page_title: Nauvoo Legion
section_title: Legion survival after death of Joseph Smith
hierarchical_section_title: Nauvoo Legion / Legion survival after death of Joseph Smith
caption_attribution_description: Mountain Meadows massacre
context_page_description: The Nauvoo Legion was a state-authorized militia of the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, United States. With growing antagonism from surrounding settlements it came to have as its main function the defense of Nauvoo, and surrounding Latter Day Saint areas of settlement.
  The Illinois state legislature granted Nauvoo a liberal city charter that gave the Nauvoo Legion extraordinary independence even though it was still a component of the Illinois State Militia and under the ultimate authority of the Governor of Illinois. Led by Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement and a mayor of Nauvoo, the Legion quickly became a formidable concentration of military power.
  Previously, from May to June 1834 Joseph Smith led an expedition of Latter Day Saints, known as Zion's Camp from Kirtland, Ohio to Clay County, Missouri in an attempt to regain land from which the Saints had been expelled by non-Mormon settlers. He organized the first Mormon militia group known as the "Armies of Israel" to protect his people.
  In 1844, after a controversy where the
context_section_description: The Nauvoo Legion survived the loss of its commanding officer, Joseph Smith, when Brigham Young automatically assumed command as the new church president in August 1844, though he had never previously been active in Legion activities because Young was in England on a proselytizing mission for several years and only returned home to Nauvoo when hearing of the prophet's death to assist the family and church and citizens of Nauvoo during that sad tragedy (citation needed). Rather than employ the Legion to protect Nauvoo from increased mob violence, Young directed Nauvoo's tens of thousands of citizens to migrate peacefully to the western part of the continent which wasn't yet part of the United States and they founded the territory of Utah. Nauvoo was officially abandoned and the last remaining citizens had vacated Nauvoo by September 17, 1846, under gunfire and cannon artillery barrage as Illinois and Missouri militia and mobs raided and burned Nauvoo to the ground (citation needed).
  Upon the revocation of the Nauvoo Charter in the winter of 1844–1845, the Nauvoo Legion was no longer recognized as state militia, and its members returned the majority of its government-issued arms. Depleted of its official status, remnants assumed roles such as guardians of the handcart and wagon companies heading west after being reorganized by Hosea Stout on September 22, 1846, as they amassed on the other side of the Mississippi River in the territory of Iowa where the citizens of Nauvoo were safe from attack by mobs and Illinois and Missouri militia, and waited for winter to end so they could migrate (citation needed). An area memorialized by the somber Far West cemetery and LDS Temple.
  There are however some reported incidents in diaries of Saints concerning gunfire exchange between legion members and mobs during the Nauvoo era (citation needed). And also legion members participated in the rescue of Joseph from the state Militia who had unlawfully arrested him after luring him to what was supposed to be a peaceful political debate and were going to hang him (citation needed).
caption: The Utah Territorial Militia was known as the Nauvoo Legion and accused of perpetrating the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in which 120–140 non-Mormon settlers were murdered.
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