Our little band, which had been thrown into some disorder, were instantly formed, and their pieces reloaded. This done, a detachment surveyed the field, to look after the wounded. I turned to Gideon Carter, who was lying on his face, and saw him die. His face was so marred and disfigured with wounds and blood that I did not recognize him then, but learned afterwards that we had mistaken him for one of the enemy, and left him on the ground in mistake. I next found David Patten, whom, a few minutes previously, I had seen fall. He could speak, but was lying on his side, pale and almost dying, a ball having pierced the lower part of his body. Many others were wounded, and some dangerously.
The enemy had left their horses, saddles, camp and baggage, in the confusion of the flight. We harnessed some of their horses and placed them before a wagon, arranged blankets therein, on which we laid those who were not able to mount a horse; this done, our whole troop mounted the horses we had taken and formed in front and rear of the wagon which bore the wounded. We then moved slowly back to the guard and horses we had left. Here we halted and readjusted the wounded. It was an awful sight to see them pale and helpless, and hear their groans. There were about six of our men wounded, and one left dead on the ground. The enemy suffered a similar loss, besides their camp, and many of their arms and military stores.
We ascertained from the prisoners whom we rescued, that the enemy consisted of about sixty marauders, headed by a Methodist preacher, named Bogart. Our posse who were actually engaged, could not have been more than fifty. At the commencement of the engagement there were three of our fellow citizens held as prisoners in their camp; they had been kidnapped from their peaceful homes the day previous. Two of these made their escape at the commencement of the engagement; the third was shot through the body in attempting to run to our lines, but fortunately recovered.
Having now arranged everything to the best advantage for the wounded, we made slowly on towards Far West. When we came within five miles of the city our express had reached there with the news of the battle, and we were met by a surgeon and others for our relief. Among those who met us here was the wife of the pale and dying Patten. Our wounded were now taken into a house, and their wounds dressed. As Mrs. Patten entered the room, and cast her eyes upon the pale and ghastly features of her husband, she burst into tears, exclaiming: "O God! O my husband! How pale you look!"
He was still able to speak, but he died that evening in the triumphs of faith. The young Obanyon also died about the same time. The others recovered of their wounds, but one of them named Hendrix is still a cripple. Patten and Obanyon were buried together, under military honors; a whole people, as it were, followed them to the grave. All wept, whose feelings were not too intense to find vent in tears. He was the only member of the Quorum of the Twelve who had as yet found a martyr's grave. He was a great and good man, and one who chose to lay down his life for the cause of truth and right; for this privilege he had diligently sought and prayed; "for," said he, "I had rather die than live to see it thus in my country."
But, to return to the main thread of my narrative: having conveyed the wounded to their place of hospitality, the posse hastened to Far West, and delivered the spoils of the enemy to the colonel of the regiment, who afterwards delivered them to the higher civil or military authorities of the State.
These several defeats of the insurrectionists in Daviess County, as well as in Caldwell County, checked for a time their ruinous ravages. They saw that it was impossible to conquer a people who were fighting for their homes, their wives and children, as well as for their country and conscience, unless they could come against them with some show of authority; for it had become an established fact that the people of the Saints never resisted authority, however abused.
The next exertion of the enemy was to spread lies and falsehoods of the most alarming character. All our acts of defense were construed into insurrection, treason, murder and plunder. In short, the public were deceived by bigotry, priestcraft, and a corrupt press, and made to look upon all our acts of defense precisely as they would look upon the same acts performed, without cause or provocation, upon peaceable citizens. Murderous gangs were construed into peaceable militia in the State service, and to resist them was, on the part of the Saints, murder, treason and robbery. And, finally, the whole was treated abroad as the " Mormon insurrection,"—"Mormon war," etc.
And, as if this were not enough, parties set fire to their own houses, or that of their neighbors, and then laid it to the Saints. Whole neighborhoods were falsely alarmed, or rather really alarmed, by the doings of these bandits; and in their fright they fled to more distant places of security, and clamored loudly to the State authorities for protection from the "Mormons," whom they represented as burning, plundering, and destroying all before them. While they were simply standing on their own ground and maintaining the defensive, and this, too, in the last extreme, and not till they were abandoned by every department of the State Government.
This flame was greatly assisted by several dissenters from the Church through fear, or for love of power and gain. These dissenters became even more false, hardened, and bloodthirsty than those who had never known the way of righteousness. Many of them joined the enemy, and were the leaders in all manner of lying, murder and plunder. The Governor and ex-mobber, Lilburn W. Boggs, who had long sought some opportunity to destroy us, and drive us from the State, now issued an order for some ten thousand troops to be mustered into service and marched to the field against the " Mormons." He gave the command of this formidable force to General Clark, who lived, perhaps, a hundred and fifty miles or more from the scene of trouble. The order was expressly to exterminate the "Mormons," or drive them from the State.