom could have disproved the accusations. Captain Bogart, the Methodist preacher, was sent out with a company of soldiers to procure these witnesses, and when he brought them in under arrest, they were thrust into jail and kept there until after the trial, without being accorded an opportunity to testify or to see the defendants.
One day, while the trial was proceeding, a man named Allen, who knew something of the facts and was there as an interested spectator, was called by the defense and sworn. As his testimony was favorable to the Prophet and the other prisoners, the mob set upon him in open court and tried to murder him. When he left the building he was pursued by mobocrats with loaded guns. Observing the outrages inflicted upon people who wanted to tell the truth, the Prophet and his brethren ceased to demand witnesses, preferring themselves to suffer than to involve other people in the toils of mobocratic hate.
The mock investigation continued from day to day until Saturday, November 24th, 1838, when all of the brethren were discharged except Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, Alexander McRae, Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, Morris Phelps, Luman Gibbs, Darwin Chase, and Norman Shearer, who were held for murder and treason.
The judge was a Methodist, and he had been particularly anxious to know whether the defendants believed in the prophecy of Daniel, that:
In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall break in pieces all other kingdoms, and stand forever.
And,