The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet

by George Q. Cannon

As he was falling, another bullet from the outside passed through his swaying form, and two others from the doorway entered his body a moment later. When Hyrum fell, Joseph exclaimed, "Oh, my dear brother Hyrum!" and opening the door a few inches he discharged his pistol into the stairway—but two or three barrels missed fire.

When the door could no longer be held, and when he could no longer parry the guns, Elder Taylor sprang toward the window. A bullet from the doorway struck his left thigh. Paralyzed and unable to help himself he fell on the window sill, and felt himself falling out, when by some means which he did not understand at the time he was thrown backward into the room. A bullet fired from the outside struck his watch and the watch saved his life in two ways, it stopped the bullet, which probably would have killed him, and the force of the ball in striking it threw him into the room. The watch stopped at sixteen minutes and twenty-six seconds past 5 o'clock. After he fell into the room three other bullets struck him, spattering his blood like rain upon the walls and floor.

Joseph saw that there was no longer safety in the room; and thinking that he would save the life of Willard Richards if he himself should spring from the room, he turned immediately from the door, dropped his pistol and leaped into the window. Instantly two bullets pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward into the hands of his murderers exclaiming:

"OH LORD, MY GOD!"

When his body struck the ground he rolled instantly upon his face—dead. As he lay there, one of the mob, bare footed and bare headed, wearing no coat, with his trousers rolled above his knees and his shirt sleeves above his elbows, seized the body of the murdered Prophet and set it against the south side of the well curb. Colonel Levi Williams then ordered four men to shoot Joseph. Standing about eight feet from his body they fired simultaneously. The body slightly cringed as the bullets entered it, and once more Joseph fell upon his face. He had smiled with sweet compassion in his countenance as he gazed upon his murderers in the last moment of his life; and this was the expression when the face was set in death.

The Missourians had offered a large reward for Joseph's head; and the ruffian who had set him against the well curb now approached with a glittering knife for the purpose of severing the head from the body. William M. Daniels who claims to have been an eye-witness to the proceedings says that as he was about to make the awful stroke a vivid light burst from the heavens upon the bloody scene. It passed between Joseph and his murderers, and they were struck with terror. The knife fell from the powerless hand of the ruffian, and he stood transfixed. The muskets dropped from the arms of Williams' four executioners, and they had not the power to move a limb.

Horrified, the mob scattered in all directions. Williams cried to them to come back and carry off the four men who still stood like marble statues, frozen with terror. They obeyed, and these men were lifted into the baggage wagons as inert as corpses.

When Joseph fell from the window the mob on the stairway rushed down and out of the building to find him; and it was this which saved the lives of Willard Richards, and John Taylor. Willard started to leave the room thinking all were dead but himself; but Elder Taylor called to him. He returned, took up the body of John, which was bleeding from four ghastly wounds, and carried him into an inner dungeon cell and placed him on a filthy mattress which was lying there, saying: "If your wounds are not fatal I want you to live to tell this story."

Nearly all the inhabitants of Carthage followed the mob in their flight of horror. The governor came to Carthage in the night, wrote an order for the citizens of Nauvoo to defend themselves, and then the miserable coward fled to Quincy.

Having provided as well as possible for the wounds of John Taylor, on the morning of the 28th of June Dr. Richards started for Nauvoo with the bodies of the martyrs. They were met by thousands of lamenting Saints whose wailings ascended into the ears of Almighty God. Ten thousand people were addressed by Apostle Richards, Colonel Markham and others who admonished them to keep the peace and trust to the law for a remedy for the awful crimes which had been committed, and when the law failed, to call upon God in heaven to avenge them of their wrongs.