Posted on 05/04/2007 5:46:36 AM PDT by Saundra Duffy
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.
Sherman Logan you conveniently left this out
So when these Missourians traveling through Utah boasted that they had been active in the Missouri persecutions of the Mormons, those were the memories their words recalled.
But of greater concern were the acts of the Missouri Wildcats as they traveled farther through Utah—they began to destroy the Mormons’ crops and tear down the fences and to systematically poison the water springs.
Added to this were their repeated threats that they would bring hundreds of men back from California and would then kill every Mormon that was in the mountains.
At Corn Creek, 15 miles south of Fillmore, the Missourians put arsenic in the spring and strychnine in an ox carcass which was fed to local idians. Ten of the indians died, along with a Mormon settler. Many of the Mormon cattle drank the water and also died.
As theMissouri WIldcats traveled farther south they poisoned wells and springs at numerous places along their route.
To poison the water and destroy the meager crops in late summer, in that barren southern Utah outpost are, was literally an act of intended murder—for how could the settlers survive for more than a day or two in the heat of summer without water in that arid desert?
A renegade group did this you are trying to blame the Church as a whole, and you know it is only wishful thinking because you don’t like Mormons are you would not have gone there!
Pure simple Sherman Logan!
Presbyterians are Calvinists and there are plenty of bloody episodes in Calvinist history, all the way back to John Calvin himself, who participated in the burning at the stake of Michael Servetus, who had the nerve to hold a different opinion about God than John did.
The Parliamentarians who fought and eventually beheaded King Charles I were largely Presbyterians. (Well, the leaders were, initially. It's complicated.)
Oh resty, even the Church admits that John D. Lee acted along with about 50 other Mormons and at least two that were his commanders - the PIUTES were only icing on the cake.
Please don’t say things that can be proven false. It hurts your position
A historian recently researched it and could find almost no contemporary evidence for it ever happening. Less than ten examples in tens of thousands of newspapers he reviewed over decades.
But many thousands of Irish "remembered" it vividly.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
Do you read my posts?
I stated that whether the Missouri Wildcats did these things is debated, that it is likely some of the reports were unsubstantiated rumors, and that many of the Mormon men participating in the massacre probably believed all the rumors to be fact.
Tell me, when did bragging, boasting and perhaps even well poisoning justify killing 10 year old girls?
Talk about half truths. No mention whatsoever of
Colonel William Dame, and Isaac Haight.
Here is a link to the court transcripts perhaps you will belive those....but then again?
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/leeaccount.html
Excerpt:
“Over the next three days, Mormon reinforcements, totally about 100 men, continued to arrive at the battle scene. Men on horseback carried messages back to Haight, and his immediate superior in the Nauvoo Legion and head of southern Utah forces, William Dame. Dame reportedly reiterated his determination to not less the emigrants pass: “My orders are that all the emigrants [except the youngest children] must be done away with.” On September 10, the messenger send to Salt Lake City arrived and handed Haight’s letter to Young. Young, according to published Mormon reports, sent the messenger back to Haight with a note telling him to let the Indians “do as they please,” but—as for Mormon participation in the siege—if the emigrants will leave Utah, “let them go in peace.” The message will be too late.”
Most of the Paiutes had left after growing weary of the siege and could play no role in the bloody conclusion. The plan was devious, but effective. Major John Higbee, in command of the forces at Mountain Meadows, persuaded John Lee and William Bateman to act as decoys to draw the emigrants out from the protection of their wagons. Lee and Bateman, carrying a white flag, marched across the field to the emigrants’ camp. The desperate emigrants agreed to the terms promised by Lee: They would give up their arms, wagons, and cattle, in return for promise that they would not be harmed as they embarked on a 35-mile hike back to Cedar City. Samuel McMurdy, a member of the Nauvoo Legion, took the reigns of one of the wagons into which were loaded some of the youngest children. A woman and a few seriously injured emigrant men were loaded into a second wagon. John Lee positioned himself between the two wagons as they pulled out. Following the two wagons, the women and the older children of the Fancher party walked behind. After the wagons had moved on, Higbee ordered the emigrant men to begin walking in single file. An armed Mormon “guard” escorted each emigrant man.
When the escorted men had fallen a quarter mile or so behind the women and children, who had just crested a small hill, Higbee yelled, “Halt! Do your duty!” Each of the Mormon men shot and killed the emigrant at his side. Meanwhile, on the other side of the hill, Nelphi Johnson shouted the order to begin the slaughter of the women and older children. Men rushed at the defenseless emigrants from both sides, and the killing went on amidst “hideous, demon-like yells.” Nancy Huff, four years old at the time of the massacre, later remembered the horror: “I saw my mother shot in the forehead and fall dead. The women and children screamed and clung together. Some of the young women begged the assassins after they run out on us not to kill them, but they had no mercy on them, clubbing their guns and beating out their brains.” It was over in just a few minutes. 120 members of the Fancher party were dead. The youngest children, seventeen or eighteen in all, were gathered up, to later be placed in Mormon homes. None of the survivors was over seven years old.
The next day, Colonel Dame and Lt. Colonel Haight visited the site of the massacre with John Lee and Philip Klingensmith. Lee, in his confession, described the field on that day: “The bodies of men, women and children had been stripped entirely naked, making the scene one of the most loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined.” Dame appeared shocked by what he found. “I did not think there were so many of them [women and children], or I would not have had anything to do with, Dame reportedly said. Haight, angered by Dame’s remark, expressed concern that Dame might try to blame him for an action that Dame had ordered. The men agreed on one thing, however: Mormon participation in the massacre had to be kept secret. Within twenty-fours hours, Haight had another reason for concern. Brigham Young’s reply to his inquiry arrived in Cedar City. “Too late, too late,” Haight said as he read Young’s letter and began to cry.
So much for the theory that one Mormon and Utes carried out the massacre.
I’m not trying to blame the Church as a whole, not even the 1857 Church, much less the LDS Church of today.
With a little digging you can find bloody episodes in almost every religion’s history. The only difference generally being how far back you have to go.
BTW, here’s a link to an excellent short even-handed discussion of the MMM.
http://www.youknow.com/chris/essays/misc/mtnmeadows.html
BTW, these were Paiutes, not Utes, who mostly lived farther east.
The Paiutes were generally called Diggers and were never considered a serious threat by a well-armed party such as the Fancher train.
But isn’t deception FOR the church winked at? Don’t blame the poster who may not have all the truth ...
I can’t believe that there are Mormons alive that still think John D. Lee massacred 120 people with the help of one of the most forlorn tribes in America.
BTW, I am a descendant of John D. Lee. He didn’t do it alone. The idea is ludicrous.
The part of about the MO. wildcats and poison water can not be ignored of disturbing the indians and the settlers would cause anyone to be jumpy. So those living in that area took things on their own instead of listing to council!
It doesn’t matter, Colo. My fellow LDS Freepers and I don’t go around bashing your church - although, I’m sure, there would be plenty with which to bash it were we motivated to start digging; no organization is immune from such scrutiny.
What we ask is that you stop bashing ours, and start sticking to the issues.
We’re going in circles now. I’m done discussing this topic with you.
No one said lee did it alone CC but it was an independ move there was no consensus to do that!
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