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

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

This agreement being made, the Mormon officials retired, and after a short time again returned with thirty or forty armed men. Then the emigrants were marched out—the women and children in the front, and the men following, while the Mormon guard followed in the rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, and had arrived at the place where the Indians were hid in the bushes on each side of the road, the signal was given for the slaughter. So taken by surprise were the emigrants, and so implicitly had they confided in these murderers, that they offered no resistance. The Mormon Militia, their guard, immediately opened fire upon them from the rear, while the Indians, and Mormons disguised as Indians, who were hidden among the bushes, rushed out upon them, shooting them down with guns and bows and arrows, and cutting some of the men’s throats with knives. The women and children, shrieking with mortal terror, scattered and fled, some trying to hide in the bushes. Two young girls actually did escape for about a quarter of a mile, when they were overtaken and butchered under circumstances of the greatest brutality. The son of John D. Lee endeavoured to protect one poor girl who clung to him for help; but his father, tearing her from him by violence, blew out her brains. Another unhappy girl is said to have kneeled to this same monster Lee, entreating him to spare her life. He dragged her into the bushes, stripped her naked, and cut her throat from ear to ear, after she had suffered worse at his hands than death itself. About half an hour was probably occupied in the butchery, and every soul of that company was cut off, excepting only a few little children who were supposed to be too young to understand or remember what had taken place. The unfortunate victims were stripped, without reference to age or sex, and then left to rot upon the field. There they remained until torn and dismembered by the wolves, when it was then thought prudent to conceal such as lay nearest to the road. An eye-witness subsequently visiting the spot said:—

“The scene of the massacre, even at this late day, was horrible to look upon. Women’s hair in detached locks and in masses hung to the sage bushes and was strewn over the ground in many places. Parts of little children’s dresses and of female costume dangled from the shrubbery, or lay scattered about, and among these, here and there on every hand, for at least a mile in the direction of the road, by two miles east and west, there gleamed, bleached white by the weather, the skulls and other bones of those who had suffered. A glance into the waggon, when all these had been collected, revealed a sight which never can be forgotten.”

SCENE OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE.

To face p. 255.

The remains were subsequently gathered together by Major Carleton, the United States Commissioner, who erected over them a large cairn of stones, surmounted by a cross of red cedar, with the inscription thereon: “Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord;” and on a stone beneath were engraved the words:—

“Here 120 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood, early in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas.”

It is said that this monument was subsequently destroyed by order of Brigham Young, when he visited that part of the territory.

The little children, while their parents were being butchered, had clung about their murderers’ knees, entreating mercy, but none of them finding it save those who were little more than infants. Their fears and cries the night after the murder are said to have been heart-rending. One little babe, just beginning to walk, was shot through the arm. Another little girl was shot through the ear, and the clothes of most of them were saturated with their mothers’ blood. They were distributed among the people of the settlements, and when finally the Government took them under the protection of the nation, the people among whom these little ones lived actually charged for their boarding. Two of them are said to have uttered some words from which it was presumed that their intelligence was in advance of their years. They were taken out quietly and buried! This happened some time after the massacre.

Most of the property of the emigrants was sold by public auction in Cedar City: the Indians got most of the flour and ammunition, and the Mormons the more valuable articles. They jested over it and called it “Spoil taken at the siege of Sevastopol.” There is legal proof that the clothing stripped from the corpses, blood-stained, riddled by the bullets, and with shreds of flesh attached to it, was placed in the cellar of the tithing office, where it lay about three weeks, when it was privately sold. The cellar is said to have smelt of it for years. Long after this time, jewellery torn from the mangled bodies of the unfortunate women was publicly worn in Salt Lake City, and every one knew whence it came. A tithing of it all is reported, upon very conclusive evidence, to have been laid at the feet of Brigham Young.