According to his own account, they were constantly threatened by enemies during their march; but they paid no attention to them, knowing that angels accompanied them as protectors, "for we saw them."
As they approached Clay County a committee from Ray County called on them to inquire about their intention, and, when a few miles from Liberty, in Clay County, General Atchison and other Missourians met them and warned them not to defy popular feeling by entering that town. Accepting this advice, they took a circuitous route and camped on Rush Creek, whence Smith on June 25 sent a letter to General Atchison's committee saying that, in the interest of peace, "we have concluded that our company shall be immediately dispersed."
The night before this letter was sent, cholera broke out in the camp. Smith at once attempted to perform miraculous cures of the victims, but he found actual cholera patients very different to deal with from old women with imaginary ailments, or, as he puts it, "I quickly learned by painful experience that, when the great Jehovah decrees destruction upon any people, and makes known his determination, man must not attempt to stay his hand."* There were thirteen deaths in camp, among the victims being Sidney Gilbert.
* "Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 86.
Of course, some explanation was necessary to reconcile the prophet's surrender without a battle with the "revelation" which directed the army to march and promised a victory. This came in the shape of another "revelation" (Sec. 105) which declared that the immediate redemption of the people must be delayed because of their disobedience and lack of union (especially excepting himself from this censure); that the Lord did not "require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion"; that a large enough force had not assembled at the Lord's command, and that those who had made the journey were "brought thus far for a trial of their faith." The brethren were directed not to make boasts of the judgment to come on the Missourians, but to keep quiet, and "gather together, as much in one region as can be, consistently with the feelings of the people"; to purchase all the lands in Jackson County they could, and then "I will hold the armies of Israel guiltless in taking possession of their own lands, which they have previously purchased with their monies, and of throwing down the powers of mine enemies." But first the Lord's army was to become very great.
It seems incredible that any set of followers could retain faith in "revelations" at once so conflicting and so nonsensical.
CHAPTER IV. — FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY PEOPLE
Meanwhile, the Mormons in Clay County, with the assent of the natives there, had opened a factory for the manufacture of arms "to pay the Jackson mob in their own way,"* and it was rumored that both sides were supplying themselves with cannon, to make the coming contest the more determined. Governor Dunklin, fearing a further injury to the good name of the state, wrote to Colonel J. Thornton urging a compromise, and on June 10 Judge Ryland sent a communication to A. S. Gilbert, asking him to call a meeting of Mormons in Liberty for a discussion of the situation.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 68.