Investigations and prosecutions relating to the Mountain Meadows massacre
Encyclopedia
The pursuit of the perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows massacre
, which atrocity occurred September 11, 1857, had to await the conclusion of the American Civil War
to begin in earnest.
of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps arrived in Salt Lake City. Van Vliet's mission was to inform Young that the United States troops then approaching Utah did not intend to attack the Mormons, but intended to establish an army base near Salt Lake, and to request Young's cooperation in procuring supplies for the army. Young informed Van Vliet that he was skeptical that the army's intentions were peaceful, and that the Mormons intended to resist occupation.
On September 10, 1858, James Holt
Haslam arrived in Salt lake city, after experiencing long delays during his nearly 300 mile journey, to deliver a message from the acting commander of the Iron Brigade, Isaac C. Haight to the Mormon leader Brigham Young. The letter has yet to be found.
President Young’s message of reply to Haight, dated September 10, read: "In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of[.] [I]f those who are there will leave let them go in peace."
Yet, by the time the express rider delivered Young's letter to Haight, ordering that the emigrants not be harmed, the murders at Mountain Meadows had already taken place. According to trial testimony given later by express rider Haslam, when Haight read Young’s words, he sobbed like a child and could manage only the words, "Too late, too late."
Historians debate the letter's contents. Brooks believes it shows Young "did not order the massacre, and would have prevented it if he could." Bagley argues that the letter covertly gave other instructions.
A few days after the massacre, September 29, 1857, John D. Lee
briefed Brigham Young on the massacre. According to Lee, more than one hundred and fifty mobbers of Missouri and Illinois, with many cattle and horses, dammed the Saints leaders, poisoned not only a beef given to the Native Americans, but poisoned a spring which killed both Saints and Native Americans. The Native Americans became enraged and after a long siege killed all and stripped the corpses of clothing. The Mormons spared eight to ten children. A second group, with a large cattle herd, would have suffered the same fate had not the Saints intervened and saved them. Wilford Woodruff
recorded Lee's account as a "tale of blood."
In fact, seventeen children survived. The names and ages are recorded in the Carleton report, available online. The Mormons sold the children among each other, as they did the material goods they stole from the emigrants. Carleton reported that immediately after the massacre John D. Lee, Haight, and Philip Smith [Klingonsmith] went to Salt Lake City to ask Brigham Young what should be done with the property. They offered Young the money they had taken from their victims, but he would have nothing to do with it. Brigham gave Lee instructions to divide the cattle and cows among the poor, and left it to him to distribute it as he chose. John D. Lee ended up owning a fancy carriage that had been part of the column; the wagons, rifles and other valuables ended up with the Mormons, which the Paiute pointed out was proof that they had not perpetrated the massacre. Other emigrant property was auctioned in Cedar City, in the tithing office of the church, where the Mormons termed it, facetiously, in Carleton's view, "property taken at the siege of Sebastapol."
On September 30, 1857, Mormon Indian Agent George W. Armstrong sent a letter to Young from Provo with information of the massacre. In his account, the emigrants gave the Native Americans poisoned beef. After many Native Americans died, they "appeased their savage vengeance" by killing fifty-seven men and nine women. There was no mention of survivors.
Decades later, Young's son, 13 years old in 1857, said he was in the office during that meeting and that he remembered Lee blaming the massacre on the Native Americans. Some time after Lee's meeting with Young, Jacob Hamblin said he reported to Young and George A. Smith
what he said Lee had related to Hamblin on his journey to Salt Lake. Brigham Young was mistaken when he later testified, under oath, that the meeting took place "some two of three months after the massacre". When Lee attempted to relate the details of the massacre, however, Young later testified he cut Lee off, stopping him from reciting further details.
Rumors of the massacre began to reach California in early October. John Aiken, a "gentile" who traveled with the mail carrier John Hurt through the killing field, reported to the Los Angeles Star that the unburied putrefied corpses of the women and children were more generally eaten than the men.
Confirmation of the massacre was received from the Mormon J. Ward Christian. Christian claimed that the emigrants had cheated the Native Americans who sold them wheat at Corn Creek, put strychnine in water holes and poisoned a dead ox. According to Christian, the party consisted of 130 to 135. All were killed by Native Americans with the exception of fifteen infant children, that have since been purchased with much difficulty by the Mormon interpreters.
And when Brigham Young sent his report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1858, he said the massacre was the work of Native Americans.
Paiute leaders maintain that Mormon accounts of Paiute initiation of the siege are untrue. Stoffle and Evans assert that Paiutes had no history of attacking wagon trains and no Native Americans were charged, prosecuted, or punished by federal officials as a result of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Tribal oral history accounts taken in 1980s and 1990s relate stories of Paiutes witnessing the attack from a distance rather than participating. There are some stories, which relate some Paiute were present, but did not initiate or participate in the killings. A corroborating oral history of Sybil Mariah Frink tells of witnessing the planning of the massacre at her home in Harmony. She contends she followed fourteen Mormons who had disguised themselves as Native Americans to the scene of the massacre. She makes no mention of any Native Americans participating in the attack. Authors Tom and Holt summarize the state of proof regarding the massacre:
While Native American Paiutes were present, certainly during the initial attack and siege, historical reports of their numbers and the details of their participation are contradictory. However, Mormon witnesses of the event are unreliable, as Carleton demonstrates, and were attempting to shift the blame onto the Native Americans.
Eyewitness accounts from Mormons that implicate the Paiutes (at first entirely so and then only in part) are set against Paiute accounts that absolve them from participation in the actual massacre. Historian Bagley believes "the problem with trying to tell the story of Mountain Meadows—the sources are all fouled up. You've either got to rely on the testimony of the murderers or of the surviving children. And so what we know about the actual massacre is—could be challenged on almost any point. _ " However, as Carleton mentions in his 1857 report, even Hamblin, the Indian agent who blamed the Paiutes for the massacre, admitted to him that in 1856 the Paiute tribe had only three guns, suggesting that it was incredible for them to have acquired sufficient guns to inflict the number of gunshot wounds evident among the victims, most of whom were killed by gunfire, not, as Mormon witnesses claimed, largely by being hit in the head with stones.
, many non-Mormons began to suspect Mormon involvement and called for a federal investigation. Territorial U.S. Indian Agent Garland Hurt, in the days following the massacre, sent a translator to investigate, who returned on September 23 with the report that Paiutes attacked the emigrants and after being repulsed three time the Mormons tricked the wagon train members into surrender and killed them all. On the September 27, Hurt, the last federal Agent in Utah Territory, escaped more than seventy five Mormons dragoons for the safety of the American Army with the help of members of the Ute tribe of Native Americans.
On Lee's journey to Salt Lake City to report the massacre, he passed Jacob Hamblin
going the opposite direction, and according to Hamblin, Lee admitted killing emigrants, including adolescent children, and stated that he acted under orders from officials in Cedar City. Lee later denied making these admissions or breaking his oath of secrecy.
Young first heard about the massacre from second-hand reports, After Lee reached Salt Lake City, Lee met with Young on September 29, 1857, according to Lee, he told Young about Mormon involvement. Young, however, later testified that he cut Lee off when he started to describe the massacre, because he could not bear to hear the details. Lee, however, said he told Young of involvement by Mormons. Nevertheless, according to Jacob Hamblin
, Hamblin heard a detailed description of the massacre and Mormon involvement from Lee and reported it to Young and George A. Smith
soon after the massacre. Hamblin said he was told to keep quiet, but that "as soon as we can get a court of justice, we will ferret this thing out".
With regard to the new policy to unbridle Natives to steal cattle, roughly at the same time of the massacre Indian agent Hurt received word that militia leadership at Ogden
had arranged for the Snake tribe to run off over 400 cattle that were being driven toward California.
interrupted further federal investigation and the LDS Church conducted no investigation of its own. Then in 1859, two years after the massacre, investigations were made by Hurt's superior, Jacob Forney, and also by U.S. Army Brevet
Major James Henry Carleton
. In Carleton's investigation, at Mountain Meadows he found women's hair tangled in sage brush and the bones of children still in their mothers' arms. Carleton later said it was "a sight which can never be forgotten." After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a rock cairn.
Carleton's report of May 1859 included verbatim statements from Jacob Hamblin and a young Snake man, aged 17 or 18, who lived with the Hamblins and went by the name of Albert Hamblin. Both attempted to blame the local Paiute Indians, but Carleton analyzed the contradictions between the evidence he encountered and their statements to suggest that their accounts were false in several respects. Carleton tricked Albert Hamblin into revealing the identities of some of the Mormons present, by telling him that Jacob Hamblin had already informed Carleton that John D. Lee and other Mormons had been present. Albert then admitted that, apart from Lee, also present were the Mormons Prime Coleman, Amos Thornton, Richard Robinson, and "Brother" Dickinson from Pinto Creek. Speaking to Paiute Indian chiefs, Carleton was told by Chief "Jackson", head of the Santa Clara band, that a letter from Brigham Young had ordered the emigrants to be killed, and that 60 Mormons, painted and disguised as Indians, led by Bishop John D. Lee and Isaac C. Haight, had fulfilled this order. Another Paiute chief, Touche, then living on the Virgin River, told Carleton that a letter from Brigham Young to the same effect was brought down to his band by a young man named [Oliver B.] Huntington, an Indian interpreter living in Salt Lake City at the time of Carleton's report.
By August 1859, Jacob Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah had retrieved the children from the Mormon families housing them and gathered them in preparation of transporting them to their relatives in Arkansas. He placed the children in the care of families in Santa Clara prior to transportation. Forney and Capt. Reuben Campbell (US Army) related that Lee sold the children to Mormon families in Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter Creek. Sarah Francis Baker, who was three years old at the time of the massacre, later said, "They sold us from one family to another." As early as May 1859, Forney reported that none of the children had ever lived with the Native Americans, but had been transported by white men from the scene of the massacre to the house of Jacob Hamblin. In July 1859 he wrote of his refusal to pay claims by families who alleged they purchased the children from the Native Americans, stating he knew it was not true. Forney had seen to the gathering up the surviving children from local families after which they were united with extended family members in Arkansas and other states. Families received compensation for the children's care, including Jacob Hamblin; some protested that the amounts were insufficient—although Carleton's report criticized the conditions under which some of the children lived.
Forney concluded that the Paiutes did not act alone and the massacre would not have occurred without the white settlers, while Carleton's report to the U.S. Congress
called the mass killings a "heinous crime", blaming both local and senior church leaders for the massacre.
A federal judge brought into the territory after the Utah War, Judge John Cradlebaugh
, in March 1859 convened a grand jury in Provo
, Utah
concerning the massacre, but the jury declined any indictments.
Further investigations, cut short by the American Civil War
in 1861, again proceeded in 1871 when prosecutors obtained the affidavit of militia member Phillip Klingensmith. Klingensmith had been a bishop and blacksmith from Cedar City; by the 1870s, however, he had left the church
and moved to Nevada
.
During the 1870s Lee, Dame, Philip Klingensmith and two others (Ellott Willden and George Adair, Jr.) were indicted and arrested while warrants were obtained to pursue the arrests of four others (Haight, Higbee, William C. Stewart and Samuel Jukes) who had successfully gone into hiding. Klingensmith escaped prosecution by agreeing to testify. Brigham Young removed some
participants including Haight and Lee from the LDS church in 1870. The U.S. posted bounties of $500 each for the capture of Haight, Higbee and Stewart while prosecutors chose not to pursue their cases against Dame, Willden and Adair.
Lee's first trial began on July 23, 1875 in Beaver
, Utah
before a jury of eight Mormons and four non-Mormons. The prosecution called five eye-witnesses: Philip Klingensmith, Joel White, Samuel Pollock, William Young, and James Pierce. Due to an illness, George A. Smith
was not called as a witness, but provided deposition testimony denying any involvement in the massacre, as did Brigham Young, who said he could not travel because he was an invalid. The defense called Silas S. Smith, Jesse N. Smith, Elisha Hoops, and Philo T. Farnsworth, who were part of George A. Smith's party on August 25, 1857 when he camped near the Baker-Fancher party in Corn Creek
. Each of them testified that they either saw, or suspected, that the Baker-Fancher party poisoned a spring and a dead ox, later eaten by Native Americans. The trial ended in a hung jury
on August 5, 1875.
Lee's second trial began September 13, 1876, before an all-Mormon jury. The prosecution called Daniel Wells, Laban Morrill, Joel White, Samuel Knight, Samuel McMurdy, Nephi Johnson, and Jacob Hamblin
. Lee also stipulated, against advice of counsel, that the prosecution be allowed to re-use the depositions of Young and Smith from the previous trial. Lee called no witnesses in his defense. This time, Lee was convicted.
At his sentencing, as required by Utah Territory statute, he was given the option of being hung, shot, or beheaded, and he chose to be shot. In 1877, before being executed by firing squad at Mountain Meadows (a fate Young believed just, but not a sufficient blood atonement
, given the enormity of the crime, to get him into the celestial kingdom). Lee himself professed that he was a scapegoat
for others involved.
Mountain Meadows massacre
The Mountain Meadows massacre was a series of attacks on the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train, at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. The attacks culminated on September 11, 1857 in the mass slaughter of the emigrant party by the Iron County district of the Utah Territorial Militia and some local...
, which atrocity occurred September 11, 1857, had to await the conclusion of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
to begin in earnest.
Brigham Young's Involvement
Evidence as to whether or not Brigham Young ordered the attack on the migrant column is conflicted. Historians still debate the autonomy and precise roles of local Cedar City LDS church officials in ordering the massacre and Young's concealing of evidence in its aftermath. Young's use of inflammatory and violent language in response to the Federal expedition added to the tense atmosphere at the time of the attack. After the massacre, Young stated in public forums that God had taken vengeance on the Baker–Fancher party. It is unclear whether Young held this view because he believed this specific group posed an actual threat to colonists or were directly responsible for past crimes against Mormons. According to historian MacKinnon, "After the war, Buchanan implied that face-to-face communications with Brigham Young might have averted the [Utah War], and Young argued that a north-south telegraph line in Utah could have prevented the Mountain Meadows Massacre."Young's belated message to Isaac C. Haight, acting commander of the Iron Brigade
On September 8, 1858, Capt. Stewart Van VlietStewart Van Vliet
Stewart Leonard Van Vliet , was a United States Army officer who fought on the side of the Union during the American Civil War.-Early life:...
of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps arrived in Salt Lake City. Van Vliet's mission was to inform Young that the United States troops then approaching Utah did not intend to attack the Mormons, but intended to establish an army base near Salt Lake, and to request Young's cooperation in procuring supplies for the army. Young informed Van Vliet that he was skeptical that the army's intentions were peaceful, and that the Mormons intended to resist occupation.
On September 10, 1858, James Holt
Haslam arrived in Salt lake city, after experiencing long delays during his nearly 300 mile journey, to deliver a message from the acting commander of the Iron Brigade, Isaac C. Haight to the Mormon leader Brigham Young. The letter has yet to be found.
President Young’s message of reply to Haight, dated September 10, read: "In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of[.] [I]f those who are there will leave let them go in peace."
Yet, by the time the express rider delivered Young's letter to Haight, ordering that the emigrants not be harmed, the murders at Mountain Meadows had already taken place. According to trial testimony given later by express rider Haslam, when Haight read Young’s words, he sobbed like a child and could manage only the words, "Too late, too late."
Historians debate the letter's contents. Brooks believes it shows Young "did not order the massacre, and would have prevented it if he could." Bagley argues that the letter covertly gave other instructions.
Part played by Paiutes
John D. Lee
John Doyle Lee was a prominent early Latter-day Saint who was executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows massacre.-Early Mormon leader:...
briefed Brigham Young on the massacre. According to Lee, more than one hundred and fifty mobbers of Missouri and Illinois, with many cattle and horses, dammed the Saints leaders, poisoned not only a beef given to the Native Americans, but poisoned a spring which killed both Saints and Native Americans. The Native Americans became enraged and after a long siege killed all and stripped the corpses of clothing. The Mormons spared eight to ten children. A second group, with a large cattle herd, would have suffered the same fate had not the Saints intervened and saved them. Wilford Woodruff
Wilford Woodruff
Wilford Woodruff, Sr. was the fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1889 until his death...
recorded Lee's account as a "tale of blood."
In fact, seventeen children survived. The names and ages are recorded in the Carleton report, available online. The Mormons sold the children among each other, as they did the material goods they stole from the emigrants. Carleton reported that immediately after the massacre John D. Lee, Haight, and Philip Smith [Klingonsmith] went to Salt Lake City to ask Brigham Young what should be done with the property. They offered Young the money they had taken from their victims, but he would have nothing to do with it. Brigham gave Lee instructions to divide the cattle and cows among the poor, and left it to him to distribute it as he chose. John D. Lee ended up owning a fancy carriage that had been part of the column; the wagons, rifles and other valuables ended up with the Mormons, which the Paiute pointed out was proof that they had not perpetrated the massacre. Other emigrant property was auctioned in Cedar City, in the tithing office of the church, where the Mormons termed it, facetiously, in Carleton's view, "property taken at the siege of Sebastapol."
On September 30, 1857, Mormon Indian Agent George W. Armstrong sent a letter to Young from Provo with information of the massacre. In his account, the emigrants gave the Native Americans poisoned beef. After many Native Americans died, they "appeased their savage vengeance" by killing fifty-seven men and nine women. There was no mention of survivors.
Decades later, Young's son, 13 years old in 1857, said he was in the office during that meeting and that he remembered Lee blaming the massacre on the Native Americans. Some time after Lee's meeting with Young, Jacob Hamblin said he reported to Young and George A. Smith
George A. Smith
George Albert Smith was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the church's First Presidency.-Childhood:Smith was born in Potsdam, St...
what he said Lee had related to Hamblin on his journey to Salt Lake. Brigham Young was mistaken when he later testified, under oath, that the meeting took place "some two of three months after the massacre". When Lee attempted to relate the details of the massacre, however, Young later testified he cut Lee off, stopping him from reciting further details.
Rumors of the massacre began to reach California in early October. John Aiken, a "gentile" who traveled with the mail carrier John Hurt through the killing field, reported to the Los Angeles Star that the unburied putrefied corpses of the women and children were more generally eaten than the men.
Confirmation of the massacre was received from the Mormon J. Ward Christian. Christian claimed that the emigrants had cheated the Native Americans who sold them wheat at Corn Creek, put strychnine in water holes and poisoned a dead ox. According to Christian, the party consisted of 130 to 135. All were killed by Native Americans with the exception of fifteen infant children, that have since been purchased with much difficulty by the Mormon interpreters.
And when Brigham Young sent his report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1858, he said the massacre was the work of Native Americans.
Paiute leaders maintain that Mormon accounts of Paiute initiation of the siege are untrue. Stoffle and Evans assert that Paiutes had no history of attacking wagon trains and no Native Americans were charged, prosecuted, or punished by federal officials as a result of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Tribal oral history accounts taken in 1980s and 1990s relate stories of Paiutes witnessing the attack from a distance rather than participating. There are some stories, which relate some Paiute were present, but did not initiate or participate in the killings. A corroborating oral history of Sybil Mariah Frink tells of witnessing the planning of the massacre at her home in Harmony. She contends she followed fourteen Mormons who had disguised themselves as Native Americans to the scene of the massacre. She makes no mention of any Native Americans participating in the attack. Authors Tom and Holt summarize the state of proof regarding the massacre:
The fact that so much evidence, including relevant pages from the journals of many settlers, has been lost or destroyed, testifies to many Native Americans and their sympathizers that much of the official history cannot be considered to be complete or truthful. However, there is certainly some evidence that Native Americans with base camps on the Muddy and Santa Clara Rivers were at least involved in the initial siege of the wagon train."
While Native American Paiutes were present, certainly during the initial attack and siege, historical reports of their numbers and the details of their participation are contradictory. However, Mormon witnesses of the event are unreliable, as Carleton demonstrates, and were attempting to shift the blame onto the Native Americans.
Eyewitness accounts from Mormons that implicate the Paiutes (at first entirely so and then only in part) are set against Paiute accounts that absolve them from participation in the actual massacre. Historian Bagley believes "the problem with trying to tell the story of Mountain Meadows—the sources are all fouled up. You've either got to rely on the testimony of the murderers or of the surviving children. And so what we know about the actual massacre is—could be challenged on almost any point. _ " However, as Carleton mentions in his 1857 report, even Hamblin, the Indian agent who blamed the Paiutes for the massacre, admitted to him that in 1856 the Paiute tribe had only three guns, suggesting that it was incredible for them to have acquired sufficient guns to inflict the number of gunshot wounds evident among the victims, most of whom were killed by gunfire, not, as Mormon witnesses claimed, largely by being hit in the head with stones.
Orchestration by militia
Although militia members put responsibility on the NativesNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, many non-Mormons began to suspect Mormon involvement and called for a federal investigation. Territorial U.S. Indian Agent Garland Hurt, in the days following the massacre, sent a translator to investigate, who returned on September 23 with the report that Paiutes attacked the emigrants and after being repulsed three time the Mormons tricked the wagon train members into surrender and killed them all. On the September 27, Hurt, the last federal Agent in Utah Territory, escaped more than seventy five Mormons dragoons for the safety of the American Army with the help of members of the Ute tribe of Native Americans.
On Lee's journey to Salt Lake City to report the massacre, he passed Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Vernon Hamblin was a Western pioneer, Mormon missionary, and diplomat to various Native American Tribes of the Southwest and Great Basin. During his life, he helped settle large areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona where he was seen as an honest broker between Mormon settlers and the...
going the opposite direction, and according to Hamblin, Lee admitted killing emigrants, including adolescent children, and stated that he acted under orders from officials in Cedar City. Lee later denied making these admissions or breaking his oath of secrecy.
Young first heard about the massacre from second-hand reports, After Lee reached Salt Lake City, Lee met with Young on September 29, 1857, according to Lee, he told Young about Mormon involvement. Young, however, later testified that he cut Lee off when he started to describe the massacre, because he could not bear to hear the details. Lee, however, said he told Young of involvement by Mormons. Nevertheless, according to Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Vernon Hamblin was a Western pioneer, Mormon missionary, and diplomat to various Native American Tribes of the Southwest and Great Basin. During his life, he helped settle large areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona where he was seen as an honest broker between Mormon settlers and the...
, Hamblin heard a detailed description of the massacre and Mormon involvement from Lee and reported it to Young and George A. Smith
George A. Smith
George Albert Smith was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the church's First Presidency.-Childhood:Smith was born in Potsdam, St...
soon after the massacre. Hamblin said he was told to keep quiet, but that "as soon as we can get a court of justice, we will ferret this thing out".
With regard to the new policy to unbridle Natives to steal cattle, roughly at the same time of the massacre Indian agent Hurt received word that militia leadership at Ogden
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...
had arranged for the Snake tribe to run off over 400 cattle that were being driven toward California.
Federal investigations in 1859
The Utah WarUtah War
The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between LDS settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the United States government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858...
interrupted further federal investigation and the LDS Church conducted no investigation of its own. Then in 1859, two years after the massacre, investigations were made by Hurt's superior, Jacob Forney, and also by U.S. Army Brevet
Brevet (military)
In many of the world's military establishments, brevet referred to a warrant authorizing a commissioned officer to hold a higher rank temporarily, but usually without receiving the pay of that higher rank except when actually serving in that role. An officer so promoted may be referred to as being...
Major James Henry Carleton
James Henry Carleton
James Henry Carleton was an officer in the Union army during the American Civil War. Carleton is most well known as an Indian fighter in the southwestern United States.-Biography:...
. In Carleton's investigation, at Mountain Meadows he found women's hair tangled in sage brush and the bones of children still in their mothers' arms. Carleton later said it was "a sight which can never be forgotten." After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a rock cairn.
Carleton's report of May 1859 included verbatim statements from Jacob Hamblin and a young Snake man, aged 17 or 18, who lived with the Hamblins and went by the name of Albert Hamblin. Both attempted to blame the local Paiute Indians, but Carleton analyzed the contradictions between the evidence he encountered and their statements to suggest that their accounts were false in several respects. Carleton tricked Albert Hamblin into revealing the identities of some of the Mormons present, by telling him that Jacob Hamblin had already informed Carleton that John D. Lee and other Mormons had been present. Albert then admitted that, apart from Lee, also present were the Mormons Prime Coleman, Amos Thornton, Richard Robinson, and "Brother" Dickinson from Pinto Creek. Speaking to Paiute Indian chiefs, Carleton was told by Chief "Jackson", head of the Santa Clara band, that a letter from Brigham Young had ordered the emigrants to be killed, and that 60 Mormons, painted and disguised as Indians, led by Bishop John D. Lee and Isaac C. Haight, had fulfilled this order. Another Paiute chief, Touche, then living on the Virgin River, told Carleton that a letter from Brigham Young to the same effect was brought down to his band by a young man named [Oliver B.] Huntington, an Indian interpreter living in Salt Lake City at the time of Carleton's report.
By August 1859, Jacob Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah had retrieved the children from the Mormon families housing them and gathered them in preparation of transporting them to their relatives in Arkansas. He placed the children in the care of families in Santa Clara prior to transportation. Forney and Capt. Reuben Campbell (US Army) related that Lee sold the children to Mormon families in Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter Creek. Sarah Francis Baker, who was three years old at the time of the massacre, later said, "They sold us from one family to another." As early as May 1859, Forney reported that none of the children had ever lived with the Native Americans, but had been transported by white men from the scene of the massacre to the house of Jacob Hamblin. In July 1859 he wrote of his refusal to pay claims by families who alleged they purchased the children from the Native Americans, stating he knew it was not true. Forney had seen to the gathering up the surviving children from local families after which they were united with extended family members in Arkansas and other states. Families received compensation for the children's care, including Jacob Hamblin; some protested that the amounts were insufficient—although Carleton's report criticized the conditions under which some of the children lived.
Forney concluded that the Paiutes did not act alone and the massacre would not have occurred without the white settlers, while Carleton's report to the U.S. Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
called the mass killings a "heinous crime", blaming both local and senior church leaders for the massacre.
A federal judge brought into the territory after the Utah War, Judge John Cradlebaugh
John Cradlebaugh
John Cradlebaugh was the first delegate to the United States House of Representatives from Nevada Territory.-Biography:...
, in March 1859 convened a grand jury in Provo
Provo, Utah
Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
concerning the massacre, but the jury declined any indictments.
1870s prosecutions of John D. Lee
| Four of the nine Utah Territorial militiamen Nauvoo Legion The Nauvoo Legion was a militia originally organized by the Latter Day Saints to defend the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, . To curry political favor with the ambiguously-political Saints, the Illinois state legislature granted Nauvoo a liberal city charter that gave the Nauvoo Legion extraordinary... of the Tenth Regiment "Iron Brigade" who were indicted in 1874 for murder or conspiracy (Not shown: William H. Dame • William C. Stewart • Ellott Willden • Samuel Jukes • George Adair, Jr.) |
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| Isaac C. Haight Isaac C. Haight Isaac Chauncey Haight , an early convert to Mormonism, was a colonist of the American West remembered as a major conspirator of the Mountain Meadows massacre.... was a Southern Utah Church Leader, and militia commander. Spent much of the remainder of his life in hiding, died 1886 in Arizona Arizona Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix... . |
Maj. John H. Higbee, was said to have shouted the command to begin the killings. He claimed that he reluctantly participated in the massacre and originally came to bury the dead who he thought were victims of an "Indian attack." | Maj. John D. Lee John D. Lee John Doyle Lee was a prominent early Latter-day Saint who was executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows massacre.-Early Mormon leader:... , constable, judge, and Indian Agent Indian agent In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with Native American tribes on behalf of the U.S. government.-Indian agents:*Leander Clark was agent for the Sac and Fox in Iowa beginning in 1866.... . Having conspired in advance with his immediate commander, Isaac C. Haight Isaac C. Haight Isaac Chauncey Haight , an early convert to Mormonism, was a colonist of the American West remembered as a major conspirator of the Mountain Meadows massacre.... , Lee led the initial assault, and falsely offered emigrants safe passage prior to the massacre. He was the only convicted participant. |
Philip Klingensmith, a Bishop in the church and a private Private (rank) A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career... in the militia. He participated in the killings, and later turned state's evidence State's Evidence State's Evidence is an independent film created in 2004 and released in 2006, directed by Benjamin Louis and starring Douglas Smith, Alexa Vega, Majandra Delfino, Kris Lemche, Cody McMains, and Drew Tyler Bell.-Plot summary:... against his fellows, after leaving the church. |
Further investigations, cut short by the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in 1861, again proceeded in 1871 when prosecutors obtained the affidavit of militia member Phillip Klingensmith. Klingensmith had been a bishop and blacksmith from Cedar City; by the 1870s, however, he had left the church
Ex-Mormon
Ex-Mormon refers to a disaffiliate of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or any of its schismatic breakoffs, collectively called "Mormonism". Ex-Mormons, sometimes referred to as Exmo, typically neither believe in nor affiliate with the LDS church. In contrast, Jack Mormons may believe...
and moved to Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
.
During the 1870s Lee, Dame, Philip Klingensmith and two others (Ellott Willden and George Adair, Jr.) were indicted and arrested while warrants were obtained to pursue the arrests of four others (Haight, Higbee, William C. Stewart and Samuel Jukes) who had successfully gone into hiding. Klingensmith escaped prosecution by agreeing to testify. Brigham Young removed some
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
participants including Haight and Lee from the LDS church in 1870. The U.S. posted bounties of $500 each for the capture of Haight, Higbee and Stewart while prosecutors chose not to pursue their cases against Dame, Willden and Adair.
Lee's first trial began on July 23, 1875 in Beaver
Beaver, Utah
Beaver is a city in Beaver County, Utah, United States. The population was 2,454 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Beaver County.Settled by Mormon pioneers in 1856, Beaver was one of a string of Mormon settlements extending the length of Utah...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
before a jury of eight Mormons and four non-Mormons. The prosecution called five eye-witnesses: Philip Klingensmith, Joel White, Samuel Pollock, William Young, and James Pierce. Due to an illness, George A. Smith
George A. Smith
George Albert Smith was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the church's First Presidency.-Childhood:Smith was born in Potsdam, St...
was not called as a witness, but provided deposition testimony denying any involvement in the massacre, as did Brigham Young, who said he could not travel because he was an invalid. The defense called Silas S. Smith, Jesse N. Smith, Elisha Hoops, and Philo T. Farnsworth, who were part of George A. Smith's party on August 25, 1857 when he camped near the Baker-Fancher party in Corn Creek
Kanosh, Utah
Kanosh is a town in Millard County, Utah, United States. The population was 485 at the 2000 census.- Geography :Kanosh is located at ....
. Each of them testified that they either saw, or suspected, that the Baker-Fancher party poisoned a spring and a dead ox, later eaten by Native Americans. The trial ended in a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
on August 5, 1875.
Lee's second trial began September 13, 1876, before an all-Mormon jury. The prosecution called Daniel Wells, Laban Morrill, Joel White, Samuel Knight, Samuel McMurdy, Nephi Johnson, and Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Hamblin
Jacob Vernon Hamblin was a Western pioneer, Mormon missionary, and diplomat to various Native American Tribes of the Southwest and Great Basin. During his life, he helped settle large areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona where he was seen as an honest broker between Mormon settlers and the...
. Lee also stipulated, against advice of counsel, that the prosecution be allowed to re-use the depositions of Young and Smith from the previous trial. Lee called no witnesses in his defense. This time, Lee was convicted.
Blood atonement
In mormonism, blood atonement is a controversial doctrine that teaches that murder is so heinous that the atonement of Jesus does not apply. Thus, in order to atone for these sins, the perpetrators must have their blood shed upon the ground as a sacrificial offering...
, given the enormity of the crime, to get him into the celestial kingdom). Lee himself professed that he was a scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
for others involved.
"I have always believed, since that day, that General George A. Smith was then visiting Southern Utah to prepare the people for the work of exterminating Captain Fancher's train of emigrants, and I now believe that he was sent for that purpose by the direct command of Brigham Young.
"The knowledge of how George A. Smith felt towards the emigrants, and his telling me that he had a long talk with Haight on the subject, made me certain that it was the wish of the 'Church authorities', that Fancher and his train should be 'wiped out', and knowing all this, I did not doubt then, and I do not doubt it now, either, that Haight was acting by full authority from the Church leaders, and that the orders he gave to me were just the orders that he had been directed to give, when he ordered me to raise the Indians and have them attack the emigrants."