page_title: Death of Joseph Smith
section_title: Attack
hierarchical_section_title: Death of Joseph Smith / Attack
caption_attribution_description: English: Image by George And Audrey DeLange, http://www.delange.org/Carthage/Carthage.htm Release via e-mail: Hi, Bill, How fun! George and I would be delighted to have you use our photos. I'm very familiar with Wikipedia. Best Regards, Audrey
context_page_description: Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, United States, on June 27, 1844. The brothers had been in jail awaiting trial when an armed mob of about 200 men stormed the facility, their faces painted black with wet gunpowder. Hyrum was killed first, having been shot in the face. As he fell, Hyrum shouted, "I'm a dead man, Joseph!" After emptying the pistol with which he tried to defend himself, Smith was then shot several times while trying to leap from a second-story window and fell from that window as he died.
  Smith, as mayor of the town of Nauvoo, Illinois, had ordered the destruction of the facilities producing the Nauvoo Expositor, a newly established newspaper set up by a group of non-Mormons and people who had seceded from the church. The newspaper's first issue was highly critical of Smith and other church leaders—reporting that Smith was practicing polygamy and claiming he intended to set himself up as a theocratic king.
context_section_description: Before a trial could be held, a mob of about 200 armed men, their faces painted black with wet gunpowder, stormed the Carthage Jail in the late afternoon of June 27, 1844. As the mob was approaching, the jailer became nervous, and informed Smith of the group. In a letter dated July 10, 1844, one of the jailers wrote that Smith, expecting the Nauvoo Legion, said, "Don't trouble yourself ... they've come to rescue me." Smith did not know that Jonathan Dunham, major general of the Nauvoo Legion, did not dispatch the unit to Carthage to protect him. Allen Joseph Stout later contended that by remaining inactive, Dunham violated an official order written by Smith after he was jailed in Carthage.
  The Carthage Greys reportedly feigned defense of the jail by firing shots or blanks over the attackers' heads, and some of the Greys reportedly joined the mob, who rushed up the stairs. The mob first attempted to push the door open to fire into the room, though Smith and the other prisoners pushed back and prevented this. A member of the mob fired a shot through the door. Hyrum was shot in the face, just to the left of his nose, which threw him to the floor. He cried out, "I am a dead man!" and collapsed. He died almost immediately.
  Smith, Taylor, and Richards attempted to defend themselves. Taylor and Richards used a long walking stick in order to deflect the guns as they were thrust inside the room, from behind the door. Smith used the pistol that Wheelock had given him earlier that day. Three of the six barrels misfired, but the other three shots are believed to have wounded three of the attackers.
  Taylor was shot four or five times and was severely wounded, but survived. It has been popularly believed that his pocket watch stopped one shot. The watch is displayed in the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah; the watch was broken and was used to help identify the time of the attack. In 2010, forensic research by J. Lynn Lyon of the University of Utah and Mormon historian Glen M. Leonard suggested that Taylor's watch was not struck by a ball, but rather broke against a window ledge. Columbia University historian Richard Bushman, the author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, also supports this view.
  Richards, physically the largest of the Mormon captives, escaped unscathed; Lyon speculates that after the door opened, Smith was in the line of sight and Richards was not targeted.  
  After using all of the shots in his pistol, Smith made his way towards the window. As Smith prepared to jump down, Richards reported that he was shot twice in the back and a third bullet, fired from a musket on the ground outside, hit him in the chest. Taylor and Richards's accounts both report that as Smith fell from the window, he called out, "Oh Lord, my God!". Some have alleged that the context of this statement was an attempt by Smith to use a Masonic distress signal.
  There are varying accounts of what happened next. Taylor and Richards's accounts state that Smith was dead when he hit the ground. Eyewitness William Daniels wrote in his 1845 account that Smith was alive when mob members propped his body against a nearby well, assembled a makeshift firing squad, and shot him before fleeing. Daniels' account also states that one man tried to decapitate Smith for a bounty, but was prevented by divine intervention. That affirmation later was denied. Additional reports said that thunder and lightning frightened off the mob. Mob members fled, shouting, "The Mormons are coming," although there was no such force nearby.
  After the attack was over, Richards, who was trained as a medical doctor, went back to see if anyone besides himself had survived, and he found Taylor lying on the floor. Richards dragged Taylor into the jail cell (they had not been held in the cell, but in the guard's room across the hallway). He dragged Taylor under some of the straw mattress to put pressure on his wounds and slow the bleeding and then went to get help. Both Richards and Taylor survived. Taylor eventually became the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of
caption: The door in Carthage Jail through which the mob fired. There is a bullet hole in the door.
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