57th Congress ( HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ) Document No.
605
1st
Session. ) (
MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE
Congress of the
In the House of
Representatives
Resolves, that there be
printed as a House document 5,000 copies of the Special Report of the Mountain
Meadows Massacre, as compiled by J. H. Carleton, Brevet Major, United States
Army, Captain First Dragoons.
Attest: A.
McDowell,
Clerk
SPECIAL
REPORT OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE BY J. H. CARLETON, BREVET MAJOR; UNITED
STATES ARMY, CAPTAIN, FIRST DRAGOONS.
-------------------o0o-----------------
Camp at Mountain Meadows,
Major: When I left
Dr. Brewer, United States Army, whom I met with Captain Campbell’s
command on the
The Doctor says the train consisted of, say, 40 wagons,
There were a few tents besides, which the emigrants used in addition to these
wagons when they encamped. There seemed to be about 40 heads of families, many
women, some unmarried, and many children. A doctor accompanied them. The train
seemed to consist of respectable people, well to do in the world. They were
well dressed, were quiet, orderly, genteel; had fine stock; had three carriages
along, and other evidences which went to show that this was one of the finest
trains that had been seen to cross the plains. It was so
remarked upon by the officers who were with the doctor at that time.
From reports afterwards received, and comparing the dates with the probable
rate of travel, he believed this was the identical train
which was destroyed at Mountain Meadows.
I could get no information of these emigrants of a date anterior to this.
Here seems to be given the first glimpse of their
number, character, and condition; and an authentic glimpse, too, if the train
destroyed was the one seen by the doctor, of which there can hardly be any
doubt. The doctor was confirmed in his belief that the
train he saw was the one destroyed, by many reasons. Among them
one fact seemed to be very convincing. He observed a carriage in the train in
which some ladies rode, to whom he made one or more
visits as they journeyed along. There was something peculiar in the
construction of the carriage and its ornaments—its blazoned stag’s head upon
the panels, etc. This carriage, he says, is now in the possession of the
Mormons. Besides, he afterwards heard as a fact that this train had been entirely destroyed.
The people who owned it would not have been likely to have to sell such
an important part of their means of transportation midway their journey.
The road upon which these emigrants were seen by Dr. Brewer crosses the
Rocky Mountains through the South Pass, and thence goes on down into the Great
Basin to Salt Lake City, and thence Southward along the western base of the
Wasatch Mountains to what is called the rim of the basin. Here the “divide” is crossed, when it descends upon the valley of the
From Hamblin’s house over the rim of the basin to the southern point of
the Mountain Meadows, where there is a large spring, is 4 miles, 1,000 yards.
This swell of land or watershed, called the rim of the basin, runs west across
nearly midway the valley called the Mountain Meadows. This valley runs north
and south; its northern portion is drained into the
basin, its southern toward the
The Pah Vent Indians live near
The train of emigrants proceeding southward from Fillmore
toward the Mountain Meadows are next seen, so far as my inquiries go, by a Mr.
Jacob Hamblin, a leading Mormon, who has charge of “the Fort,” on the Santa
Clara, and resides there in the winter season, but who has a cattle ranch and a
house, where he lives in the summer time, at the Mountain Meadows. I here give what he said, and which
I wrote down sentence by sentence, as he related it. He told me he had given
the same information to Judge Cradlebaugh:
About the middle of August, 1857, I started on a
visit to
This information I got in conversation with one of the men of the train.
The people seemed to be ordinary frontier ‘homespun’ people, as a general
thing. Some of the outsiders were rude and rough and calculated to get the ill
will of the inhabitants. Several of the men asked me about the condition of the road and the disposition of the Indians, and where there would
be a good place to recruit their stock.
I asked them how many men they had. They said they had between forty and
fifty “that would do to tie to.” I told them I considered if they would keep a good lookout that the
Indians did not steal their animals, half that number would be safe, and that
the Mountain Meadows was the best place
to recruit their animals before they entered upon the desert, I recommended
this spring, and the grazing about here, four miles south of my house, as the
place where they should stop. The most of these men seemed to have
families with them. They remarked that this one train was
made up near
There was some considerable excitement about it among the
citizens of Fillmore and among the Pah-Vent Indian
who live within 8 miles of that place. I was told that eighteen
head of cattle had died from drinking the water; that six of the Pah-Vents had been poisoned from eating the flesh of the
cattle that died, and that one or two of these Indians had also died. Mr.
Robinson, a citizen of Fillmore, whose son was buried
the day I got there, said that the boy had been poisoned in ‘trying out’ the
tallow of the dead cattle. I am satisfied that he believed what he said about
it. I thought at the time that the spring had been poisoned
as stated. I encamped that night with a company from
I afterwards met, between Beaver and Pine Creek, Colonel Daim [William H. Dame] of Parowan, who confirmed what these
people from
I told him what I had heard. He told me it was true, and that all the
Indians in the Southern Country were greatly excited and “All Hell” could not
stop them from killing or from at least robbing the other train of its stock.
He further stated that several interpreters from the
The next morning, which, I think, was the 18th
of September, 1857, I arrived at my ranch, 4 miles from the Meadows.
Here I had left my family. I found at the ranch three little white girls in the
care of my wife, the oldest six or seven years of age, the next about three,
and the next about one. The youngest had been shot
through one of her arms below the elbow by a large ball, breaking both bones
and cutting the arm half off. My wife, having a young child of her own, and
these three little orphans besides, my home appeared to be anything but
cheerful. About one or two o’clock that day I came down to the point where the
massacre had taken place, in company with an
Indian boy named Albert, who had been brought up in my family.
The boy told me that the inhabitants from
The following summer, when the bones had lost their flesh, I reburied
them, assisted by a Mr. Fuller.
The Indians have told me that they made an attack on the emigrants
between daylight and sunrise as the men were standing around the camp fires, killing and wounding 15 at the first charge,
which was delivered from the ravine near the spring close to the wagons and
from a hill to the west. That the emigrants immediately
corralled their wagons and threw up an intrenchment
to shelter themselves from the balls. When I first saw the ditch, it was
about 4 feet deep and the bank about 2 feet high. The
Indians say they then ran off the stock but kept parties at the spring to
prevent the emigrants from getting to the water, the emigrants firing upon them
every time they showed themselves, and they returned the fire. This was kept up for six or seven days. The Indians say that they
lost but one man,
killed and three or four wounded.
At the end of six or seven days, they say, a man among them who could
talk English called to the emigrants and told them if they would go back to the
settlements and leave all their property, especially their arms, they would
spare their lives, but if they did not do so they would kill the whole of them.
The emigrants agreed to this and started back on the road toward my ranch.
About a mile from the spring there are some scrub-oak
bushes and tall sage growing on either side of the road and close to it. Here a
large body of Indians lay in ambush, who, when the
emigrants approached, fell upon them in their defenseless condition and with
bows and arrows and stones and guns and knives murdered all, without regard to
sex or age, except a few infant children, seventeen of which have since been
recovered.
This is what the Indians told me nine days after the massacre took place.
From the position of the bodies this latter part of
their story seems to be corroborated, and I should judge that the women and
children were in advance of the men when the last attack upon them was made.
When I buried the bones last summer, I observed that about one third of the
skulls were shot through with bullets and about one
third seem to be broken with stones.
The train I sent Leavett [Leavitt] to protect had
gotten as far as the canyon, 5 miles below the Muddy, when the Indians made a
descent upon its loose stock, driving off, as the immigrants have since said,
200 head of cattle. Leavett and the other
interpreters recovered between 75 and 100 head, which were
brought to my ranch. Of these the Indians
afterwards demanded and stole some 40 head, and last January I turned over to
These are all the facts within my knowledge connected with the
destruction of the one and the passing along of the other of these two trains.
Mrs. Hamblin is a simple minded person of about
45, and evidently looks with the eyes of her husband at everything. She may really have been taught by the Mormons to believe it is
no great sin to kill gentiles and enjoy their property. Of
the shooting of the emigrants, which she had herself heard, and knew at the
time what was going on, she seemed to speak without a shudder, or any very
great feeling; but when she told of the 17 orphan children who were brought by
such a crowd to her house of one small room there in the darkness of night, two
of the children cruelly mangled and the most of them with their parents’ blood
still wet upon their clothes, and all of them shrieking with terror and grief
and anguish, her own mother heart was touched. She at least deserves
kind consideration for her care and nourishment of the three sisters, and for
all she did for the little girl, “about one year old who had been shot through
one of her arms, below the elbow, by a large ball, breaking both bones and
cutting the arm half off.”
A Snake Indian boy, called Albert Hamblin, but whose Indian name was a word which meant “hungry,” who is now about 17 or 18 years
of age, says that Mr. Jacob Hamblin brought him beyond where
In the first part of September a year and a half ago, I was at Mr.
Hamblin’s ranch 4 miles from here. My business was to herd the sheep. I saw the
train come along the road and pass down this way. It was near sundown. I drove the
sheep home and went after wood, when I saw the train encamp at this spring from
a
When the train passed me, I saw a good many women and children. It was
night when I got home. Another Indian boy, named John, who lives at the Vegas
and talked some English, was with me. He lived with a man named Sam Knight, at
Indians driving off all the stock and
shoot some of the cattle; at the same time we could see shooting going on down
around the train; emigrants shooting at the Indians
from the corral of wagons, and Indians shooting at them from the tops of the
hills around. In this way they fought on for about a
week.
I asked an Indian what he was killing those people for.
He was mad, and told me unless I kept ‘my mouth shut’ he would kill me. Three
men came down from
John and I could see where the Indians were hid in the oak bushes and
sage right by the side of the road a mile or more on their route; and I said to
John, I would like to know what the emigrants left their wagons for, as they
were going into “a worse fix than ever they saw.” The women were on ahead with the children.
The men were behind, altogether ’twas a big crowd. Soon as they got to the place where the Indians were hid in the bushes each side of
the road, the Indians pitched right into them and commenced shooting them with
guns and bows and arrows, and cut some of the men’s throats with knives. The
men run in every direction, the Indians after them yelling and whooping. Soon
as the women and children saw the Indians spring out of the bushes, they all
cried out so loud that John and I heard them.
The women scattered and tried to hide in the bushes, but the Indians shot
them down; two girls ran up the slope towards the east about a quarter of
a mile; John and I ran down and tried to
save them; the girls hid in some bushes. A man, who is an Indian doctor, also
told the Indians not to kill them. The girls then came out and hung around him
for protection, he trying to keep the Indians away. The girls were crying out loud. The Indians came up and seized
the girls by their hands and dresses and pulled and pushed them away from the
doctor and shot them. By this time it was dark,
and the other Indians came down the road and had got nearly through killing all
the others. They were about half an hour killing the people from the time they
first sprang out upon them from the bushes.
Some time in the night Tullis
and the Indians brought some of the children in a wagon up to the house. The
children cried nearly all night. One little one, a baby, just commencing to
walk around, was shot through the arm. One of the girls had
been hit through the ear. Many of the children’s clothes were bloody.
The next morning we kept three children and the rest were taken to
The Indians stripped naked the dead bodies; that is all the men; some of
the women had their underclothes left. There were a good many
men who came over from Pinto Creek and about, and stayed around the
house while the fight went on. I saw John D. Lee there about the house during
that time. He lives in Harmony--and Richard Robinson, Prime Coleman, Amos
Thornton, Brother Dickinson, who all live at Pinto Creek.
This Albert Hamblin is nearly a grown man in point of size, and from
appearance and bearing has evidently had engrafted upon his native viciousness
all the bad traits of the community in which he lives. Two of the children are said to have pointed him out to Dr. Forney as an Indian
whom they saw kill their two sisters.
His story is artfully made up, evidently part
truth and part falsehood. Leavitt could not have passed up from “The Fort” to
In this Indian’s statement that some of the Mormons at the house were
“pitching horseshoe quoits,” a glance is given at the
fiendish levity with which the murdering, day by day, of this artfully
entrapped party of gentile men, women and children was regarded. This “pitching
of horseshoe quoits” was during the time when dropping shots from the Indians
and the other Mormon concealed around the springs and behind the crest of hills
kept back the perishing emigrants from water. There was time enough for some to
go up to Hamblin’s house for refreshments. No danger of the
emigrants getting away. It was all safe in that quarter. “There is time
enough for us to have a game of quoits, the other boys
will take care of matters down there.”
The general will hardly fail to observe the discrepancy between Hamblin’s
statement and that of Albert in relation to the burial of the two girls and in
relation to the burial of the bodies of the others who had
been murdered. Hamblin says the people from
Albert had evidently been trained in his
statement. He gave much of it after cross-questioning,
keeping always the Mormons in the background and the Indians conspicuously the
prominent figures and actors, as Hamblin and his wife had endeavored to do. It
was not until after I told him that Hamblin and his wife had informed me that
John D. Lee and other Mormons were there and had asked him how it was possible
he had not seen them, that he recollected about
“Brother Lee” and “Brothers” Prime Coleman, Amos Thornton, Richard Robinson,
and “Brother” Dickinson from Pinto Creek. He too had fallen into the general custom
of the people and called every man “brother.”
I questioned other Mormons in relation to the massacre, but many of them
said they had moved from the northern part of the Territory since it took place;
others, that they were harvesting at Parowan, Cedar, and at “The Fort,” and
knew nothing of it until it was all over. Even “Brother” Prime Coleman [said]
that he was harvesting near Parowan just before that time with Brother Benjamin
Nell, but when the massacre took place he was down on
the
He and Hatch were frightened at this sign, were afraid of robbers, and
did not stop, even for water, until they reached the
While the Mormons say the Indians were the murderers, they
speak with no sympathy of the suffer[er]s, but rather
in extenuation of the crime by saying the emigrants were not fit to live; that
besides poisoning the spring “they were impudent to the people on the road,
robbed their henroosts and gardens, and were
insulting to the church; called their oxen “Brigham Young,” “Heber Kimball,”
etc., and altogether were a rough, ugly set that ought to have been killed
anyway.
But there is another side to this story. It is said that some
two years since Bishop Parley Pratt was shot in Cherokee Nation near
About this time, also, the Mormon troubles with the
This train was undoubtedly a very rich one. It is said the emigrants had
nearly nine hundred head of fine cattle, many horses and mules, and one
stallion valued at $2,000; that they had a great deal of ready money besides.
All this the Mormons at
Here, opportunely, was a rich train of emigrants--American Gentiles. That
is, the most obnoxious kind of Gentiles--and not only that, but
these Gentiles were from
Judge Cradlebaugh informed me that about this
time Brigham Young, preaching in the tabernacle and speaking of the trouble
with the
From that moment these emigrants, as they journeyed southward, were considered the authorized, if not legal, prey of the
inhabitants. All kinds of depredations and extortions were
practiced upon them. At Parowan they took some
wheat to the mill to be ground. The bishop replied, “Yes, but do you take
double toll.” This shows the spirit with which they were treated. These things
are now leaking out; but some of those who were then Mormons have renounced
their creed, and through them much is learned which, taken in connection with
the facts that are known, served to develop the truth. It is said to be a truth
that Brigham Young sent letters south, authorizing, if not commanding, that the
train should be destroyed.
A Pah-Ute chief, of the Santa Clara
band, named “Jackson,” who was one of the attacking party, and had a brother
slain by the emigrants from their corral by the spring, says that orders came
down in a letter from Brigham Young that the emigrants were to be killed; and a
chief of the Pah-Utes named Touche,
now living on the Virgin River, told me that a letter from Brigham Young to the
same effect was brought down to the Virgin River band by a young man named
Huntingdon [Oliver B. Huntington], who, I learn, is an Indian Interpreter and
lives at present at Salt Lake City.
That this painting and disguising was done at a
spring in a canyon about a mile northeast of the spring where the emigrants
were encamped, and that Lee and Haight led and
directed the combined force of Mormons and Indians in the first attack, throughout
the siege, and at the last massacre. The Santa Clara Indians say that the
emigrants could not get to the water, as besiegers lay around the spring ready
to shoot anyone who approached it. This could easily have
been done. Major [Henry] Prince,
The following account of the affair is, I think, susceptible
of legal proof by those whose names are known, and who, I am assured, are
willing to make oath to many of the facts which serve as links in the chain of
evidence leading toward the truth of this grave question: By whom were these
120 men, women, and children murdered?
It was currently reported among the Mormons at Cedar City, in
talking among themselves, before the troops ever came down south, (when all
felt secure of arrest or prosecution), and nobody seemed to question the truth
of it--that a train of emigrants of fifty or upward of men, mostly with
families, came and encamped at this spring at Mountain Meadows in September
1857. It was
reported in Cedar City, and was not, and is not doubted--even by the
Mormons--that John D. Lee, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higby [Higbee](the first resides
at Harmony, the last two at Cedar City), were the leaders who organized a party
of fifty or sixty Mormons to attack this train.
They had also all the Indians which they could collect at
After some days fighting the Mormons had a
council among themselves to arrange a plan to destroy the emigrants. They
concluded, finally, that they could send some few down and pretend to be friends
and try and get the emigrants to surrender. John D.
Lee and three or four others, headmen, from Washington, Cedar, and Parowan (Haight and Higby [Higbee] from Cedar), had their paint washed off and
dressing in their usual clothes, took their wagons and drove down toward the
emigrant’s corral as they were just traveling on the road on their ordinary
business. The emigrants sent out a little girl towards them. She was dressed in
white and had a white handkerchief in her hand, which she waved in token of peace.
The Mormons with the wagon waved one in reply, and then moved on towards the
corral. The emigrants then came out, no Indians or others being in sight at
this time, and talked with these leading Mormons with the three wagons.
They talked with the emigrants for an hour or an hour and a half, and
told them that the Indians were hostile, and that if
they gave up their arms it would show that they did not want to fight; and if
they, the emigrants, would do this they would pilot them back to the
settlements. The migrants had horses which had
remained near their wagons; the loose stock, mostly cattle, had been driven
off--not the horses. Finally the emigrants agreed to
these terms and delivered up their arms to the Mormons with whom they had
counseled. The women and children then started back toward Hamblin’s house, the
men following with a few wagons that they had hitched up. On arriving at the
Scrub Oaks, etc., where the other Mormons and Indians lay concealed, Higby [Higbee], who had been one
of those who had inveigled the emigrants from their defenses, himself gave the
signal to fire, when a volley was poured in from each side, and the butchery
commenced and was continued until it was consummated.
The property was brought to
It is reported that John D. Lee, Haight, and
Philip Smith [Klingonsmith](the
latter lives in
The wagons, carriages, and rifles, etc., were
distributed among the Mormons. Lee has a carriage reported be one of
them. The Indians have but few of the rifles.
Much of this seems to be corroborated by a man
named Whitelock, a dentist, now at
There is legal proof that this property was sold
at the official tithing office of the church. Whitelock
says that this man could not report the details of the massacre without tears
and trembling. He said he was so horrified at these
atrocities he fled away from
There are now wagons, carriages, and cattle in possession of the Mormons which can be sworn to, it is said, as having
belonged to these emigrants by those who saw them upon the plains.
Two hundred and forty eight head of cattle were sold on the
Jordan River after the arrival of the Army to
But there is not the shadow of a doubt that the emigrants were butchered by
the Mormons themselves, assisted doubtless by the Indians. The
idea of letting the emigrants come on to an obscure quarter of the Territory, amid
the fastnesses of the mountains, with a formidable desert extending from that
point to California, over which a stranger to the country, without sustenance,
escape with his life; to a point were the Indians were numerous enough to lend
assistance, and who could plausibly be charged with the crime in case, in the
future any people should give trouble by asking ugly questions on the subject,
exhibits consideration as to future contingencies of which these miserable
Indians, at least are entirely incapable.
Besides, “fifty men that would do to tie to” in a fight, all well armed
and experts in the use of the rifle, could have wiped out ten times their
number of Pah-Ute Indians armed only with the bow and
arrow. Hamblin himself, their agent, informed that to his certain knowledge in
1856 there were but three guns in the whole tribe. I doubt if they had many
more in 1857. The emigrants were to be destroyed with
as little loss to the Mormons as possible, and no one old enough to tell the
tale was to be left alive. To effect this the whole
plans and operations, from beginning to end, display skill, patience,
pertinacity and forecast, which no people here at the time were equal to except
the Mormons themselves. Hamblin says three men escaped. They were doubtless herding
when the attack was made, or crept out of a corral by night.
The fate of one of these he had never learned. He must
have been murdered off the road or perished of hunger and thirst in the
mountains. At all events he never went through
to
Here is something which seems to point to the
“tracks in the sand of three men who wore fine boots” which brothers Ira Hatch
and Prime Coleman saw at the Beaver Dams, and at which they became so
frightened that they didn’t stop to get water, although there was none other
within 20 miles. During this “Siege of Sebastapol” or
after the final massacre, it was doubtless discovered
that the three emigrants had escaped, and Brothers Hatch and Coleman, perhaps
two Mormons named Young, were sent in pursuit to cut them off on the desert or
to get the Indians to do it. Hatch talks Pah-Ute like
a native, and is now an interpreter of their language whenever needed. One of
the Youngs, who now lives at
Cotton Farm, near the confluence of The Virgin and
He and his brother, each on horseback, and leading a third horse, were
traveling from
The Indians gathered around in great numbers. The chief would seize the
cakes from the pan as fast as they were done, and eat
them. At last one of the Youngs
struck the chief with a knife, whereupon all the Indians rose to kill the three
men. Young says he and his brother drew their revolvers,
and holding them on the Indians, kept them at a distance until they got to
their horses, had mounted, and were out of arrow shot. They then looked back
for the emigrant who had seemed as he sat abstracted by the fire, hardly to
comprehend what was going on. He had not left the spot where he sat. Three or four Indians had him down and were cutting his throat.
They themselves, then made off, leaving coat, money, and all their provisions.
This is their story, but the truth doubtless was the Youngs,
Hatch and Coleman, had followed up the man; had found him beyond the Muddy,
brought him back, and then set the Indians upon him. The fate of these three
men seems to close the scenes of this terrible tragedy on all the grown people
of that fine train which was seen journeying prosperously forward at O’Fallons Bluffs on the 11th of the preceding
June. There were doubtless atrocious episodes connected with the massacre of
the women, which will never be known. Mr. Rogers, the
deputy marshal, told me that Bishop John D. Lee is said to have taken a
beautiful lady away to a secluded spot. There she
implored him for more than life. She too, was found
dead. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.
The little children whom we left this John D. Lee distributing at
Hamblin’s house after that sad night, have at length been gathered together and
are now at Indian Farm, 12 miles south of Fillmore City, or at Salt Lake City
in the custody for Dr. Forney, United States Indian agent. They are 17 in
number. Sixteen of these were seen by Judge Cradlebaugh, Lieutenant Kearney, and others, and gave the
following information in relation to their personal identity, etc. The children
were varying from 3 to 9 years of age, 10 girls, 6
boys, and were questioned separately.
The first is a boy named Calvin, between 7 and 8 [John Calvin
Miller, 6]; does not remember his surname; says he was by his mother [Matilda]
when she was killed, and pulled the arrows from her back until she was dead;
says he had two brothers older than himself, named James [see below] and Henry,
and three sisters, Nancy, Mary [see below] and Martha.
The second is a girl who does not remember her name. The others say it is
Demurr [Georgia Ann Dunlap, 18 mos.].
The third is a boy named Ambrose Mariam Tagit [Emberson Milam Tackitt,
4]; says he had two brothers older than himself and one
younger. His father, mother, and two elder brothers were killed, his
younger brother [William Henry, listed below] was brought to Cedar City; says
he lived in Johnson County, but does not know what State; says it took one week
to go from where he lived with his grandfather and grandmother who are still
living in the States.
The fourth is a girl obtained of John Morris, a Mormon, at
Fifth. A boy obtained of E. H. Grove [Joseph Miller, 1, whose older brother,
Calvin (above)], says that the girl obtained of Morris is
named Mary and is his sister.
The sixth is a girl who says her name is Prudence Angelina [Prudence
Angeline Dunlap, 5]. Had two brothers, Jessie [Thomas J., 17] and John (John
H., 16], who were killed. Her father’s name was William [Lorenzo Dow Dunlap],
and she had an Uncle Jessie [Jesse Dunlap].
The seventh is a girl. She says her name is Francis Harris, or Horne,
remembers nothing of her family [Sarah Frances Baker, 3].
The eighth is a young boy, too young to remember anything about himself [Felix Marion Jones, 18 mos.].
The ninth is a boy whose name is William W. Huff [William Henry Tackitt,
19 mos.].
The tenth is a boy whose name is Charles Fancher [Christopher “Kit”
Carson Fancher, 5].
The eleventh is a girl who says her name is Sophronia
Huff [Nancy Saphrona Huff, 4].
The twelfth is a girl who says her name is Betsy [Martha Elizabeth Baker,
5]. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth are three sisters named Rebecca,
Louisa and Sara Dunlap [Rebecca J. Dunlap, 6; Louisa Dunlap, 4; Sarah E.
Dunlap, 1]. These three sisters were the children obtained of Jacob Hamblin.
I have no note of the sixteenth [Triphenia D.
Fancher, 22 mos.].
The seventeenth is a boy who was but six weeks old at the time of the
massacre [William Twitty Baker, 9 mos.]. Hamblin’s
wife brought him to my camp on the 19th instant. The next day they
took him on to
These children, it is said, could not be induced
to make any developments while they remained with the Mormons, from fear, no
doubt, having been intimidated by threats. Dr. Forney, it is said, came southward
for them under the impression that he would find them in the hands of the
Indians. The Mormons say the children were in the hands of the Indians and were purchased by them for rifles, blankets, etc., but the
children say they have never lived with the Indians at all. The Mormons claimed
of Dr. Forney sums of money, varying from $200 to $400, for attending them when
sick, for feeding and clothing them, and for nourishing the infants from the
time when they assumed to have purchased them from the Indians.
Murders of the parents and despoilers of their property, these Mormons,
rather these relentless, incarnate fiends, dared even to come forward and claim
payment for having kept these little ones barely alive; these helpless orphans
whom they themselves had already robbed of their natural protectors and
support. Has there ever been an act which at all
equaled this devilish hardihood in more than devilish effrontery? Never, but one; and even then the price was
but “30 pieces of silver.”
On my arrival at Mountain Meadows, the 16th instant, I
encamped near the spring where the emigrants had encamped, and where they had entrenched themselves after they were first fired upon. The
ditch they there dug is not yet filled up.
The same day Captain Reuben P. Campbell, United States Second Dragoons,
with a command of three companies of troops, came from his camp at
On the 20th inst. I took a wagon and a party of men and made a thorough search
for others amongst the sage brushes for a least a mile
back from the road that leads to Hamblin’s house. Hamblin himself showed
Sergeant Fritz of my party a spot on the right-hand side of the road where had
partially covered up a great many of the bones. These were collected, and a
large number of others on the left hand side of the road up the slopes of the
hill, and in the ravines and among the bushes. I gathered many of the
disjointed bones of 34 persons. The number could easily be
told by the number of pairs of shoulder blades and by lower jaws,
skulls, and parts of skulls, etc.
These, with the remains of two others gotten in a ravine to the east of
the spring, where they had been interred at but little depth, 34 in all, I
buried in a grave on the northern side of the ditch. Around and above this
grave I caused to be built of loose granite stones,
hauled from the neighboring hills, a rude monument, conical in form and fifty
feet in circumference at the base, and twelve feet in height. This is
surmounted by a cross hewn from red cedar wood. From
the ground to top of cross is twenty four feet. On the
transverse part of the cross, facing towards the north, is an inscription
carved in the wood. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord.” And on a rude slab of granite set in the
earth and leaning against the northern base of the monument there are cut the
following words:
“Here 120 men, women,
and children were massacred in cold blood early in
September, 1857 . They were from
I observed that nearly every skull I saw had been shot
through with rifle or revolver bullets. I did not see one that had been “broken
in with stones.” Dr. Brewer showed me one, that probably of a boy of eighteen,
which had been fractured and slit, doubtless by two blows of
a bowie knife or other instrument of that character.
I saw several bones of what must have been very small children. Dr.
Brewer says from what he saw he thinks some infants were
butchered. The mothers doubtless had these in their arms, and the same
shot or blow may have deprived both of life.
The scene of the massacre, even at this late day, was horrible to look upon. Women’s hair, in detached locks and masses, hung to
the sage bushes and was strewn over the ground in many
places. Parts of little children’s dresses and of female costume dangled from
the shrubbery or lay scattered about; and among these, here and there, on every
hand, for at least a mile in the direction of the road, by two miles east and
west, there gleamed, bleached white by the weather, the skulls and other bones
of those who had suffered. A glance into the wagon when all these had been
collected revealed a sight which can never be
forgotten.
The idea of the melancholy procession of that great number of
women and children, followed at a distance by their husbands and brothers,
after all their suffering, their watching, their anxiety and grief, for so many
gloomy days and dismal nights at the corral, thus moving slowly and sadly up to
the point where the Mormons and Indians lay in wait to murder them; these
doomed and unhappy people literally going to their own funeral; the chill
shadows of night closing darkly around them, sad precursors of the approaching
shadows of a deeper night, brings to the mind a picture of human suffering and
wretchedness on the one hand, and of human treachery and ferocity upon the
other, that cannot possibly be excelled by any other scene that ever before
occurred in real life.
I caused the distance to be measured from point
to point on the scene of the massacre. From the ditch near the spring to the
point upon the road where the men attacked and destroyed, and where their bones
were mostly found, is one mile 565 yards. Here there
is a grave where Capt. Campbell’s command buried some of the remains. To the
next point, also marked by a similar grave made by Captain Campbell, and where
the women and children were butchered; a point
identified from their bones and clothing have been found near it, it is one
mile, 1,135 yards. To the swell across the valley called the Rim of the Basin,
is one mile 1,334 yards. To Hamblin’s house four miles, 1,049 yards.
In pursuing the bloody thread which runs
throughout this picture of sad realities, the question how this crime, that for
hellish atrocity has no parallel in our history, can be adequately punished
often comes up and seeks in vain for an answer. Judge Cradlebaugh
says that with Mormon juries the attempt to administer justice in their
Territory is simply a ridiculous farce. He believes the Territory ought at once
to be put under martial law. This may be the only
practical way in which even a partial punishment can be meted
out to these Latter-Day devils.
But how inadequate would be the punishment of a few, even by death, for this
crime for which nearly the whole Mormon population, from Brigham Young down,
were more or less instrumental in perpetrating.
There are other heinous crimes to be punished
besides this. Martial law would at best be but a temporary expedient. Crime is found in the footsteps of the Mormons wherever they go,
and so the evil must always exist as long as the Mormons themselves exist. What
is their history? What
their antecedents? Perhaps the
future may be judged by the past.
In their infancy as a religious community, they settled in Jackson
County, Mo. There, in a short time, from the crimes and depredations they
committed, they became intolerable to the inhabitants, whose self
preservation compelled them to ride and drive the Mormons out by force
of arms. At Nauvoo, again another experiment was tried
with them. The people of
The
The expenses of the army in Utah, past and to come (figure
that), the massacre at the Mountain Meadows, the unnumbered other crimes, which
have been and will yet be committed by this community, are but preliminary
gusts of the whirlwind our Government has reaped and is yet to reap for the
wind it had sowed in permitting the Mormons ever to gain foothold within our
borders.
They are an ulcer upon the body politic. An ulcer which
it needs more than cautery to cure. It must have
excision, complete and thorough extirpation, before we can ever hope for safety
or tranquility. This is no rhetorical phrase made by a flourish of the pen, but
is really what will prove to be an earnest and
stubborn fact. This brotherhood may be contemplated
from any point of view, and but one conclusion can be arrived at concerning it.
The Thugs of India were an inoffensive, moral, law-abiding people in
comparison.
I have made this a special report, because the information here given,
however crude, I thought to be of such grave importance it ought to be put
permanently on record and deserved to be kept separate and distinct from a
report on the ordinary occurrences of a march. Some of the details might, perhaps, have been omitted, but there has been a
great and fearful crime perpetrated, and many of the circumstances connected
with it have long been kept most artfully concealed. But
few direct rays even now shine in upon the subject. So that however indistinct
and unimportant they may at present appear to be, even the faint side lights
given by these details may yet lend assistance in exploring some obscure recess
of the matter where the great truths, that should be diligently and
persistently sought for, may yet happily be discovered.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
James Henry
Carleton,
Brevet
Major W. W. Mackall, Ass’t.
H. Doc. 605-------2