What the Anti-Mormons won't tell you about the Mountain Meadows Massacre ~ The Half Truth Technique
You: You seem to ignore previous to the MMM when Missouri’s governor, Lilburn Boggs, issued his infamous Extermination Order of all Mormons.
Me: And of course the Mormons had excellent reason to be paranoid and revengeful.
I don’t think I’m ignoring anything.
Extermination Order: 1838
Mountain Meadows Massacre: 1857
Do you honestly think it is proper to massacre about 100 innocent (more or less) people in revenge for an order issued almost 20 years earlier? An order that wasn’t carried out, as the Mormons were obviously not exterminated, although they were severely mistreated, and many killed?
All of the adults and older children were slain in battle. Seventeen younger children were spared and later placed in an orphanage in St. Louis.
ALL combatants are NEVER "slain in battle." There are always survivors, even if wounded. Unless you kill them.
In this case the Mormons pretended they would protect the emigrants against the "Indians" if they gave up their arms and surrendered. While marching them away, they shot the men down on signal, then murdered all the women and all but the youngest children. There is some evidence the Utes participated in the killing of the women and children, or even did most of it. Not that turning them over to the Indians mitigates the guilt of the Mormon participants.
A more despicable and dishonorable betrayal cannot be found in American history. Even at Goliad and the Alamo the women and children were left unharmed.
Whether all the other claims on the site about the misbehavior of the "Missouri Wildcats" are true or not is disputed. It seems likely rumors were running all over southwest Utah at the time, and we all know rumors aren't always accurate and that people embellish them in passing them on, even when they don't intend to. I'm sure many of the Mormons who participated in the massacre believed them all.
But nothing can justify what they did. Nothing.