Peace Overture

    [Following the tragedy of Haun's Mill], "Joseph Smith knew that Far West was doomed. Outnumbered, outgunned, defeat was inevitable. Far West would be another Haun's Mill- a hundred times multiplied. Secretly he sought out Reed Peck and John Corrill, suspected dissenters both, but for that very reason respected and accepted by the Gentiles. They, too, were known personally to General Doniphan. Joseph Smith sent them out into the night. They were to contact Doniphan in the militia camp. They were to use every overture to beg for peace.
    But the Prophet was not blind to the possibility that any hint of Far West's surrender might panic the already worried defenders, and bring the militia swarming upon them, Rapaciously drunk with Victory; their flesh itching for the spoils of war. So outwardly and grandiosely, he went through the masquerade of the warrior prophet, confident of victory, serenely promising that heaven itself was on the side of the Saints. Inwardly, that the Far West defenders were outnumbered five to one. He knew that their chances of coming out of the struggle alive were slender indeed. His worst fears were confirmed with the dawning.

    The assault camp had grown by the arrival of the Lucas-Clark army. And, as morning progressed, they watched the vast camp continuously augmented by the arrival of hundreds more – including Neil Gilliam's forces from western Missouri, painted and garbed like Indians, and… wild and drunken… Nervously, triggered-anxious, both sides waited for the killing to start. The prophet tried, with a bravado he did not feel, to whip up courage and bolster the morale of the town's vastly outnumbered defenders, by personal visits to the men dug in at the salients. The remaining army, and the women and children, were gathered at the square, and there he addressed them. Soberly he recounted the long series of outrages the Saints had suffered at the hands of Missourians. Step by step he reviewed the events which had led to the present impasse.…"