I see. A helpless prisoner in a jail ATTACKS a “peaceful” MOB breaking into the jail to get at Smith. The MOB didn’t murder him, they were only trying to protect themselves from this vicious prisoner. After all, they had only come to wish him well.
“Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking at the same time, ‘Would any of you like to have this?’ Brother Joseph immediately replied, ‘Yes, give it to me,’ whereupon he took the pistol, and put it in his pantaloons pocket.”
“The pistol was a six-shooting revolver, of Allen’s patent; it belonged to me, and was one that I furnished to Brother Wheelock when he talked of going with me to the east, previous to our coming to Carthage. I have it now in my possession. Brother Wheelock went out on some errand, and was not suffered to return.”
“I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and, leaning over him, exclaimed, ‘Oh! my poor, dear brother Hyrum!’ He, however, instantly arose, and with a firm, quick step, and a determined expression of countenance, approached the door, and pulling the six-shooter left by Brother Wheelock from his pocket, opened the door slightly, and snapped the pistol six successive times; only three of the barrels, however, were discharged. I afterwards understood that two or three were wounded by these discharges, two of whom, I am informed, died.”
“I had in my hands a large, strong hickory stick, brought there by Brother Markham, and left by him, which I had seized as soon as I saw the mob approach; and while Brother Joseph was firing the pistol, I stood close behind him. As soon as he had discharged it he stepped back, and I immediately took his place next to the door, while he occupied the one I had done while he was shooting.”
“Brother Richards, at this time, had a knotty walking-stick in his hands belonging to me, and stood next to Brother Joseph, a little farther from the door, in an oblique direction, apparently to avoid the rake of the fire from the door. The firing of Brother Joseph made our assailants pause for a moment; very soon after, however, they pushed the door some distance open, and protruded and discharged their guns into the room, when I parried them off with my stick, giving another direction to the balls.”
“It certainly was a terrible scene: streams of fire as thick as my arm passed by me as these men fired, and, unarmed as we were, it looked like certain death. I remember feeling as though my time had come, but I do not know when, in any critical position, I was more calm, unruffled, energetic, and acted with more promptness and decision. It certainly was far from pleasant to be so near the muzzles of those firearms as they belched forth their liquid flames and deadly balls. While I was engaged in parrying the guns, Brother Joseph said, ‘That’s right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can.’ These were the last words I ever heard him speak on earth.”
- Official History of the Church, Vol. 7, p.100-103
Reporter John Hay, of the Atlantic Monthly identified three men who were shot by Joseph Smith: John Wills in the arm, William Vorhees in the shoulder, and William Gallagher in the face. Hay was a son of Charles Hay, a surgeon of the Carthage militia and apparently a member of the mob.
“Smith had two loaded six-barrelled revolvers in his room. How a man on trial for capital offences came to be supplied with such luxuries is a mystery that perhaps only one man could fully have solved; and as General Deming, the Jack-Mormon sheriff, died soon after, and left no explanation of the matter, investigation is effectually baffled. But the four shots which I have chronicled, and two which had no billet, exhausted one pistol, and the enemy gave Smith no time to use the other. Severely wounded as he was, he ran to the window, which was open to receive the fresh June air, and half leaped, half fell, into the jail yard below.”
- John Hay, “The Mormon Prophet’s Tragedy,” Atlantic Monthly (December 1869) 671-678.
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So, the gun (or guns) in the cell came from Wheelock.
Smith had good reason to believe that Masons might be in the crowd outside, because earlier that day, he had smuggled an order to Nauvoo Legion commander Jonathan Dunham to come break them out of the jail. But Dunham refused to obey the illegal order, knowing that bringing Mormon troops to Carthage might result in all-out civil war. Here’s a great account of all the events.
Here is the account by MORMON eyewitness Dr. Quinn
“The morning of 27 July [sic - June], Smith sent an order (in his own handwriting) to [LDS] Major-General Jonathan Dunham to lead the Nauvoo Legion in a military attack on Carthage ‘immediately’ to free the prisoners. Dunham realized that such an assault by the Nauvoo Legion would result in two blood baths — one in Carthage and another when anti-Mormons (and probably the Illinois militia) retaliated by laying siege to Nauvoo for insurrection. To avoid civil war and the destruction of Nauvoo’s population, Dunham refused to obey the order and did not notify Smith of his decision. One of his lieutenants, a former Danite, later complained that Dunham ‘did not let a single mortal know that he had received such orders.’
“About 5 p.m. on Thursday, 27 June 1844, more than 250 men approached the Carthage Jail. When informed of this by the panicky jailer, Joseph Smith replied: ‘Don’t trouble yourself [–] they have come to rescue me.’ That was not to be. Within moments three prisoners were desperately trying to secure the upper room’s door with bare hands and wooden canes against a cursing mob shooting randomly inside. Joseph Smith fired back with a six-shooter pistol at the attackers in the doorway, wounding three of them. Shot in the face, Patriarch Hyrum Smith died instantly. Struck by four bullets, Apostle John Taylor lay motionless on the bloodied floor. Pinned behind the door as the mob rushed into the prison cell, Apostle Willard Richards miraculously escaped with only a bullet-nicked ear. The man the murderous vigilantes knew as church president, mayor, militia commander, U.S. presidential candidate, and Master Mason leaped out the second-floor window shouting, ‘O Lord my God!’
LINK
From an earlier post by FastCoyote