Roughing It
retired to the upper end of the “Meadows,” resumed civilized apparel,
washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to
the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants
saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with
cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt,
they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the
flag of truce!
The leaders of the timely white “deliverers” were President Haight and
Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a
term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from
Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next
proceeded:
“They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented
them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the
matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having
(apparently) visited the Indians, gave the _ultimatum_ of the savages;
which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving
everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon
bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to
the settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous
of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and
subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were
marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the
Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about
a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost
all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who
fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before
they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two
or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the
aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of
all the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the
eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of
September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and
bloody murders known in our history.”
The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was _one
hundred and twenty_.
With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and
proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what a
spectacle it must have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone
in his pride and his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon
auditory, deriding them by turns, and by turns “breathing threatenings
and slaughter!”
An editorial in the _Territorial Enterprise_ of that day says of him and
of the occasion:
“He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson;
but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while
threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the
U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in his course.
“Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were
discharged with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a
committing magistrate, _he commenced his task alone_. He examined
witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in
the camps of the saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before,
since Mormondom was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops
were decamping to save their necks; and developments of the most
starling character were being made, implicating the highest Church
dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed upon the
Gentiles during the past eight years.”
Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in his
work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this
massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred
gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use
them. But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious
pretense of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands
of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his
protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh’s
proceedings.
Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great massacre
with the following remark and accompanying summary of the testimony—and
the summary is concise, accurate and reliable:
“For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt
of Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the testimony is here
collated and circumstances given which go not merely to implicate but to
fasten conviction upon them by ‘confirmations strong as proofs of Holy
Writ:’
“1. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, as shown
by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U.S. Marshall Rodgers.
“2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it in his
Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his failure to make any
allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until several years after the
occurrence
“3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in the Mormon
Church and State, when this affair was brought to the ordeal of a
judicial investigation.
“4. The failure of the _Deseret News_, the Church organ, and the only
paper then published in the Territory, to notice the massacre until
several months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons were
engaged in it.
“5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre.
“6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in possession
of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the very day after
the massacre.
“7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene of the
massacre: these statements are shown, not only by Cradlebaugh and
Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who
was, in 1859, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. To all
these were such statements freely and frequently made by the Indians.
“8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent in
the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road to
California and to inquire into Indian depredations.”
C. CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT WAS NEVER CONSUMMATED
[If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold Hill,
Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought itself unfired
gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. If ever there was an
oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a jack-o’lantern, confined to a
swamp, that fancied itself a planet with a billion-mile orbit; or a
summer zephyr that deemed itself a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand.
Therefore, what wonder is it that when he says a thing, he thinks the
world listens; that when he does a thing the world stands still to look;
and that when he suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met
Conrad, he was “Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office”—and he was
not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he was a street
preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own invention, whereby he
expected to regenerate the universe. This was years ago. Here latterly
he has entered journalism; and his journalism is what it might be
expected to be: colossal to ear, but pigmy to the eye. It is extravagant
grandiloquence confined to a newspaper about the size of a double letter
sheet. He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all
alone; but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block
and employs a thousand men.
[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several people
mercilessly in his little “People’s _Tribune_,” and got himself into
trouble. Straightway he airs the affair in the “Territorial Enterprise,”
in a communication over his own signature, and I propose to reproduce it
here, in all its native simplicity and more than human candor. Long as
it is, it is well worth reading, for it is the richest specimen of
journalistic literature the history of America can furnish, perhaps:]
From the _Territorial Enterprise_, Jan. 20, 1870.
SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENTERPRISE: Months ago, when Mr. Sutro incidentally
exposed mining management on the Comstock, and among others roused me to
protest against its continuance, in great kindness you warned me that
any attempt by publications, by public meetings and by legislative
action, aimed at the correction of chronic mining evils in Storey
County, must entail upon me (a) business ruin, (b) the burden of all its
costs, (c) personal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then
(d) assassination, and after all nothing would be effected.
YOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING. In large part at least your prophecies have
been fulfilled, for (a) assaying, which was well attended to in the Gold
Hill Assay Office (of which I am superintendent), in consequence of my
publications, has been taken elsewhere, so the President of one of the
companies assures me. With no reason assigned, other work has been taken
away. With but one or two important exceptions, our assay business now
consists simply of the gleanings of the vicinity. (b) Though my own
personal donations to the People’s Tribune Association have already
exceeded $1,500, outside of our own numbers we have received (in money)
less than $300 as contributions and subscriptions for the journal. (c)
On Thursday last, on the main street in Gold Hill, near noon, with
neither warning nor cause assigned, by a powerful blow I was felled to
the ground, and while down I was kicked by a man who it would seem had
been led to believe that I had spoken derogatorily of him. By whom he
was so induced to believe I am as yet unable to say. On Saturday last I
was again assailed and beaten by a man who first informed me why he did
so, and who persisted in making his assault even after the erroneous
impression under which he also was at first laboring had been clearly
and repeatedly pointed out. This same man, after failing through
intimidation to elicit from me the names of our editorial contributors,
against giving which he knew me to be pledged, beat himself weary upon
me with a raw hide, I not resisting, and then pantingly threatened me
with permanent disfiguring mayhem, if ever again I should introduce his
name into print, and who but a few minutes before his attack upon me
assured me that the only reason I was “permitted” to reach home alive on
Wednesday evening last (at which time the PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE was issued)
was, that he deems me only half-witted, and be it remembered the very
next morning I was knocked down and kicked by a man who seemed to be
prepared for flight. [He sees doom impending:]
WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN? How long before the whole of your prophecy
will be fulfilled I cannot say, but under the shadow of so much
fulfillment in so short a time, and with such threats from a man who is
one of the most prominent exponents of the San Francisco mining-ring
staring me and this whole community defiantly in the face and pointing
to a completion of your augury, do you blame me for feeling that this
communication is the last I shall ever write for the Press, especially
when a sense alike of personal self-respect, of duty to this money-
oppressed and fear-ridden community, and of American fealty to the
spirit of true Liberty all command me, and each more loudly than love of
life itself, to declare the name of that prominent man to be JOHN B.
WINTERS, President of the Yellow Jacket Company, a political aspirant
and a military General? The name of his partially duped accomplice and
abettor in this last marvelous assault, is no other than PHILIP LYNCH,