Part 39 (1/2)

Whatever had been the intention of Smith when the constable first appeared, he and his a.s.sociates did surrender, as the governor had expressed a belief that they would do.. Statements of the circ.u.mstances of the surrender were written at the time by H. P. Reid and James W.

Woods of Iowa, who were employed by the Mormons as counsel, and were printed in the Times and Seasons, Vol. V, No. 12. Mr. Woods, according to these accounts, arrived in Nauvoo on Friday, June 21, and, after an interview with Smith and his friends, went to Carthage the next evening to a.s.sure Governor Ford that the Nauvoo officers were ready to obey the law. There he learned that the constable and his a.s.sistants had gone to Nauvoo to demand his clients' surrender; but he does not mention their return without the prisoners. He must have known, however, that the first intention of Smith and the Council was to flee from the wrath of their neighbors. The ”Life of Brigham Young,” published by Cannon & Sons, Salt Lake City, 1893, contains this statement:--

”The Prophet hesitated about giving himself up, and started, on the night of June 22, with his brother Hyrum, W. Richards, John Taylor, and a few others for the Rocky Mountains. He was, however, intercepted by his friends, and induced to abandon his project, being chided with cowardice and with deserting his people. This was more than he could bear, and so he returned, saying: 'If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of no value to myself. We are going back to be slaughtered.'”

It will be remembered that Young, Rigdon, Orson Pratt, and many others of the leading men of the church were absent at this time, most of them working up Smith's presidential ”boom.” Orson Pratt, who was then in New Hamps.h.i.+re, said afterward, ”If the Twelve had been here, we would not have seen him given up.”

Woods received from the governor a pledge of protection for all who might be arrested, and an a.s.surance that if the Mormons would give themselves up at Carthage, on Monday, the 24th, this would be accepted as a compliance with the governor's orders. He therefore returned to Nauvoo with this message on Sunday evening, and the next morning the accused left that place with him for Carthage. They soon met Captain Dunn, who, with a company of sixty men, was going to Nauvoo with an order from the governor for the state arms in the possession of the Legion.* Woods made an agreement with Captain Dunn that the arms should be given up by Smith's order, and that his clients should place themselves under the captain's protection, and return with him to Carthage. The return trip to Nauvoo, and thence to Carthage, was not completed until about midnight. The Mormons were not put under restraint that night, but the next morning they surrendered themselves to the constable on a charge of riot in connection with the destruction of the Expositor plant.

* It was stated that on two hours' notice two thousand men appeared, all armed, and that they surrendered their arms in compliance with the governor's plans.

CHAPTER XIV. -- THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET--HIS CHARACTER

On Tuesday morning, Joseph and Hyrum Smith were arrested again in Carthage, this time on a charge of treason in levying war against the state, by declaring martial law in Nauvoo and calling out the Legion. In the afternoon of that day all the accused, numbering fifteen, appeared before a justice of the peace, and, to prevent any increase in the public excitement, gave bonds in the sum of $500 each for their appearance at the next term of the Circuit Court to answer the charge of riot.* It was late in the evening when this business was finished, and nothing was said at the time about the charge of treason.

* The trial of the survivors resulted in a verdict of acquittal.

”The Mormons,” says Governor Ford, ”could have a Mormon jury to be tried by, selected by themselves, and the anti-Mormons, by objecting to the sheriff and regular panel, could have one from the anti-Mormons. No one could [then] be convicted of any crime in Hanc.o.c.k County.”--”History of Illinois,” p. 369.

Very soon after their return to the hotel, however, the constable who had arrested the Smiths on the new charge appeared with a mittimus from the justice of the peace, and, under its authority, conveyed them to the county jail. Their counsel immediately argued before the governor that this action was illegal, as the Smiths had had no hearing on the charge of treason, and the governor went with the lawyers to consult the justice concerning his action. The justice explained that he had directed the removal of the prisoners to jail because he did not consider them safe in the hotel. The governor held that, from the time of their delivery to the jailer, they were beyond his jurisdiction and responsibility, but he granted a request of their counsel for a military guard about the jail. He says, however, that he apprehended neither an attack on the building nor an escape of the prisoners, adding that if they had escaped, ”it would have been the best way of getting rid of the Mormons,” since these leaders would never have dared to return to the state, and all their followers would have joined them in their place of refuge.

The militia force in Carthage at that time numbered some twelve hundred men, with four hundred or five hundred more persons under arms in the town. There was great pressure on the governor to march this entire force to Nauvoo, ostensibly to search for a counterfeiting establishment, in order to overawe the Mormons by a show of force. The governor consented to this plan, and it was arranged that the officers at Carthage and Warsaw should meet on June 27 at a point on the Mississippi midway between the latter place and Nauvoo.

Governor Ford was not entirely certain about the safety of the prisoners, and he proposed to take them with him in the march to Nauvoo, for their protection. But while preparations for this march were still under way, trustworthy information reached him that, if the militia once entered the Mormon city, its destruction would certainly follow, the plan being to accept a shot fired at the militia by someone as a signal for a general slaughter and conflagration. He determined to prevent this, not only on humane grounds,--”the number of women, inoffensive and young persons, and innocent children which must be contained in such a city of twelve hundred to fifteen thousand inhabitants”--but because he was not certain of the outcome of a conflict in which the Mormons would outnumber his militia almost two to one. After a council of the militia officers, in which a small majority adhered to the original plan, the governor solved the question by summarily disbanding all the state forces under arms, except three companies, two of which would continue to guard the jail, and the other would accompany the governor on a visit to Nauvoo, where he proposed to search for counterfeiters, and to tell the inhabitants that any retaliatory measures against the non-Mormons would mean ”the destruction of their city, and the extermination of their people.”

The jail at Carthage was a stone building, situated at the northwestern boundary of the village, and near a piece of woods that were convenient for concealment. It contained the jailer's apartments, cells for prisoners, and on the second story a sort of a.s.sembly room. At the governor's suggestion, Joseph and Hyrum were allowed the freedom of this larger room, where their friends were permitted to visit them, without any precautions against the introduction of weapons or tools for their escape.

Their guards were selected from the company known as the Carthage Grays, Captain Smith, commander. In this choice the governor made a mistake which always left him under a charge of collusion in the murder of the prisoners. It was not, in the first place, necessary to select any Hanc.o.c.k company for this service, as he had militia from McDonough County on the ground. All the people of Hanc.o.c.k County were in a fever of excitement against the Mormons, while the McDonough County militia had voted against the march into Nauvoo. Moreover, when the prisoners, after their arrival at Carthage, had been exhibited to the McDonough company at the request of the latter, who had never seen them, the Grays were so indignant at what they called a triumphal display, that they refused to obey the officer in command, and were for a time in revolt.

”Although I knew that this company were the enemies of the Smiths,”

says the governor, ”yet I had confidence in their loyalty and their integrity, because their captain was universally spoken of as a most respectable citizen and honorable man.” The governor further excused himself for the selection because the McDonough company were very anxious to return home to attend to their crops, and because, as the prisoners were likely to remain in jail all summer, he could not have detained the men from the other county so long. He presents also the curious plea that the frequent appeals made to him direct for the extermination or expulsion of the Mormons gave him a.s.surance that no act of violence would be committed contrary to his known opposition, and he observes, ”This was a circ.u.mstance well calculated to conceal from me the secret machinations on foot!”

In this state of happy confidence the governor set out for Nauvoo on the morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers who accompanied him told him that he was apprehensive of an attack on the jail because of talk he had heard in Carthage. The governor was reluctant to believe that such a thing could occur while he was in the Mormon city, exposed to Mormon vengeance, but he sent back a squad, with instructions to Captain Smith to see that the jail was safely guarded. He had apprehensions of his own, however, and on arriving at Nauvoo simply made an address as above outlined, and hurried back to Carthage without even looking for counterfeit money. He had not gone more than two miles when messengers met him with the news that the Smith brothers had been killed in the jail.

The Warsaw regiment (it is so called in the local histories), under command of Colonel Levi Williams, set out on the morning of June 27 for the rendezvous on the Mississippi, preparatory to the march to Nauvoo.

The resolutions adopted in Warsaw and the tone of the local press had left no doubt about the feeling of the people of that neighborhood toward the Mormons, and fully justified the decision of the governor in countermanding the march proposed. His unexpected order disbanding the militia reached the Warsaw troops when they had advanced about eight miles. A decided difference of opinion was expressed regarding it. Some of the most violent, including Editor Sharp of the Signal, wanted to continue the march to Carthage in order to discuss the situation with the other forces there; the more conservative advised an immediate return to Warsaw. Each party followed its own inclination, those who continued toward Carthage numbering, it is said, about two hundred.

While there is no doubt that the Warsaw regiment furnished the men who made the attack on the jail, there is evidence that the Carthage Grays were in collusion with them. William N. Daniels, in his account of the a.s.sault, says that the Warsaw men, when within four miles of Carthage, received a note from the Grays (which he quotes) telling them of the good opportunity presented ”to murder the Smiths” in the governor's absence. His testimony alone would be almost valueless, but Governor Ford confirms it, and Gregg (who holds that the only purpose of the mob was to seize the prisoners and run them into Missouri) says he is ”compelled” to accept the report. According to Governor Ford, one of the companies designated as a guard for the jail disbanded and went home, and the other was stationed by its captain 150 yards from the building, leaving only a sergeant and eight men at the jail itself. ”A communication,” he adds, ”was soon established between the conspirators and the company, and it was arranged that the guards should have their guns charged with blank cartridges, and fire at the a.s.sailants when they attempted to enter the jail.”

Both Willard Richards and John Taylor were in the larger room with the Smith brothers when the attack was made (other visitors having recently left), and both gave detailed accounts of the shooting, Richards soon afterward, in a statement printed in the Neighbor and the Times and Seasons under the t.i.tle ”Two Minutes in Gaol,” and Taylor in his ”Martyrdom of Joseph Smith.” * They differ only in minor particulars.

* To be found in Burton's ”City of the Saints.”

All in the room were sitting in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves except Richards, when they saw a number of men, with blackened faces, advancing around the corner of the jail toward the stairway. The door leading from the room to the stairs was hurriedly closed, and, as it was without a lock, Hyrum Smith and Richards placed their shoulders against it. Finding their entrance opposed, the a.s.sailants fired a shot through the door (Richards says they fired a volley up the stairway), which caused Hyrum and Richards to leap back. While Hyrum was retreating across the room, with his face to the door, a second shot fired through the door struck him by the side of the nose, and at the same moment another ball, fired through the window at the other side of the room, entered his back, and, pa.s.sing through his body, was stopped by the watch in his vest pocket, smas.h.i.+ng the works. He fell on his back exclaiming, ”I am a dead man,”