Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1859 — The Mountain Meadows Massacre. [ARTICLE]

The Mountain Meadows Massacre. -----

[Correspondence of the St. Joseph West.

<Pursuit of the Murderers—Heart Rending Details>. ----- GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, June 9. I have been absent from Camp Floyd since the 1st of March. I started with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to the southern portion of this Territory, to recover the children, survivors of the Mountain Meadows massacre. We went three hundred and fifty miles south of this, and got sixteen of the children. On our return we met a command going down to meet the pay-master, on his way from California. With this command, I met with Judge Cradlebaugh, one of our United States Judges, on his way down to find out something about the Mountain Meadows massacre. He would have me return with him, as Deputy Marshal. I also heard from an Indian chief that there was another child back. The massacre took place on the 19th of September 1857. The masacred [sic] were emigrants from Arkansas passing through to California. There were, as near as I can find out, about one hundred and forty in the train. This train passed through the uper [sic] part of the Territory unmolested. They were dircted to go the southern route, as it was getting late in the season. After passing through all the settlements south for three hundred and fifty miles to the Mountain Meadows, they stopped to recruit their stock before they struck the deserts, as they would have deserts for four hundred miles after leaving Mountain Meadows. The Meadows is a beautiful spot, about four miles in length and one-fourth ot a mile wide, and at the lower end is a fine spring. They corralled their wagons and were there three days in quietness, twenty-five miles from any settlement, when, early on the morning of the fourth day, they wore attacked, as they supposed, by a large party of Indians. The Indians fired on the emigrants and killed and wounded several. After this the emigrants set their wagon wheels in the ground and threw the earth up against the beds, making a snug defense. The Indians fought them for five days, having previously run all their stock off. The emigrants were within ten yards of as fine a spring as you ever saw, but could get no water, for whenever one came out to get it he was shot down. The spring has a high bank, a deep ravine makes off from it, and in this the Indians were concealed. After fighting for five or six days a party of Mormons approached the corral with a white flag in hand, to show the emigrants that they were friends. The emigrants directly dressed a little girl in white and placed her at the mouth of the corral. The Mormon party then came in, sat down, and talked to the head man of the train for more than an hour, telling him that they had come as friends of the party to escort them back to Cedar City, about two hundred and fifty miles behind, provided they would give up their arms, and leave all they had behind. They promised to protect them from the Indians. They marched the party in front of them back on the road about two hundred and fifty yards, where they had to pass through some se ge [sic] bushes, when one of the Mormon escorts gave a signal, and all at once the Indians raised in the bushes—the Mormon escort fired first and killed all the men—then they went to work on women and children. The spot can still speak for itself. When I first passed through the place I could walk for near a mile on bones, and skulls laying grinning at you, and women and children’s hair in bunches as big as a bushel. Judge Cradlebaugh and myself have the names of sixty white men who participated in this affair. It was done by council of Bishops in the Mormon Church. The Bishops were the head killers. They did not leave one to tell the tale. The oldest of the children is between seven and eight years of age. We have seventeen here. Th. y are getting ready to send them to their friends in Arkansas, as there were $10,000 appropriated by Congress for that purpose— so you can see by what means the Mormons have lived and supported their Church. This was the richest train that ever passed through this country, and after killing all the party, except seventeen little children, they took the cattle, wagons and horses back to Cedar City and sold them at public sale. The children were divided out to different ones— some who had no children took two. All the above has been sworn to before Judge Cradlebaugh. He has issued warrents tor all parties, but they fly to the moun-

tans. W. H. ROGERS. ---<>---

W. H. ROGERS.