‘The Mormon War’ was most to blame. The Mormons were on a war alert thanks to Anti-Mormons and President Buchanon! They were in the act of being invaded by the US Army for NOTHING!
If there had been no ‘War on the Mormons’ there would have been no ‘Mountain Meadows Massacre’
Mormons had been rebelling against the Territorial Governor and federal authority over the Utah Territory.
Eventually President Buchanan sent the Army to restore federal authority. The army arrived, there was no fighting, there was a sort of military occupation, it all gets overshadowed by the Civil War and forgotten. The only casualties were the non-Mormon civilians massacred at Mountain Meadows.
The ‘Mormon War’ presaged what was coming in the secession crisis and the Civil War, except that it dealt with a Territory and not States. Buchanan had to deal with both, since some States seceded while he was still President.
And while he was willing to send the Army to enforce Federal authority over the Utah Territory, he wouldn’t do so against the seceding States. In his opinion the federal government didn’t have the right to use force against States even though in his opinion secession wasn’t legal.
we need to stop defending this.....it happened..it was real, and as nice and good as present day Mormons are, the foundation of Mormonism is on very very shaky grounds.
That deception will not wash, teppe. The Mormons tricked the wagon train into believing they were being taken hostage, then the Mormons murdered them all execution style, up close and personal. The only survivors of the wagom train were children so young they could not tell the truth of what happened.