Wife no. 19 – Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV.

Betrayed and Murdered. — Trial of John D. Lee.

THE morning of the 17th of September dawned. The hearts of all the doomed party were sick with deferred hope. Suddenly a cry of relief broke from the corral. A wagon, filled with white men, bearing a white flag, was seen coming down the Meadows. Succor was at hand. Their terrible tortures were over. Strong men wept like children at the thought that their beloved ones, for whom they had agonized through all those dreary days and nights of siege, were safe at last.

The deliverers were none other than John D. Lee and the officers of the Mormon militia. Immediately upon their appearance the “Indians” ceased firing, and, in their fancied security, the besieged emigrants rushed outside the corral to meet their rescuers. How their hearts warmed towards Brigham Young and the Mormon people. All the wrongs they had suffered at their hands dwindled into insignificance before this last crowning act of humanly. Into the sympathizing ears of their saviors they poured the terrible story of their sufferings. Lee is said to have wept while listening to the recital, and, at the end, assured them of his deep sympathy, and promised all the relief in his power.

How much he would be able to do for them he was unable to say until he had consulted with the Indians, and he went back, and pretended to hold a consultation. The people were sure he could save them, since he was Indian agent, and must necessarily have much influence over them, and their joy was unspeakable. He soon returned with the welcome news that they were free, but on condition that they would lay aside their arms. There was no thought of treachery in their hearts, and, without a moment’s hesitation, they complied with the strange conditions. They laid aside their trusty rifles, that had stood them in such good stead during all the days of the siege; they gave up revolvers and bowie-knives, faithful companions on their dreary journey, and came forth from their intrenchments unarmed, and as defenceless as the children themselves.

As they issued from the corral a guard of soldiers was drawn up to escort them to a place of safety. The men were separated from the women and children, and were placed in front, while the latter were in the rear. It seems almost strange that no suspicion of their deliverers entered their minds at this. But why should even curiosity be aroused? The white flag was waving over their heads, and they were under the protection of United States militia. Where that flag waved, they were safe and free.

And what of the helpless women and children? All the womanhood within revolts at the thought of their horrible fate, and my woman’s soul cries out in agony at the recital of the sufferings of these helpless ones. Some of them were killed by their husbands, fathers, or brothers, — happy souls, who thus escaped the most cruel torture. Death was nothing, compared to the fiendish brutalities which they suffered before they were allowed to die. Some of the women were too ill to walk. They were taken outside the corral, driven up to the scene of the massacre, stripped of their clothing, shot, and their mutilated bodies thrown down in a pile, with the rest.

Notwithstanding their exhaustion, and their weakness from hunger, they marched joyously along, exulting in their regained freedom, when suddenly the troops halted, and the fatal order to fire was given by Lee, and repeated down the line by all the under officers. In an instant it flashed across the helpless victims how cruelly they had been betrayed, and, with shrieks of the wildest agony, they fell bleeding to the earth. Young and old shared the same fate. Gray-haired men and beardless boys were alike cut down. The Indians, who were ambushed near by, joined the Mormons in the work of slaughter, until not one of all the men was left.

To the honor of many of the men be it said, — the younger ones, especially, — they refused to join in this horrible work, and some of them made efforts to protect these helpless women from their fiend-like tormentors. I used often, while living in Payson, to see a man named Jim Pearce, whose face was deeply scarred by a bullet wound, made by his own father, while the brave young fellow was trying to assist a poor girl, who had appealed to him for succor. Another girl threw herself on her knees before Lee’s son, and clinging to him, begged for mercy. His heart was touched, and he promised to spare her, but his father shot her while she knelt. Lee also shot another girl, who had drawn a dagger to defend herself from him.

Even the children were not spared. They shared the horrible fate of their parents. In vain they begged for mercy. The bloodthirsty brutes to whom they knelt had no feeling of pity or compassion. They laughed at their entreaties, and mocked their terrified cries. Their little throats were cut, and their bodies thrown carelessly in a heap. Only seventeen of those supposed to be too young to remember any of the occurrences of this fearful day were saved; and of these seventeen, two were disposed of after reaching Salt Lake City, for making some remarks concerning the massacre, which showed an intelligence beyond their years. It is said — on how good authority I do not know — that Daniel H. Wells, mayor of Salt Lake City, one of the First Presidency, Second Counsellor to Brigham, Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion, killed one of these babes with his own official hand. As I said before, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this rumor, but those who know the man best are the most ready to believe it. He is certainly capable of an act like this.

The whole affair lasted but about half an hour, when the assassins rode away, carrying all the clothing and baggage of the emigrants, leaving the bodies to the wolves and ravens. But they were past hurt now, and wolves’ fangs or ravens’ beaks were powerless to harm, although they might lacerate the already mutilated bodies until they should be past all recognition. A person who visited the field of slaughter eight days after the massacre gave the following account of it. He said men, women, and children were strewn over the ground, or were thrown into piles. Some were shot, others stabbed, and others had their throats cut. They were entirely stripped of clothing, and their bodies were mutilated by the wolves. There were one hundred and twenty-seven bodies in all. These, with the three men who were killed while undertaking to bring assistance, another who was shot outside the corral, but whose body could never be found, and the two children who were murdered at Salt Lake City, made one hundred and thirty-three victims of this fearful and unparalleled assassination.

The spoils were carried to Cedar City, and placed in the tithing-office there, after the Indians had received their share. It is told by a man, who then was a mere boy, that the night that the spoils were brought into town he and two companions slept in the tithing-office. The cellars were filled with everything that had been taken from the emigrants, and the bloody garments, stripped from the dead bodies, were thrown down on the floor. One of the men connected with the massacre came in, and threw himself down to sleep, without perceiving the boys. Scarcely had the place become quiet with the peculiar, painful silence which night brings, when suddenly the room they were in, and the cellar beneath it, where all the plunder was stored, resounded with cries, groans, sobs, and the most piercing, agonized shrieks. The guilty man jumped from his couch and fled out into the night, locking the doors after him. In vain the terrified boys tried to force the lock. It remained fast and firm, and still the wails and cries pierced the air. They were almost dead with terror, and, clambering up to the roof, managed to escape from the haunted spot. Nothing can induce this man to believe that his imagination played him a trick. “I know,” he says, “that the spirits of these foully-murdered men and women were in the tithing-house that night.” It is not the first time, by any means, nor the last, that a Mormon public building has been haunted.

The property of the emigrants was sold at public auction, in Cedar City, by Bishop John M. Higbee, and they were readily bought by the eager saints. To this day, jewelry is worn in Salt Lake City, and teams are seen in the streets, that are known to have belonged to the fatal emigrant train. A lady in Salt Lake City was one day showing a silk dress and some jewelry to some friends, in the presence of one of the children who had been saved from the massacre. The little one, on catching sight of the dress, burst out into a frantic fit of weeping, and between the sobs cried out, “O, my dear mamma! That is her dress; she used to wear it. Where is my mamma? Why doesn’t she come for me? “It is said that other children identified clothing and trinkets which they had seen worn by members of the party. Indeed, these children remember more than their captors fancy; else they would not have been allowed to have left the Territory, as many of them have done, having for the most part been returned to their friends in the States.

My valued friend and travelling companion, Mrs. Cooke, had two of them under her charge for some time, and she has told me that they recognized John D. Lee, and one of them said one day, very quietly, but very determinedly, “When I get to be a man I will go to the President and ask him for a regiment of soldiers, and I will bring them here to kill the men who murdered my father and mother and brother, but I will kill Lee myself. I saw him shoot my sister, and I shall not die happy unless I kill him.” Mrs. Cooke says they used often, in their childish prattle, to tell events of the massacre, which showed that they knew perfectly what part Lee and his confederates had in the affair.

On their return from the scene of the massacre, the leaders determined to conceal the crime, but although they kept quiet a year, after that they were unable to refrain from speaking. Lee himself was the first to disclose the fate of the party. Like the Ancient Mariner, he went up and down compelling every person whom he met to listen to his story of an emigrant train that had been murdered by the Indians. By and by it was faintly rumored that the Indians were not alone in their work of destruction, but that they were assisted by the white men. Then the rumors grew louder, and some of the participants, overcome with remorse, confessed their complicity in the crime.

A short time since a man died in Sevier Valley, who was at the Mountain Meadows. He always imagined that he was followed by spectres, and he grew haggard and worn from constant terror. “Brigham Young,” he used to say, “will answer for the murder of one hundred and twenty innocent souls sent to their graves at his command.” On his death-bed he besought those watching by him to protect him from the spirits that were hovering near him, waiting to avenge themselves, and he died in the fearful ravings of a horrible terror. Another man, much younger than the one referred to above, was also literally haunted to death. “Would to God,” he would cry in the bitterest agony, “that I could roll back the scroll of time, and wipe from it the damning record; the terrible scenes at Mountain Meadows haunt me night and day. I cannot drive them away.” He has been known to drive out for a load of hay, and return quickly in terror, leaving his team in the field. He used to say that the cold, calm faces of the dead women and children were never out of his sight.

And what of the mangled bodies, and “the cold, calm faces” that were left upturned to the September sky? They were the prey of wolves and vultures; but the bones were collected by an old Mormon, who had no sympathy with the deed of blood, and buried in the hollow they had dug inside the corral. It was a literal labor of love. Alone he performed the last act of kindness, a task which was disagreeable enough, and one that of necessity was done hurriedly. The wild beasts again dug up the bones, and they were strewn all over the plain; there they remained until 1858, when the government sent General Carlton to bury the bones decently. A large cairn of stones was built by the soldiers to mark the resting-place of the remains, and General Carlton erected a cross of red cedar, on which was inscribed the words, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” At the other end of the mound was a stone, with the inscription, “Here, one hundred and twenty men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood, early in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas.” The cross was destroyed by the order of Brigham Young, after a visit to the spot. It was the first promise of payment that he ever rejected; and this, in spite of his destruction of it, will yet be forced upon him.

The trial of Lee, which has taken place since the foregoing narrative was written, shows more clearly than anything I can say, the ascendency which Brigham Young has over this people, and the utter futility of expecting anything like justice in a court where this man’s followers are allowed to sit on a jury.

Of what value, think you, do they regard any oaths which they may take to serve with fairness, and to be unbiased, except by such testimony as may be offered in court? If they are good Mormons, they have received their Endowments; and the oaths which they took when they went through with that rite, are a thousand times more binding than those that they take in court, which they regard as a mere form, without meaning, and which they are not only allowed by the church to violate, but which they are bound to break, unless the cause of the church can be furthered by keeping them, in which case nothing can exceed their loyalty.

Unsuccessful as the trial was, it yet has been productive of one good result. It has forced the details of this fiendish massacre upon the attention of the entire community. There is no journal in the country, no matter how small or unobtrusive, which has not had brief but concise reports of the trial, and which has not expressed decided opinions upon the result.

A greater farce was never played before a larger or more disgusted audience than this which has just ended in Utah. It is a sarcasm upon justice, a gross, hideous burlesque from beginning to end. I have seen surprise expressed at the termination in some of the eastern journals. That shows how little they understand the autocratic manner in which the Territory is ruled by Brigham Young, and how impossible it is, under existing laws, to bring to justice any of his followers. I could have prophesied what the ending would be from the moment in which the jurors were drawn. Eight Mormons and four Gentiles, — what could it be but “disagreement?”

As earnest as the prosecution was, and as determined to sift the matter to the very bottom, and get at the real truth of the case, without regard to whoever might be implicated, it was balked in every endeavor, not to prove the guilt of the prisoner, and others higher in authority than he, but to influence the jury to act according to the evidence. In the face of the most conclusive evidence, which the defence were utterly powerless to refute, and indeed did not even attempt to move, the Mormon jurors voted solid- for acquittal, and, to his endless shame be it recorded, induced one Gentile to vote with them. The other three stood firm, and would neither be coaxed nor bribed. They saw the right, and refused to desert it. Their companion, as many another has done, sold his principle for Mormon favor. He was in love with a Mormon girl, and hoped, by pandering to the Mormon leader’s desires, to obtain her. It will be but a step further into the Mormon Church, and when he has taken that step, and gone through the Endowment House, he will be in the place where he properly belongs, and no doubt will make a willing tool for the priesthood to use.

The trial strengthened the accounts which have already been given of the massacre; and, in fact, established the truth of the whole horrible affair, in its most brutal detail, and so fully that the defence did not attempt to overthrow the proof, but spent its time in assailing the witnesses, and trying to prove that the emigrants poisoned an ox, and then attempted to sell it to the Indians, who found out the treachery, and massacred the party, while Lee and others wept and wrung their hands, and prayed that the lives might not be sacrificed.

The prosecution proved that Brigham Young gave orders regarding the disposal of the property of the murdered party, and ordered the men who brought him the news to say nothing about the matter even to each other. Absolute silence was imposed upon them, and the ones who gave them the orders, themselves followed the “counsel” which they gave. The defence failed utterly to prove that Brigham was ignorant of the affair, and even his deposition, from its very weakness, inconsistency, and contradictory statements, strengthens the prosecution, and establishes more firmly in the popular mind the belief in his complicity in the matter, and his approval at least, if not his actual instigation.

There was a feeling throughout the trial that Brigham Young and the Mormon Church were arraigned in the person of John D. Lee, and the defence exhibited their understanding of the case, by endeavoring to clear the authorities, and paying very little heed to the real defendant in the case, rather allowing the odium to rest on him. than to fall where it more properly belonged. For although Lee merits well the title which he bears, that of “Butcher Lee,” there is no doubt that he was acting under orders from headquarters, and that his blind and unquestioning obedience was the effect of religious fanaticism.

It was expected that his confession would reveal beyond a doubt the truth of the whole matter, and place the blame where it had belonged. It was well known, that since his cavalier treatment by the church, he had been impatient of the odium which he had borne for so long a time, and had threatened openly to “shift the responsibility from his own shoulders, and place it on those whose business it was to bear it.” His wives and children, hating the disgrace, and questioning the President’s right to make a scapegoat of their husband and father, urged him to make a full confession, and take only what of blame belonged to him. The document was prepared, and was about to be made public, when consternation seized upon his counsel. They labored with him, and brought such influence to bear upon him, that the unsafe paper was destroyed, and another substituted in its place, in which Lee merely gave the details of the massacre, but failed to implicate any of the higher ecclesiasts.

The trial had been appointed for the 12th of July, in the Second District Court, held at Beaver, Southern Utah, before Judge Jacob S. Boreman, who had been trying for some time, ever since the passage of an act of Congress, the 23d of June, 1874, which presented clashing between Federal and Territorial officers, to have some action taken toward punishing those persons who were shown to have been engaged in this Mountain Meadows assassination.

Judge Boreman’s attempt to bring the Mountain Meadows’ assassins to justice, the first that had been made since the failure of Judge Cradlebaugh’s essay to find indictments against any of the persons connected with the massacre, resulted in finding a joint indictment against William H. Dame, John D. Lee, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higbee, Philip Klingensmith, William C. Stewart, Samuel Jukes, George Adair, Jr., and some others, for conspiracy and murder. Warrants for their apprehension were issued, but after a long search only two were apprehended — Lee and Dame.

Then came another long delay. It was almost impossible to obtain witnesses to testify. This was the same trouble which had sixteen years before beset Judge Cradlebaugh; and District Attorney Carey, who prosecuted the case for the people, was almost discouraged lest he too should fail to sustain his case. “Hold your tongues’* has been so long a vital lesson, that the Mormon people find it difficult work to wag them. Over one hundred subpoenas were issued, but it was impossible to collect the witnesses. Some of the least important obeyed the summons, but those who knew the most about the affair, and whose testimony would be of the most vital interest and service, failed to put in an appearance. Among these, and the witness above all others on whom the prosecution relied, was Philip Klingensmith, formerly a bishop in Cedar City, a participant in the massacre, who wished to ease his conscience by a full confession. He had been known to talk very freely to outsiders on the subject, and it was he who was driven in such terror from the Cedar City tithing-house the night after the spoils had been brought thither. Another participant, named Joel White, was also among the missing, but, fortunately for the prosecution, both were finally found, and brought to Beaver.

The first week was devoted to legal skirmishing, and the preparation of Lee’s confession. The counsel had agreed that he should confess fully. It was known that the men who appeared as actors on this field of carnage were but instruments in the hands of their authorities who had planned this deed, and the object of the prosecution was to obtain a knowledge of the instigators of this “deed of deathless shame.”

Failing in this, and feeling assured that Lee was not acting in good faith, they refused to receive the statement. His own counsel. Wells Spicer, Judge Hoge, and W. W. Bishop, were anxious to save their client, no matter what other guilty parties might suffer. They were true to his interests, and had they been acting by themselves, there is little doubt that the confession would have been complete, and would have implicated the whole of the First Presidency. But fearing this, the church attorneys, Sutherland and Bates, obtruded their services upon the defence, solicitous to shield this precious trio, Brigham Young, George A. Smith, and Daniel H. Wells, no matter at whose expense. They worked upon Lee’s feelings to such an extent that they evidently induced him to withhold his original statement, and substitute in its place a partial and palpably incomplete confession. I am certain that this is the case, and my belief is strengthened by contrasting the opening of the statement, with its somewhat indignant tone, and the air of sincerity with which it is invested, with the cautious, calculating, insincere tone of the latter portion. The statement opens as follows: —

“It now becomes my painful, though imperative duty, to chronicle the circumstances that led to, and fully describe that unfortunate affair, known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in Utah history, which has been shrouded in mystery for the last fifteen years, causing much comment, excitement, and vindictive feeling throughout the land. The entire blame has rested upon the Mormon people in Utah. Now, in justice to humanity, I feel it my duty to show up the facts as they exist, according to the best of my ability, though I implicate myself by so doing. I have no vindictive feelings whatever against any man or class of individuals. What I do is done from a sense of duty to myself, my God, and to the people at large, so that the truth may come to light, and the blame rest where it properly belongs.

“I have been arrested on the charge of being engaged in the crime committed at the time and place referred to. I have been in close confinement over eight months since my arrest. I was in irons three months of the time during my confinement. For the last seventeen years — in fact, since the commission of the crime — I have given this subject much thought and reflection. I have made the effort to bear my confinement with fortitude and resignation, well knowing that most of those engaged in this unfortunate affair were led on by religious influences, commonly called fanaticism, and nothing but their devotion to God, and their duty to Him, as taught to them by their religion and their church leaders, would ever have induced them to commit the outrageous and unnatural acts, believing that all who participated in the lamentable transaction, or most of them, were acting under orders which they considered it their duty, their religious duty to obey. I have suffered all kinds of ill-treatment and injury, as well as imprisonment, rather than expose these men, knowing the circumstances as I do, and believing in the sincerity of their motives, as I always have done; but I have a duty to perform, and have, since I was arrested, become convinced that it was not the policy of the government, or the wish of the court, to punish those men, but rather to protect them, and let the blame rest on their leaders, where it justly and lawfully belongs.

“After much thought and meditation, I have come to this condition: that I would no longer remain silent on this subject, but, so far as I can, bring to light the circumstances connected therewith, and remove the cloud of mystery that has so long obscured the transaction, and seemed to agitate the public mind. Believing it to be my duty as a man, a duty to myself, to my family, to my God, and to humanity, to cast aside the shackles so long holding my conscience, I now submit the facts, so far as I know them, stating nothing from malice, or for the purpose of revenge, withholding nothing that I can state of my own knowledge, and willing that the world may know all that was done, and why the acts were committed.”

In this introduction, Lee plainly accuses the leaders of the church. The men “were acting under orders.” Whose? They could not have emanated from the local officers of the church, since it would have been in no wise a “religious duty” to obey orders from men who were no higher in authority than themselves. Alas for Lee’s “conscience,” the shackles were more firmly bound than he supposed. His sense of duty to his family, his God, and humanity was blunted by the superior sense of duty to the church, and he failed utterly to do what he had so faithfully promised in the opening sentences of his confession.

After the disappointing delay caused by the preparation of Lee’s confession, the trial went steadily on to the end. The prosecution brought forward about twenty witnesses, who corroborated the incidents of the massacre, and testified that the feeling against the party was aroused by George A. Smith, who everywhere preceded the train, and forbade the people selling them anything, under pain of the church’s displeasure.

It was shown, too, that when, on being refused food at Cedar City, the last place at which they stopped, they asked where they could obtain it, they were told, at Mountain Meadows; which assists in establishing more fully the fact that the whole affair was premeditated, and that the party were deliberately led to their destruction.

But it remained for Philip Klingensmith to give the most thorough and vivid account of the whole massacre, from its very beginning, when the first plans were laid, until the day when he and Lee, and a man named Charley Hopkins, met in Brigham Young’s office. He received them very cordially, took them to his barn to show them his fine horses, and treated them with great hospitality. He told Klingensmith, who had charge of the property, to turn it over to Lee, as he was Indian agent, and the disposal of it more properly belonged to him. He then turned to them, and said, “What you know about this affair do not tell to anybody; do not even talk about it among yourselves.”

Klingensmith, with some others, strongly opposed the destruction of the emigrants, and made every effort to prevent it, but to no purpose; for Lee had received instructions from headquarters, and their fate was decided. The description of the attack, the steady repulse, the decoy from the corral, and the wholesale assassination, was given exactly as it has been narrated, scarcely varying at all, even in the slightest detail, ending with the interview with President Young.

Five participants in the massacre appeared as witnesses during the trial, but not one of them, with the exception of Klingensmith, admitted that he fired upon the emigrants. In his cross-examination, Judge Sutherland said, “I suppose you fired over the heads of the emigrants?” “I fired at my man,” was the reply, “and I suppose I killed him.”

I think the transaction has never seemed so horribly real to the outside public, as it has since this man’s testimony was published to the world. Given as it was by a remorseful, participant, under the solemnity of a judicial investigation, it impressed the people with its reality, and the press of the country has been unanimous in its expressions of horror, and its desire that vengeance should fall speedily on the heads of the guilty instigators.

The pitiful defence only deepened the feeling of indignation, and when, in the face of all the evidence, that was entirely unrefuted, the jury disagreed, I think the eyes of the nation were at last opened to the utter futility of expecting justice to be done when Mormons are on trial in a Mormon community.

The end is not yet. One of the chief instigators, George A. Smith, has passed on to a higher tribunal, where Justice is not blindfold, and from whose decisions there is no appeal. The other is left, for what fate no one yet can tell. It may be that his punishment will not be given him here; that no earthly judge shall ever pass sentence upon him. But, for all that, retribution is none the less certain, and the measure of suffering which he has meted out to others shall be meted out to him.

In the mean time Justice will not rest. The spirit of the nation, fully aroused, demands a fairer trial, and it will have it. A jury must be found who shall not be bound by the shackles of bigotry, and held by oaths of disloyalty which they dare not break, but who will do their duty honestly, faithfully, and loyally. Then, and then only, shall truth triumph, and hypocrisy and wickedness meet their just reward.

---

(“I think the eyes of the nation were at last opened to the utter futility of expecting justice to be done when Mormons are on trial in a Mormon community.” 

Ah, not much has changed. 

I sat in the Federal courthouse in Salt Lake City and heard with my own ears as people I knew lied under oath as they testified in the SNAP fraud case. They wouldn’t make eye contact with me as they spoke, because we both knew they weren’t being honest. Swearing “So help me God” on a stack of Bibles doesn’t matter to these people, because “lying for the Lord” is more important. Protecting the so-called “good name” of the organization matters more than human life, and is more to be concerned with than human suffering. 

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” is a quote that I have often heard rehearsed as justification for fraud and other crimes. “The Lord wants us to be profitable” and apparently it’s okay with him if we do it by any means necessary. These are criminal organizations hiding behind a cloak of religion. They are modern day mobs and crime syndicates. They employ human trafficking and slave labor. Luckily, there are governing bodies today and records that make destroying your enemies a little more difficult to get away with, otherwise many of us would likely have been “killed by Indians.”)

(Go to Chapter XV)