He knew that the area was no fruit basket but he
thought the saints could survive on what
crops they could grow. Prophet Young had not
counted on was the not so user friendly farming
conditions in southern Utah with its and that
most of the saints were novice farmers.
The Theocracies' approximately 6000 southern
Utah saints were able to survive but that is about all they were doing. The Church's treasury was struggling due to the inability of the saints to make significant incomes conducive to Prophets Young's expectations. Tithing 10% o
f nothing equals nothing.
The LDS Church has knowingly sponsored, endorsed, and forever immortalized this butcher into history.
James Buchanan had just been elected the 15th President of the of the United States notified Brigham Young that if the Polygamy issue was not resolved U. S. Troops would be sent into the territory. Young assured President Buchanan of his allegiance to the United States government. At the same time his sermons warned the saints of the impending invasions by United States troops and told them to prepare for war with the US Government.
Brigham Young looked upon the threat to invade the Theocracy as a chance to hype the Saints into a mistrustful defensive posture.
He sent messages into the south advising the local church leaders on a plan to prepare each ward and the militia on the future tactics involving immigrant trains. He also had meetings in Salt Lake City attended by church leaders and Indian Chiefs involving the division of bounty from future wagon trains.
When the Fancher wagon train arrived in Early August George Smith had been down in southern Utah as a messenger from Brigham Young advising the Mormon along the southern route on how to handle the next wagon train south. No supplies were to be sold to the wagon train, and the ambush of the wagon train had been set for Mountain Meadows. (List of massacre victims)
The Fancher train encamped outside of Salt Lake City while the Captain's Fancher and Baker rode into Salt Lake City looking for supplies. They were met with hostility and were unable to purchase necessary supplies, so they could continue their trip on the northern route crossing seven-thousand-fort Donner Pass before late October.
After the wagon train Captains returned to camp, Apostle Charles C. Rich a member of the Council of Fifty arrived, with an order for them to leave the subsequent day and talked them into taking the southern route coolly setting up the train for their eventual fate. The emigrant company would be the first to take the southern route that summer.
The LDS Churches' propaganda machine went into action as soon as the party left Salt Lake City preceding them into southern Utah . Every attempt to re-supply a long the route was met with antagonistic slurs and sullen refusal. False rumors were spread by the Saints that the emigrant wagon train's women are prostitutes and the men were Missouri Wildcats. The poisoning death of an oxen and an Indian brave by members of the California bound emigrant train were also falsely reported.
Near the town of Springville on the route south a large number of Mormon defectors joined the train. The new members advised half starved and already suspicious wagon train members of the Mormon hysteria. The Fancher Train by this time knew who their enemy was and increased the security by posting extra sentries around the circled wagons at night.
At Corn Creek on August 25th they came upon the first friendly people since they had left Salt Lake City these people sold the Fancher-Baker party thirty bushels of Corn. The people that sold them the corn were Indians. Later after being repeatedly rebuffed along the route they found a friendly Mormon and his 6 grown sons that near Cedar City . The Mormon sold them 50 bushels of wheat and agreed to grind their corn. An Elder from the church was sent to tell him to stop and he refused to obey the order from Bishop Klingensmith. The friendly Mormon was very lucky he was only excommunicated for his disobedient act against Brigham Young and the LDS Church .
On September the 4th the wagon train arrived at Mountain Meadows and hastily parked their wagons at the south end failing to circle the wagons as they normally did. A number of just routine security mistakes were made which have historians puzzled to this day. First they did not circle the wagons over the fresh spring securing access to water, and second to post armed sentries.
During breakfast on the morning of September 7th shoots rang out, 7 men were immediately fatally wounded and both Captains Baker and Fancher were wounded seriously. The wagon train had been taken completely by surprise. The emigrant men hurriedly took control getting the women and children to cover and circling and digging in the wagons.
After a five day siege the emigrants were low on all supplies. The lack of water was a very large problem with the spring only a few feet away but inaccessible due to sniper fire. Several attempts to fetch water ended in the deaths of the brave souls making the attempt. The wagon train had an estimated twenty loads left for their Kentucky rifles. All of the attempts of riders leaving the wagon train to get help resulted in those parties eventual fatal demise. The nearest Gentile settlement was hundreds of miles away across miles of desert.
On September 11th John D. Lee, the Mormon leader of the siege, under a flag of truce walked into the emigrant camp and under the use of treachery convinced the emigrants to surrender. The emigrants, in a hopeless situation, gave up all their worldly belongings with a promise of safe passage back to Cedar City . The wounded were placed in the lead wagons ahead of the line of women and children. The Mormons then made the men lined up in single file in a designated distance behind the woman and children. When John D. Lee gave the order “Do your duty” the emigrate men were shot and the women and children were killed by having their throats slit and clubbed to death by the Mormon Clubbers and Shooters. “Scapegoat” John D. Lee was witnessed to have raped and slit the throats of two young girls himself.
When the cold blooded butchery had stopped the Mormons had killed everyone old enough to be a credible witness, which left seventeen children survivors under the age of five to be taken to the nearby Hamblin Ranch.
The next day some of the Mormon killers returned to the murder site and for the next two days stripped all of the bodies of their clothes, carefully collecting all of the gold coins and jewelry from the pockets of their victims. The tithing room at the Cedar City LDS ward was filled with the bounty from the Massacre.
Nauvoo Legion Lieutenant, Nephi Johnson, a participant in the massacre related at his deposition that most of the killing was done by white men. Massacre survivor Kit Carson Fancher related that the two men that shot his father were Indians until they washed their faces then they were white men.
No matter how you slice the pie Brigham Young was involved in the Massacre due to the fact he was the Leader of the LDS Church . The fairy tale that Brigham Young sent a messenger to stop the massacre is just that a fairy tale. The messenger was sent on September 10th and it is a 270 mile horse back ride. The messenger would have had to of taken a direct flight on Moroni to have made it on time to Mountain Meadows to have saved the emigrates.
John Hawley made these statements in his testimony concerning the Smoot investigation:
"I went to Salt Lake City in 1856. They gave the endowments of washing and anointing, and then there was an oath taken in Utah to avenge the blood of the prophet... In taking the endowments at Salt Lake there was the oath required, and the oath that was required was to 'avenge the death or blood of the prophet.' We were made to swear to avenge the death of Joseph Smith the Martyr, together with that of his brother Hyrum, on this American nation, and that we should teach our children and children's children to do so. 'The penalty for this grip and oath was disembowelment,' I would not have discussed the method of these endowments when I was a member of the Utah Church . The penalty for revealing or disclosing these secrets was disembowelment. The grips and tokens of the priesthood were what we were not to disclose... I kept the obligation while living in Salt Lake City ."
*Note: If the Mormon Participants had of made an oath to Jesus Christ instead of the LDS Church, the Mountain Meadows Massacre would have never occurred. The sign on their Church has no reverence to Jesus Christ only to LATTER DAY SAINTS.
It is well know that Brigham Young had complete control of the Theocracy and his punishment for insubordination was very severe. There is no record of Prophet Young ever punishing anyone for the Massacre, as a matter of fact he protected and hid out his confidant, faithful servant, adopted son and brother-in-law John D. Lee for over 20 years.
John D. Lee made over $4000 off of the bounty he took in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Not a bad weekly income for 1857.
Juanita Brooks fervently contended that John D. Lee would have carried out no orders which he thought would be contrary to the wishes of Brigham Young.
In 1858 BRIGHAM YOUNG received a presidential pardon for his part in the atrocities at Mountain Meadows from President Buchanan.
