The New York herald., 1872-09-14
rhe Mountain 1leadows Massacrc--A
Terrible Revelation.


Fifteen years ago a very wealthy train of
emigrants left Arkansas for California, there
to seek new homes. From all reports it was
considered the most comfortably outftted COM
pany of emigrants that ever crossed the Plains
In addition to the usual wagons, freighted with
provisions, clothing and the portable valu-
ables of their former homes, together with the
implements of agriculture and mechanics
there were several carriages for the more con-
venient travelling of the ladies' the young and
the aged Altogether, tho appearance
of the train and the excellent con-
duct and pleasant associations of the
emigrants with one another bespoke the NOV
ing of farmers and tradespeople in comfort
able circumstances. They rested every seventh |
day in their journey, and engaged in religious
exercises in their own way, as had been their
custom at home They appeared to be related
to each other by families or by marriage, and
with the toddling infant playing in the camp
at night might be seen the venerable patriarch
of three score years and ten. ALI seemed
happy together. Such was the emigrant train
that passed through Utah in 1867 and perished
on the Mountain Meadows, two hundred and
fifty miles south of Salt Lake City.
!. During the past fifteen years this Mountain
Meadows massacre has been frequently charged
to the Mormons, but with unyielding peril
nacity they have denied the implication, and
with the boldness of their assertions they have
managed to induce even astute Congressman to
believe that the massacre was the work of the In
dams But, singularly enough, on the fifteenth
anniversary of that foul and treacherous deed,
in which one hundred and twenty men,
women and children were murdered, there
comes TO us from the city of the Prophet
Brigham the full and frank confession of one
of his own bishops that the bloody work was
ordered by the Mormon leaders and executed
by their militia
Philip Klingon Smith makes oath before
the CLERK Of the Circuit Court Of the
Seventh Judicial district of the State Of
Nevada that the massacre of the large body of
Arkansas emigrants on their way to California
was perpetrated by the Mormon militia. and
by order of the Mormon authorities at "head-
quarters" We need not recite the horrifying
story as related in Smiths affidavit, for that
can be seen by our readers. Smith was
bishop in the Mormon Church, and was
member of the force sent by the Mormon
authorities to massacre the Arkansas emil
grants. There seems to be no reason to doubt
the statement he makes under oath, and he
was certainly in position to know the facts.
We would willingly believe if we could that
no people claiming to be civilized could be
guilty of such horror and base treachery as
he describes; but the details ore so circum-
stantial, and the crime was 80 much in ac-
cordance with the fanaticism and revenge OF
the Mormons generally at that period that the
statement cannot be doubted. The motives
given for this dreadful butchery are many.
One is that it was conceived and carried out in
revenge for the injuries sustained by the
Mormons in Missouri and Illinois an
other is that 1t was to revenge the kill
ing of a Mormon some time previously in
Arkansas by the husband of woman whom
the Mormon had carried off, OF course there
would be no justification either of the crime of
the Mormon in taking another mans wife or
for the husband in taking the life of the wife
stealer; but that the Mormons wrought their
vengeance on a body of innocent emigrants
because they happened to be from
the same State as the murderer
makes o shallow excuse which the
most confessedly brutalized wretches in the
world could not expect to palm off as the true
cause. It was, undoubtedly, the desire of the
Mormon leaders in carrying out the atrocity to
strike such deadly fear into emigrants that
the route across the Territory would be looked
on as grave. They wanted no knowledge of
the Territory to 60 abroad, and they wanted no
settlements within it, save such as filtered
through the Mormon Church. This is markedly
what the order to exterminate the Arkansas
emigrants meant, no matter what other pre-
tences may have been cunningly circulated to
account for 1t, even among the ignorant Nor
mons, who would do for revenge what they
might fear to do in furtherance of such
bloody policy. What makes it more
horrifying is that after these brave emigrants
had fought successfully against their assassins,
the Mormon militia, for four days, they were
treacherously entrapped by flag of truce
and induced to lay down their arms under
q promise Of security, and then mercilessly
butchered. None but the small children were
spared, and these only, perhaps, because the
lecherous and brutal Mormons thought they
could appropriate persons of such tender years
to their own use. There is nothing in the his
tory of civilized countries more fearfully afro
cious than this massacre, and no act of
treachery more dastardly than that by which
the emigrants were induced to lay down their
arms
It is an awful confession, and one that will
awaken the whole United States to demand
that this dark page in our history be illumi-
mated by full investigation and the prompt