"Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!" The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse

 

Mountain Meadow Massacre 

A correspondent of the Bulletin writing from Callville, Arizona, under date of June 25th, says of the Indians in that vicinity:

They are thoroughly posted in relation to the raids of Gen. Connor's command against the Indians farther North; the excitement existing in relation to the Mountain Meadow massacre; the endeavors made by the Government to ferret out and punish the actors in this, the bloodiest drama ever perpetrated on American soil; the fact that they are charged by the Mormons with being the sole perpetrators of that tragedy, and they fear that they will soon be held to a rigid accountability.It was to this valley of the Muddy, that a large portion of the stock taken from the massacred train was brought, and here was killed the only adult, a man by the name of Williams, who escaped from Mountain Meadows. These Indians do not hesitate to acknowledge their connection with the massacre, but charge the Mormons with being the instigators and chief actors in the tragedy. The tales they tell are horrible beyond description, and while it would be unjust, considering their present relations with the Mormons, to take all their statements for truth, it is impossible to resist the conviction that revenge for the killing of Parley Pratt, in Arkansas, was the inciting cause of the Mountain Meadow massacre, and that a band of Danites were the directors of its perpetration. I was astonished at the details by these Indians of circumstances and names; in the latter particular their statements were explicit, extending even to giving us the name of the lady under whose charge the surviving children were taken East. The Mormons have long been noted for their shrewed management of Indians, but events now transpiring indicate that their influence with the savages is lessening. The result may be the arrest and punishment of the white miscreants who planned the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children at Mountain Meadows.