After the Gentiles retreated the Mormons started for Far West, taking Tarwater along as a prisoner. After traveling several miles they halted in a grove of timber and released Tarwater, telling him he was free to go home. He started off, and when he was some forty yards from the Mormons Parley P. Pratt, then one of the twelve apostles, stepped to a tree, laid his gun up by the side of the tree, took deliberate aim, and shot Tarwater. He fell and lay still. The Mormons went on and left him lying where he fell.
CHAPTER V - THE MORMON WAR
After 1844 it was my habit to keep a journal, in which I wrote at length all that I considered worthy of remembering. Most of my journals, written up to 1860, were called for by Brigham, under the plea that he wished the Church historian to write up the Mormon history, and wanted my journals to aid him in making the history perfect. As these journals contained many things not intended for the public eye concerning the Mormon leaders and all I knew of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and what led to it, they were never returned to me.
To proceed: I was at Far West when the Danites returned. They brought Capt. Patton with them. He died that night, and his death spread a mantle of gloom over the entire community. It robbed many of their fond hope that they were invincible. If Fear Not could be killed, who then might claim immunity from the missiles of death hurled by Gentile weapons?
Up to this time I firmly believed what the Prophet and his apostles had said on that subject. I had considered that I was bullet-proof, that no Gentile ball could ever harm me or any Saint, and I believed that a Danite could not be killed by Gentile hands. I thought that one Danite would chase a thousand Gentiles, and two could put ten thousand to flight.
Alas! my dream of security was over. One of our mighty men had fallen, and by Gentile hands. My amazement at the fact was equal to my sorrow for the death of the great warrior apostle. I had considered that all the battles between Danites and Gentiles would end like the election fight at Gallatin, and the only ones to be injured would be the Gentiles.
We had been promised and taught by the Prophet and his Priesthood that henceforth God would fight our battles, and I looked as a consequence for a bloodless victory on the side of the Lord, and that nothing but disobedience to the teachings of the Priesthood could render a Mormon subject to injury from Gentile forces. I believed as our leaders taught us, that all our sufferings and persecutions were brought upon us by the all-wise God of Heaven as chastisement to bring us together in unity of faith and strict obedience to the requirements of the Gospel; and the feeling was general that all our sufferings were the result of individual sin, and not the fault of our leaders and spiritual guides.
We, as members of the Church, had no right to question any act of our superiors; to do so wounded the Spirit of God, and would lead to our own loss and confusion. Still, I was thunderstruck to hear Joseph the Apostle say at the funeral of Capt. Patton that the Mormons fell by the missiles of death the same as other men. He also said that the Lord was angry with the people, for they had been unbelieving and faithless; they had denied the Lord the use of their earthly treasures, and placed their affections upon worldly things more than upon heavenly things; that to expect God's favor we must blindly trust him; that if the Mormons would wholly trust in God the windows of heaven would be opened and a shower of blessings sent upon the people; that all the people could contain of blessings would be given as a reward for obedience to the will of God as made known to mankind through the Prophet of the ever-living God; that the Mormons, if faithful, obedient, and true followers of the advice of their leaders, would soon enjoy all the wealth of the earth; that God would consecrate the riches of the Gentiles to the Saints.