BOMBARDMENT OF DE WITT—APPEAL OF THE SAINTS TO GOVERNOR BOGGS—HIS HEARTLESS REPLY—JOSEPH'S PRESENCE ENCOURAGES THE BRETHREN—THE SAINTS LEAVE THEIR POSSESSIONS IN DE WITT—THEY GO TO FAR WEST—ADAM ONDI-AHMAN DEVASTATED—THE SAINTS ORGANIZE FOR DEFENSE—JOSEPH CONTROLS A MOB WHO DESIGN TO MURDER HIM—APOSTASY OF THOMAS B. MARSH—DEATH OF DAVID W. PATTEN—"WHATEVER YOU DO ELSE, OH, DO NOT DENY THE FAITH."
Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.
On the 5th day of October, 1838, word came to the Prophet of the bombardment of the town of De Witt, in Carroll County, by a mob army with muskets and artillery. The ravenous wretches, many of whom had been in the militia companies of Atchison, Doniphan and Parks, foiled for the moment in Daviess and Caldwell Counties, had concentrated upon the more remote and defenseless places for the purpose of plundering the Saints and driving them forth. As soon as Joseph heard the news he hastened to the scene of conflict. The rage of the mob naturally fell against him more heavily than against anyone else; but it was his nature always to be where danger threatened his brethren.
It was on the 2nd of October that the mob, under the leadership of Dr. Austin, Major Ashley, a member of the legislature, and Sashiel Woods, a Presbyterian clergyman, fired first upon the town of De Witt. They continued during that day and the next, when they were reinforced by two companies of militia under the command of Captains Bogart and Houston, who were soon followed by Brigadier-General Parks. It is not wrong to speak of these troops as a reinforcement of the mob. They were nothing else. Bogart was a Methodist preacher by profession, and only led the company of militia to De Witt for the purpose of wreaking the sectarian vengeance of a bigot upon the Saints. Parks himself confessed that Bogart's men would not be controlled and were with the mob in feeling; and this was the General's excuse for allowing the outrages of this time to go unchecked. On the 4th of October, after forty-eight hours of siege, the people of the town, in command of Colonel Hinkle, returned the fire. Parks made no effort to check the mob's plan of organized murder. On the 6th he coolly wrote in his report to Atchison, as follows:
The Mormons are at this time too strong and no attack is expected before Wednesday or Thursday next, at which time Dr. Austin [who with Bogart was leader of the mob] hopes his forces will amount to five hundred men, when he will make a second attempt on the town of De Witt, with small arms and cannon. In this posture of affairs I can do nothing but negotiate between the parties until further aid is sent me.
Evidently in this posture of affairs Parks wanted to do nothing. The "Mormons" were too strong. He would wait until Austin's rabble increased to five hundred, and by that time he hoped to have more companies of militia, which in turn would swell the ranks of the plundering besiegers. Parks' conduct indicates his utter lack of conscience; because in the same letter he says: "As yet they, the Mormons, have acted only on the defensive as far as I can learn."
General Lucas had been an observer of the gathering at De Witt and had been informed that a fight had taken place there, in which several persons were killed. Upon this he wrote to the Governor that if his information was true it would create excitement in the whole of Upper Missouri, "and those base and degraded beings will be exterminated from the face of the earth." He added that if one of the citizens of Carroll should be killed, before five days there would be raised against the "Mormons" five thousand volunteers whom nothing but blood would satisfy. Without attempting to suggest a remedy to Boggs, this cruel and sanguinary Lucas significantly informs his Excellency that his troops of the fourth division were only dismissed subject to further order and could be called into the field at an hour's warning. He wanted to share in the work of extermination!
These events had happened before the Prophet reached De Witt. It was a trying journey, in which he had been obliged to travel by unfrequented roads and had put his life in constant jeopardy because mobs guarded every ingress to the town. When Joseph entered the place he found the brethren only a handful in comparison to their assailants. Their provisions were exhausted, and there was no prospect of obtaining more. The Prophet concluded to send a message to the Governor and secured the services of several influential and honest gentlemen who lived in that vicinity and who had been witnesses of the wanton attack upon the Saints. These men were bold as well as honest for they made affidavit of the outrages which had been perpetrated within their sight, and they accompanied the supplication for redress to the executive office. The answer of the men who had been chosen by the suffrages of his fellow-citizens as the chief officer of the state, sworn to uphold its honor, protect its dignity and maintain the supremacy of its laws, was only this:
The quarrel is between the Mormons and the mob, and they may fight it out.
Joseph's presence was a solace and a sustaining power to the Saints. He animated them by the courage of his presence and taught them patience by his own tenacity of endurance. He was not there as a warrior; he did not bear arms; and yet he was a tower of strength to his brethren.
Mobs were gathering in from Ray, Saline, Howard, Livingston, Clinton, Clay, Platte and other parts of the state to reinforce the besiegers. For the combined assailants a man named Jackson was chosen as the leader. The Saints were forbidden to leave the town under penalty of death. It was the purpose to starve them, since even this large crowd of mobbers, outnumbering the Saints ten to one, feared to risk a hand to hand contest. Fires were set to some of the houses; the cattle were stolen and roasted; the horses were driven off; while the mob made merry in feasting within sight of the starving people whom they had plundered.
Joseph directed applications for protection to the judges of the circuit court and in other quarters but without avail; for where aid was given, it consisted of men willing to join and abet the mobs and to share in the spoils. In the town, men were perishing for want of food; women and children cried for bread. There was no hope of earthly succor.
In this crisis, Henry Root and David Thomas, two men who had been the sole cause of the settlement at De Witt, solicited the Saints to leave the place, claiming that they had assurance from the besiegers that, in such case, no further attack would be made and all the losses would be paid. Yielding to a necessity the Saints agreed to this proposition. A committee of appraisement was appointed from men not connected with the Saints. They placed a meagre value on the bare land, and said nothing about the houses and other improvements which were still standing or had been destroyed by the mob, and nothing about the stock and the vehicles which had been run off. It was, however, an unnecessary economy of valuation; because the price, meagre as it was, has never been paid.
On the 11th day of October, 1838, the Prophet and the Saints vacated De Witt and started for Caldwell with the small remnants of their possessions which they could gather and hope to convey. They were harassed continually on the journey by the mob which, in violation of its pledge, fired upon the retreating people. Among the exiles men died from fatigue and starvation—for the journey was greatly hurried because of the mobocratic threats; and one poor woman, who had given birth to a child on the very eve of the banishment, died on the journey and was buried in a grave without a coffin.
The experience at De Witt and on the journey from that place to Far West taught the Prophet and the Saints anew that they had no hope of protection, no hope of redress, while they remained in Missouri; and no hope that if they attempted to leave they would not be set upon and massacred by the blood-thirsty mob. Nothing was left them but to organize in some fashion for self defense, as they came fleeing into Far West from all the surrounding country, leaving their worldly all and glad to escape with their lives.
The tiger spirit of the mob had grown upon its food. As the brethren left De Witt, Sashiel Woods called many of the mobocrats together and invited them to hasten into Daviess County to continue their work there. He said that the land sales were coming on, and that if the "Mormons" could be first driven out the mob could get all the land entitled t............