An Englishwoman in Utah: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

Day after day went by, and the poor creatures began to despair—who can wonder? The brave men cared little for their own lives; but there was something fearful in the thought that their darling ones would be scalped, and torn in pieces, and brutally outraged! Who can wonder that they resolved to sell life as dearly as they possibly could? They might at least die in defence of those they loved.

So day followed day. The agony of the unhappy men and women who were thus besieged, and were in daily, hourly peril of the most frightful of all deaths, can be imagined—not told. Meanwhile, what were those atrocious scoundrels doing who were lying in wait for their blood? Some of them were tricked out as Indians; some were in their own proper dresses; and, moreover, real Utes were there. The unhappy victims could not possibly escape—there was time for the murderers to do their work leisurely. Between chance shots, which were intended to, and did, carry death with them, they amused themselves with “pitching horse-shoe quoits:”—such heartlessness is almost beyond conception.

In terrible need of water, they thought that even the Indians, who they supposed were their assailants, might possibly respect a token of truce; so they dressed two little girls in white and sent them down to the well. But the fiends—the Mormon militia—shot them down. In the day of doom, the blood of those babes will testify more heavily against Major John D. Lee, and Isaac C. Haight, and Colonel Dame, and George A. Smith, and the other wretch who plotted and contrived that fearful iniquity, than any of the base and cowardly crimes which have for years and years blackened their contemptible and miserable souls.

They could not possibly advance. Their corn would not last long. They were famishing for water. How long they could hold out was evidently only a matter of time. Had the train consisted only of men, they might certainly, if with loss, have cut their way through their besiegers and escaped; but with wives and children, and others bound to them by the tenderest ties, such a thing was impossible. They looked and waited. Savage Indians they supposed were their only enemies. Coldly, strangely as they had been treated at the Mormon settlements, they never for a moment supposed that white men could be in league against them or could meditate their destruction.

Up in the meadows—in the distance—there was a white dusty cloud as if of some person or persons approaching:—the hearts of the emigrants leaped for joy. Was help coming at last? It was evident that a waggon was coming near, and the waggon was filled with armed men;—here was hope. After all the misery of that waitful watching, they were overjoyed, and shouted aloud with gladness, and sprang with open arms to welcome their visitors. Little did they suppose that the fiends who then came down, with pale faces and the manners of white men, were the same as those who, painted and decked out like Indians, had been leaguered about their camp with murderous intentions for so many days.

The waggon came near, and was found to be filled with armed men. Surely now, the unhappy emigrants thought, substantial help had come—the authorities of Utah in the neighbourhood, whether Gentile or Mormon, had come out in the cause of civilization and humanity, and succour was at hand.

A white flag was waved from the waggon as an emblem of peace, and in order that the emigrants might know that it was white men and not the red demons of the hills who approached. They did not, indeed, know that these themselves were the monsters who had wronged them all this time, and who were even now compassing their death.

Inside that waggon was President Haight, the infamous Mormon Bishop John D. Lee, and other authorities of the Church in Southern Utah. They professed to the emigrants that they came upon the friendly errand of standing between them and the Indians. They said that the Indians had taken offence at something that the emigrants had done, that they were thirsting for their blood, but that they, the Mormon officials, were on good terms with them and had influence, and would use their good offices in the cause of mercy and of peace. After some discussion they left with the professed view of conciliating the Indians. Then they returned and said that the Indians had agreed that, if the emigrants marched back to Salt Lake City, their lives should be spared; but that they must leave everything behind them in their camp, even including the common weapons of defence which every Western man carries about his person. The Mormon officials then solemnly undertook to bring an armed force and to guard the emigrants safely back again to the Settlements.

The emigrants were not cowards, and would doubtless have preferred to cut their way through to the south, but they could not leave their wives and little ones, and any terms, however disadvantageous, were better than leaving those they loved to the tender mercy of those wretches.