VAIN APPEALS OF THE JACKSON COUNTY SAINTS FOR PROTECTION—THE APPROACH OF ZION'S CAMP—ATTEMPTS TO RAISE AN OPPOSING ARMY—JAMES CAMPBELL'S PROPHECY AND ITS FULFILLMENT—A PROVIDENTIAL STORM—REMARKABLE RISE OF FISHING RIVER—JOSEPH STATES THE OBJECT OF ZION'S CAMP—A COMFORTING REVELATION.  
While the Prophet was encountering and overcoming many difficulties to bring succor to the Saints, the latter were engaged in a vain struggle to secure their rights. Correspondence passed between their leaders and the civil officers from the judges up to the President of the United States. Many of the appeals brought polite replies, but they resulted in no effective aid. Governor Dunklin sent several communications recognizing and deploring the wrongs inflicted, but stating he could not, without transcending his power, order a military force to maintain the Saints in their Jackson County possessions. The latter sentiment was also the substance of the reply from the Secretary of War in behalf of the President of the United States. It is worthy of note that in all of the correspondence upon this question not a single charge is made against the Saints. It proves that in all things they were the sufferers from wrong, and not the doers of wrong; because the men to whom they appealed would have been quick to offer an excuse for their failure to extend redress.
 
Possibly the Governor thought he had done enough when he filled his correspondence with high-minded and sympathetic sentiments; but of what avail was it to the Saints for him to say to them as follows?
 
On the subject of civil injuries, I must refer you to the courts; such questions rest with them exclusively. The laws are sufficient to afford a remedy for every injury of this kind, and, whenever you make out a case, entitling you to damages, there can be no doubt entertained of their ample award. Justice is sometimes slow in its progress, but it is not less sure on that account.
 
This is but a repetition practically of what he had said before without avail. Was not this almost a mockery of the people's disasters? It was at least a satire upon the persistent denial of the judicial officers in Jackson County to do justice. Later a court of inquiry was convened at Independence, under military guard; but the mob defied all the authority of law, scoffed at the Governor's order, subdued the court into a state of terror, and laughed at the troops as they were withdrawn. A court martial was convened and it found Colonel Pitcher guilty of calling upon the militia to repress an insurrection where there was no insurrection, and decided that he had taken arms from the citizens who were lawfully seeking to defend themselves against unlawful aggression; but the Governor in vain commanded the officers to restore the arms to the people from whom they had been stolen. Although repeated orders were issued by his Excellency those arms never were and to this day have not been returned.
 
The assaults of the mob on the scattered Saints and their property in Jackson County continued. In the latter part of April, 1834, one hundred and fifty houses were torn to the ground by the rabble.
 
Joseph and his party found a branch of the Church at Salt River, in the state of Missouri, where they encamped to spend Sunday, the 8th of June. Here they were joined by Hyrum Smith and Lyman Wight with another party which had been gathered in the State of Michigan and surrounding regions; and the Camp of Zion with this addition now numbered two hundred and five men and twenty-five wagons well laden. Several days were devoted to much needed recuperation, for the greater part of this devoted band of men had traveled nine hundred miles in a little more than a month's time, the journey being largely made on foot amidst all the natural hardships of a wild country where constant watchfulness had to be exercised.
 
On the 18th of June they pitched their tents within one mile of Richmond in Ray County. Two days previous to this time a mass meeting had been held at the court house in Liberty, Clay County, to consider propositions made by the people of Jackson County to the exiled Saints. Flaming war speeches were delivered by civil officers and by sectarian priests from Jackson County, who had hoped to arouse the hospitable people of Clay against their inoffensive guests, the Saints. Because General Doniphan and the chairman of the meeting, a Mr. Turnham, counseled peace and decency, the old spirit of savage violence broke loose with all its virulence on the part of the representatives from Independence, and the meeting ended with a stabbing affray between two members of the former mob, in which one of them was dangerously wounded. The leading men among the Saints presented an answer in which they asked for time and in which they deprecated any hostilities upon either side during the pendency of the negotiation. It was at once manifest that the proposition of the mobocrats had been but a sham to cover further violence. The news of the approach of the Prophet and his brethren in an organized camp had reached the ears of these infuriated men, and they felt that he was putting himself in their power. They counted with entire certainty upon the inability of the officers of the law to prevent their carrying out any fell purpose which they might adopt against the Latter-day Saints. If there was an official who did not justify them in their attacks upon the believers in this unpopular religion, they expected to overawe him; but from the Governor down they knew they had secret sympathy if not their active aid. With all their innocence and excellence, therefore, the Latter-day Saints could place no reliance upon the laws and the safeguards of civilized society to protect them if these desperadoes chose to attac............