True. As he admitted himself. He was understandably more than a little peeved that he was made the sole scapegoat, when he was himself just following orders of his Church superiors. Nine Mormons were indicted. Only Lee was ever tried.
I don't particularly care to go over it all again, but the only way there could be true moral equivalence is if the anti-Mormon mobs had:
1. Murdered dozens of women and children in cold blood.
2. Planned and schemed in advance to talk Mormons into surrendering and disarming, and then massacred them on a pre-arranged word of command.
As far as I'm aware, nothing remotely resembling either of these things ever happened in the anti-Mormon mob period.
The Mormons of the time were not the Mormons of today. You read the unfiltered speeches and diaries of the time, and they sound very much like a crazy Jim Jones type of cult of today. They scared the hell out of their neighbors, most of whom probably couldn't have cared less what they believed.
What shouldn't be forgotten is that many if not most of the "mob attacks" were engagements between two armed groups, which the Mormons generally lost due to being outnumbered. This is quite a different issue than the intentional massacre of unarmed people, or for that matter of religious persecution in its true form as of the early Christians.
“they sound very much like a crazy Jim Jones type of cult of today. They scared the hell out of their neighbors, most of whom probably couldn’t have cared less what they believed.”
That’s my read on it as well. Except Jim Jones wasn’t into building armies like General Smith was. That would have scared the bejeebers out of people.