“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”
The stillness of the occasion was broken by Lee’s seating himself, according to orders, upon the coffin provided for his burial. He tried to appear calm as he faced the squad of soldiers whose rifles were soon to discharge their contents into his body. A Methodist preacher, Parson Stokes, then knelt beside the coffin and offered a short prayer, following which a white handkerchief was placed over Lee’s eyes. While the marshal was arranging the handkerchief, Lee said in a low but firm tone of voice—“Let them shoot the balls through my heart; don’t let them mangle my body.”
He was assured that the aim would be as true as possible, and the marshal then stepped back and gave his order to the five riflemen who had been selected to do the work,—
“Ready! Aim! Fire!”
The men made ready by raising their weapons to the shoulder, and then took deliberate aim at the blindfolded man, who was about twenty feet off, and at the word “fire!” the volley was discharged, with but a single sound perceptible to the ear, and Lee fell back upon the coffin, dead, without a cry or even a moan. He was shot through the heart, as he had hoped to be, and died instantly. The marshal, after a few moments, viewed the body, and said: “He is quite dead; the law is satisfied at last.”
CHAPTER XLIV.
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE—COMPLETE CONFESSION OF BISHOP JOHN D. LEE.
In the month of September, 1857, the company of emigrants, known as the “Arkansas Company,” arrived at Parowan, Iron county, Utah, on their way to California. At Parowan young Aden, one of the company, saw and recognized one William Laney, a Mormon resident of Parowan. Aden and his father had rescued Laney from an anti-Mormon mob in Tennessee several years before, and saved his life. He (Laney) at the time he was attacked by the mob was a Mormon missionary in Tennessee. Laney was glad to see his friend and benefactor, and invited him to his house and gave him some “garden sauce” to take back to the camp with him. The same evening, it was reported to Bishop (Colonel) Dame, that Laney had given potatoes and onions to the man Aden, one of the emigrants. When the report was made to Bishop Dame, he raised his hand and crooked his little finger in a significant manner to one Barney Carter, his brother-in-law, and one of the “Angels of Death.” Carter, without another word, walked out, went to Laney’s house with a long picket in his hand, called Laney out and struck him a heavy blow on the head, fracturing his skull, and left him on the ground for dead. C. Y. Webb and Isaac Naoman, President of the “High Council,” both told me they saw Dame’s manœuvres. James McGuffee, then a resident of Parowan, but through oppression has been forced to leave there and is now a merchant in Pahranagat Valley, near Pioche, Nev., knows these facts. About the last of August, 1857, some ten days before the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the company of emigrants passed through Cedar City. George A. Smith, then first counsellor in the Church and Brigham Young’s right-hand man, came down from Salt Lake City, preaching to the different settlements. I at that time was in Washington county, near where St. George now stands. He sent for me. I went to him and he asked me to take him to Cedar City by way of Fort Clara and Pinto settlements, as he was on business and must visit all the settlements. We started on our way up through the canyon. We saw herds of Indians, and he (George A. Smith) remarked to me that these Indians, with the advantages they had of the rocks, could use up a large company of emigrants, or make it very hot for them. After pausing for a short time he said to me, “Brother Lee, what do you think the brethren would do if a company of emigrants should come down through here making threats? Don’t you think they would pitch into them?” I replied that “they certainly would.” This seemed to please him, and he again said to me, “And you really think the brethren would pitch into them?” “I certainly do,” was my reply, “and you had better instruct Colonel Dame and Haight to tend to it that the emigrants are permitted to pass, if you want them to pass unmolested.” He continued, “I asked Isaac (meaning Haight) the same question, and he answered me just as you do, and I expect the boys would pitch into them.” I again said to him that he had better say to Gov. Young that if he wants emigrant companies to pass without molestation that he must instruct Col. Dame or Major Haight to that effect; for if they are not ordered otherwise they will use them up by the help of the Indians. He told the people at the Clara not to sell their grain to the emigrants, nor to feed it to their animals, as they might expect a big fight the next spring with the United States. President Young did not intend to let the troops into the territory. He said: “We are going to stand up for our rights, and will no longer be imposed upon by our enemies, and want every man to be on hand with his gun in good order and his powder dry,” and instructed the people to part with nothing that would sustain life. From the 1st to the 10th of September, 1857, a messenger came to me—his name was Sam Wood—and told me that President Isaac C. Haight wanted me to be at Cedar City that evening without fail. This was Saturday. He told me that a large company of emigrants had gone south. I think he lived at Harmony, twenty miles south of Cedar City.
I obeyed the summons. President Haight met me. It was near sundown. We spent the night in an open house on some blankets, where we talked most all night. He told me that a company of emigrants had passed through some two days before, threatening the Mormons with destruction, and that one of them had said he had helped to kill old Joe Smith and his brother Hyrum, that other members of the company of emigrants had helped drive the Mormons out of Missouri; that others had said they had come to help Johnson’s army clean the Mormons out of Utah; that they had the halters ready to hang old Brigham and Heber, and would have them strung up before the snow flew; that one of the emigrants called one of his oxen (a pair of stags) “Brig.” and the other “Heber;” and that several of the emigrants had used all kinds of threats and profanity. John M. Higbee, the City Marshal, had informed them that it was a breach of the city ordinance to use profane language, whereupon one of them replied that he did not care a —— for the Mormon laws or the Mormons either; that they had fought their way through the Indians, and would do it through the —— Mormons; and if their god, old Brigham, and his priests would not sell their provisions, by —— they would take what they wanted any way they could get it; that thus enraged, one of them let loose his long whip and killed two chickens, and threw them into the waggon; that the widow Evans said, “Gentlemen, those are my chickens; please don’t kill them; I am a poor widow;” that they ordered her to “shut up,” or they would blow her —— brains out, etc.; that they had been raising trouble with all the settlements and Indians on their way; that we were threatened on the North by Johnson’s army; that now our safety depended on prompt and immediate action; that a company of Indians had already gone South from Parowan and Cedar City to surprise the emigrants, who were then at the Mountain Meadows, and he wanted me to return home in the morning (Sunday), and send Carl Schurtz (Indian interpreter) from my home (Harmony), to raise the Indians South, at Harmony, Washington, and Santa Clara, to join the Indians from the North and make the attack upon the emigrants at the Meadows. I said to him, “Would it not be well to hold a council of the brethren before making a move?” He replied that “every true Latter-Day Saint that regarded their covenants knew well their duty, and that the company of emigrants had forfeited their lives by their acts,” and that Bishop P. K. Smith (Klingensmith) and Joel White had already gone by way of Pinto, to raise the Indians in that direction, and those that had gone from Parowan and here would make the attack, and might be repulsed. “We can’t now delay for a council of the brethren. Return immediately, and start Carl Schurtz; tell him that I ordered you to tell him to go; and I want you to try and get there before the attack is made, and make the plan for the Indians, and will send Nephi Johnson, the interpreter, to the Meadows as soon as he can be got to help Carl Schurtz manage the Indians.” I did just as I was ordered. The Indians from the North and about Harmony had already started for the Meadows before I reached home. Schurtz started immediately to do his part.