"…Thereupon the Mormons petitioned the legislature to assign them a place of residence, and the thinly populated region afterward known as Caldwell county was designated. Moving there, they bought the claims of most of the inhabitants, and entered several sections of government lands. Almost every member of the society thus became a landholder, some having eighty acres, and some forty. A town was laid out, called Far West, which was made the county seat; they were allowed to organize the government of the county, and to appoint from among their own people the officers. [John Hyde, Mormonism, 203, says that on their arrival in Missouri, Smith and Rigdon began 'to scatter the saints in order to obtain political ascendancy in other counties.' Of the officers then appointed, two of the judges, thirteen magistrates, all the military officers, and the county clerk were Mormons. [Greene, Facts, 18.] Again they found peace for a season, during which their numbers increased, while settlements were made in Daviess county, and elsewhere. Those in Daviess county were on terms of amity with their gentile neighbors. Wight was there, and when Smith and Rigdon arrived from the east they laid out a town named Diahman, which soon rivaled Gallatin, and gradually the [p.118] people of Daviess, like the rest, began to war upon the Mormons.
    To add to the ever-thickening troubles of the prophet, a schism broke out in the church about this time, and there were apostates and deserters, some because of disappointed ambition, and some from shame of what they now regarded as a delusion, but all carrying away with them vindictive feelings toward their former associates, whom they did not hesitate to denounce as liars, thieves, counterfeiters, and everything that is vile. Among these were Joseph's old friends Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, the three witnesses to the book of Mormon; Orson Hyde, Thomas B. Marsh, and W. W. Phelps also seceding. [p.119]
    At Far West on the 4th of July, 1838, assemble from the surrounding districts thousands of the saints, to lay the corner-stone of a temple of God, and to declare their rights as citizens of the commonwealth to safety and protection, as promised by the constitution. They are hated and despised, though they break not the laws of God; they are hunted down and killed, though they break not the laws of the land. To others their faith is odious, their words are odious, their persons and their actions are altogether detestable. They are not idlers, or drunkards, or thieves, or murderers; they are diligent in business as well as fervent in spirit, yet they are devils; they worship what they choose and in their own way, like the dissenters in Germany, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the pilgrims from England, yet their spiritual father is Satan. And now, though thus marked for painful oppression by their fellow-citizens, they come together on the birthday of the nation to raise the banner of the nation, and under it to declare their solemn prerogative to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to the maintenance of which they stand ready to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. This they do. They raise the pole of liberty; they unfold the banner of liberty; they register their vows. Is it all in irony? Is it all a mockery? Or is it the displeasure of omnipotence, which is now displayed because of the rank injustice wrought by the sons of belial under this sacred emblem? God knoweth. We know only that out of heaven conics fire, blasting the offering of the saints! [p.120]
    Sidney Rigdon delivered the oration on this occasion; and being an American citizen, and one of the founders of an American religion, it was perhaps natural for him to indulge in a little Fourth-of-July oratory; it was natural, but under the circumstances it was exceedingly impolitic. "We take God to witness," cries Sidney, "and the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more forever. The man or the set of men who attempt it, do it at the expense of their lives; and that mob that comes on us to disturb us, there shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us; for we will carry the war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed."
    On the 8th of July there was a revelation on tithing. Early in August a conference was held at Diahman, and a military company, called the Host of Israel, was organized after the manner of the priesthood, including all males of eighteen years and over. There were captains of ten, of fifty, and of a hundred; the organization included the entire military force of the church, as had the Kirtland army previously a part of it. ['Every man obeyed the call." John D. Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 57.]
    At length the storm burst. The state election of 1838 was held in Daviess county at the town of Gallatin on the 6th of August. Soon after the polls were opened, William Peniston, candidate for the legislature, mounted a barrel and began to speak, attacking the Mormons with degrading epithets, calling them horse-thieves and robbers, and swearing they should not vote in that county. Samuel Brown, a Mormon, who stood by, pronounced the charges untrue, and said that for one he should vote. Immediately Brown was struck by one Weldon, whose arm, in attempting to repeat the blow, was caught by [p.121] another Mormon, named Durfee. Thereupon eight or ten men, with clubs and stones, fell upon Durfee, whose friends rallied to his assistance, and the fight became general, but with indecisive results. The Mormons voted, however, and the rest of the day passed quietly.

    The War in Missouri.
    On the next day two or three of Peniston's party, in order it was said to stir up the saints to violence, rode over to Far West, one after another, and reported [p.122] a battle as having been fought at Gallatin, in which several of the fraternity were killed. Considerable excitement followed the announcement, and several parties went to Diahman to learn the truth of the matter. Ascertaining the facts, and being desirous of preventing further trouble, one of the brethren went to the magistrate, Adam Black, and proposed bonds on both sides to keep the peace. The proposition was accepted, Joseph Smith and Lyman Wight signing for the Mormons, and Black for the gentiles. The Mormons then returned to Far West; but the people of Daviess county, not approving the action of the magistrate, disputed Black's right to bind them; whereupon, to appease them, Black went to the circuit judge and obtained a writ for the arrest of Smith and Wight on a charge of having forced him, by threats of violence, to sign the agreement. Brought before Judge King at Gallatin, Smith and Wight were released on their own recognizances.
    Nevertheless the excitement increased. In Daviess and adjacent counties, three hundred gentiles met and armed. The Mormons say that the gentiles made prisoners, and shot and stole cattle, and the gentiles say that the Mormons did the same. [Harris wrote that the Saints killed between 100 and 200 hogs and a number of cattle, took at least forty or fifty bee stands of honey, and destroyed several fields of corn, Harris, Mormonism Portrayed, 30-31.] Finally affairs became so alarming that Major-General Atchison concluded to call out the militia of Ray and Clay counties, under command of generals Doniphan and Parks, the latter being stationed in Daviess county. [See Pratt, Autobiography, 191.] Their purposes in that quarter being thus defeated, the men of Missouri threw themselves on a small settlement of saints at DeWitt, where they were joined by a party with a six-pounder from Jackson county. Setting fire [p.123] to the houses, they drove off the inmates and destroyed their property. General Parks then moved his troops to DeWitt, but found the mob too many for him. They openly defied him, would make no compromise, and swore "they would drive the Mormons from Daviess to Caldwell, and from Caldwell to hell." General Atchison then went to DeWitt and told the Mormons that his men were so disaffected that they had better apply for protection to Governor Boggs. [After the evacuation of DeWitt, when our citizens were officially notified that they must protect themselves, they assembled in Far West to the number of one thousand men, or thereabout, and resolved to defend their rights to the last." Pratt, Autobiography, 192-93.] This official returned answer that, as they had brought the war upon themselves, they must fight their own battles, and not look to him for help. Thereupon they abandoned the place, and fled to Far West.
    In order to intercept the mob General Doniphan entered Daviess county with two hundred men, and thence proceeded to Far West, where he camped for the night. In consultation with the civil and military officers of the place, who, though Mormons, were nevertheless commissioned by the state, Doniphan advised them to arm and march to Daviess county and defend their brethren there. Acting on this advice, all armed, some going to Daviess county and some remaining at Far West. The former were met by Parks, who inquired of them all particulars. Shortly afterward some families came in from beyond Grand River, who stated that they had been driven away and their houses burned by a party under C. Gilliam. Parks then ordered Colonel Wight, who held a commission under him as commander of the [p.124] Mormon militia, to disperse the party, which was done, and the cannon in their possession seized, without firing a shot. Spreading into other counties, Gilliam's men raised everywhere the cry that the Mormons were killing people and burning property.
    Soon afterward the Mormon militia returned from Daviess county to Far West, where they learned that a large force under Samuel Bogart, a Methodist clergyman, was plundering and burning houses south of that point, in Ray county, and had taken three men prisoners, one only of whom was a Mormon. Elias Higbee, county judge, ordered the Mormon militia under Captain Patten to retake the prisoners. In passing through a wood Patten came without knowing it upon the encampment of Bogart, whose guard fired without warning, killing one of Patten's men. Patten then attacked, routing Bogart's force, but not preventing the shooting of the Mormon prisoner, though he afterward recovered. In the charge one man was killed, and Patten and one other were mortally wounded. The company captured forty wagons.
    About this time arose the mysterious and much dreaded band that finally took the name of Danites, or sons of Dan, concerning which so much has been said while so little is known, some of the Mormons even denying its existence. But of this there is no question. Says Burton: "The Danite band, a name of fear in the Mississippi Valley, is said by anti-Mormons to consist of men between the ages of seventeen and forty-nine. They were originally termed Daughters of Gideon, Destroying Angels-the gentiles say devils-and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites, from one of whom was prophesied he should be a serpent in the path. They were organized about 1837 under D. W. [p.125] Patten, popularly called Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of blood with gentiles; in fact, they formed a kind of death society, desperadoes, thugs, hashshashiyun-in plain English, assassins in the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare categorically the whole and every particular to be the calumnious invention of the impostor and arch apostate, Mr. John C. Bennett."
    John Hyde, a seceder, states that the Danite band, or the United Brothers of Gideon, was organized on the 4th of July, 1838, and was placed under the command of the apostle David Patten, who for the purpose assumed the name of Captain Fearnot. [Hyde explained, "When the citizens of Carrol and Daviess counties, Mo., began to threaten the Mormons with expulsion in 1838, a death society was organized under the direction of Sidney Rigdon, and with the sanction of Smith. Its first captain was captain Fearnot, alias David Patten an apostle. Its object was the punishment of the obnoxious…. Micah iv. 13, furnished the first name. 'Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs brass, and thou shall beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth." This furnished them with a pretext; it accurately described their intentions… Destroying Angels came next, the Big Fan of the thresher that should thoroughly purge the floor was tried and dropped. Genesis, XLIX 17, furnished the name they finally assumed… 'Dan shall be a serpent by they way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that the rider shall fall backward…. Hyde, Mormonism, 104-105.] [p.126]
    It is the opinion of some that the Danite band, or Destroying Angels as again they are called, was organized at the recommendation of the governor of Missouri as a means of self-defense against persecutions in that state. Thomas B. Marsh, late president of the twelve apostles, and president of the church at Far West, but now a dissenter, having "abandoned the faith of the Mormons from a conviction of their immorality and impiety," testifies that in October, 1838, they "had a meeting at Far West, at which they appointed a company of twelve, by the name of the Destruction Company, for the purpose of burning and destroying." ["The members of this order were placed under the most sacred obligations that language could invent… to stand by each other unto death, to sustain, protect, defend, and obey the leaders of the church under any and all circumstances unto death." Lee, Mormonism, 57-58.]
    The apostate Bennett gives a number of names by which the same society, or divisions of it, were known, such as Daughter of Zion, Big Fan, "inasmuch as it fanned out the chaff from the wheat," Brother of Gideon, Destructive, Flying Angel. The explanation of Joseph, the prophet, was that one Doctor Sampson Arvard, who after being a short time in the church, in order to add to his importance and influence secretly initiated the order of Danites, and held meetings [p.127] organizing his men into companies of tens and fifties, with captains. Then he called the officers together and told them that they were to go forth and spoil the gentiles; but they rejected the proposal, and Arvard was cut off from the church. All the present leaders of the Mormon church deny emphatically the existence of any such band or society as a part of or having anything to do with their organization. [p.128]
    Meanwhile was being matured the bloody tragedy which occurred on the 30th of October near Haun's mill, on Shoal creek, about twenty miles below Far West. Besides the Mormons living there, were a number of emigrants awaiting the cessation of hostilities before proceeding on their journey. It had been agreed between the Mormons and Missourians of that locality that they would not molest each other, but live together in peace. But the men of Caldwell and Daviess counties would not have it so. Suddenly and without warning, on the day above mentioned, mounted and to the number of two hundred and forty, they fell upon the fated settlement. While the men were at their work out of doors, the women in the house, and the children playing about the yards, the crack of a hundred rifles was heard, and before the firing ceased, eighteen of these unoffending people were stretched dead upon the ground, while many more were wounded. I will not enter upon the sickening details, which are copious and fully proven; suffice it to say, that never in savage or other warfare was there perpetrated an act more dastardly and brutal. Indeed, it was openly avowed by the men of Missouri that it was no worse to shoot a Mormon than to shoot an Indian, and killing Indians was no worse than killing wild beasts.
    A somewhat singular turn affairs take at this juncture. It appears that Boggs, governor, and sworn enemy of the saints, does not like the way the war is going on. Here are his own soldiers fighting his own voters, the state forces killing the men who have put [p.129] him in office! This will not do. There is bad blundering somewhere. It is the Mormons only that are to be killed and driven off, and not the free and loyal American Boggs voters. Ho, there! Let the state arms be turned against these damned saints! On what pretext? Any. Say that they are robbing, and burning, and killing right and left, and that they swear they will never stop until they have the country. Easy enough. No doubt they do kill and burn; the men of Missouri are killing them and burning; why should they not retaliate? No doubt there are thieves and bad men among them, who take advantage of the time to practice their vile calling. No doubt there are violent men among them, who swear roundly at those who are hunting them to death, who swear that they will drive them off their lands and kill them if they can. But this does not make insurrectionists and traitors of the whole society. No matter; down with the Mormons! And so Boggs, the governor, seats himself and coolly writes off to his generals to drive out or exterminate the vermin. [p.130]
    Thus it appears that the Missouri state militia, called out in the first instance to assist the Mormon state militia in quelling a Missouri mob, finally joins the mob against the Mormon militia. In none of their acts had the saints placed themselves in an attitude of unlawful opposition to the state authorities; on the other hand, they were doing all in their power to defend themselves and support law and order, save in the matter of retaliation.
    The first the saints of Caldwell county know of the new tactics is the appearance, within half a mile of Far West, of three thousand armed men, under General Lucas, generals Wilson and Doniphan being present, and General Clark with another army being a few days' march distant. General Lucas states that the main business there is to obtain possession of three individuals, whom he names, two of them not Mormons; and for the rest he has only to inform the saints that it is his painful duty either wholly to drive them from the state or to exterminate them. Gilliam and his comrades, who as disguised Indians and white men had been fighting the Mormons, now that the state espouses their cause, join Lucas. General Atchison was at Richmond, in Ray county, when the governor's exterminating order was issued. "I will have nothing to do with so infamous a proceeding," he said, and immediately resigned. [p.131]
    The day following his arrival General Lucas orders George M. Hinkle, colonel commanding the Mormon militia, to bring before him Joseph Smith, junior, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, Caleb Baldwin, and Alexander McRae, which is done, though not without charge of fraud and treachery on the part of Hinkle. A court-martial is immediately held; the prisoners are all condemned, and sentenced to be shot next morning at eight o'clock. "In the name of humanity I protest against any such cold-blooded murder," says General Doniphan who further threatens to withdraw his men if such a course is persisted in; whereupon the sentence is not executed. All the Mormon troops in Far West, however, are required to give up their arms and consider themselves prisoners of war. [They were "confined to the mimits of the town for about a week." Much property was destroyed and citizens abused. The number of arms taken was 630, besides swords and pistols, worth between $12,000 and $15,000. "Memorial to Legislature" in Greene, Facts, 15.] They are further required to execute a deed of trust pledging all Mormon property to the payment of the entire cost of the war, and to give a promise to leave the state before the coming spring.
    Thus in the name of law and justice the Mormon soldiery, whose chief crime it would seem was that, in common with the rest of the militia, they had assisted [p.132] the state in putting down a mob, were forced at the point of the bayonet to sign an obligation, binding not only themselves but the civilians within their settlements to defray the entire expense of the war. This proceeding was sufficiently peculiar; but, as a climax to their conduct, some of the officers and men laid hands on the Mormons' property wherever they could find it, taking no thought of payment.
    General Clark now comes forward, and entering the town of Far West, collects the saints in the public square, reads them a lecture, and selecting fifty of their number, thrusts them into prison. Next day forty-six of the fifty are taken to Richmond, and after a fortnight's confinement half are liberated, [p.133] most of the remainder being set free a week later on giving bail. Lucas then retires with his troops, leaving the country to be ravaged by armed squads that burn houses, insult women, and drive off stock ad libitum. The faint pretext of justice on the part of the state, attending forced sales and forced settlements, might as well have been dispensed with, as it was but a cloak to cover official iniquity. [p.134]
    It did not seem possible to a community convicted of no crime, and living in the nineteenth century, under the flag of the world's foremost republic, that such flagrant wrongs as the Boggs exterminating order, and the enforced treaty under which they were deprived of their property, could be carried into effect. They appealed, therefore, to the legislature [Edward Partridge, Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor, Theodore Turley, Brigham Young, Isaac Morley, George W. Harris, John Murdock, and John M. Burk sent a memorial to the legislature of Missouri, dated 10 December 1838, Far West, setting forth these facts, and praying that the governor's novel, unlawful, tyrannical and oppressive order be rescinded.], demanding justice. But that body was too much with the people and with Boggs to think of justice. To make a show of decency, a committee was appointed and sent to Caldwell and Daviess counties, to look into the matter, but of course did nothing. Another was appointed with like result. Debates continued with more or less show of interest through the month of December. In January, 1839, the Mormons were plainly told that they need expect no redress at the hand of the legislature or other body of Missouri. [p.135] There was no help for them; they must leave the state or be killed; of this they were assured on all sides, publicly and privately.
    And now begins another painful march - painful in the thought of it, painful in the telling of it. It is midwinter; whither can they go, and how? They have homes, but they may not enjoy them; land which they have bought, houses which they have built, and barns and cattle and food, but hereabout they are hunted to death. Is it Russia or Tartary or Hindostan, that people are thus forced to fly for opinion's sake? True, the people of the United States do not like such opinions; they do not like a religious sect that votes solid, or a class of men whom they look upon as fools and fanatics talking about taking the country, claimed as theirs by divine right; but in any event this was no way to settle the difficulty. Here are men who have been stripped in a moment of the results of years of toil - all that they have in the world gone; here are women weighed down with work and care, some whose husbands are in prison, and who are thus left to bear the heavy burden of this infliction alone; here are little children, some comfortably clad, others obliged to encounter the wind and frozen ground with bare heads and bleeding feet."
    [Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1886, 116-135.]