CHAPTER XX.
The Evacuation Of Nauvoo--"The Last Mormon War"
Major Warren as a Peace Preserver--The Mormons' Disposition of their Property--Departure of the Leaders hastened by Indictments--Arrival of New Citizens-- Continued Hostility of the Non-Mormons--"The Last Mormon War"-- Panic in Nauvoo--Plan for a March on the Mormon City--Fruitless Negotiations for a Compromise--The Advance against the City--The Battle and its Results--Terms of Peace--The Final Evacuation
THE winter of 1845-1846 in Hancock
County passed without any renewed outbreak, but the credit for this seems to
have been due to the firmness and good judgment of Major W. B. Warren, whom
General Hardin placed in command of the force which he left in that county to
preserve order, rather than to any improvement in the relations between the two
parties, even after the Mormons had agreed to depart.
Major Warren's command, which at first consisted of one
hundred men, and was reduced during the winter to fifty and later to ten, came
from Quincy, and had as subordinate officers James D. Morgan and B. M.
Prentiss, whose names became famous as Union generals in the war of the
rebellion. Warren showed no favoritism in enforcing his authority, and he was
called on to exercise it against both sides. The local newspapers of the day
contain accounts of occasional burnings during the winter, and of murders
committed here and there. On November 17, a meeting of citizens of Warsaw, who
styled. themselves "a portion of the anti-Mormon party," was held to
protest against such acts as burnings and the murder of a Mormon, ten miles
south of Warsaw, and to demand adherence to the agreement entered into. On
February 5, Major Warren had to issue a warning to an organization of
anti-Mormons who had ordered a number of Mormon families to leave the county by
May 1, if they did not want to be burned out.
Governor Ford sent Mr. Brayman to Hancock County as
legal counsel for the military commander. In a report dated December 14, 1845,
Mr. Brayman said of the condition of affairs as he found them: --
"Judicial proceedings are but mockeries of
the forms of law; juries, magistrates and officers of every grade concerned in
the civil affairs of the county partake so deeply of the prevailing excitement
that no reliance, as a general thing, can be placed on their action. Crime
enjoys a disgraceful impunity, and each one feels at liberty to commit any
aggression, or to avenge his own wrongs to any extent, without legal
accountability.... Whether the parties will become reconciled or quieted, so as
to live together in peace, is doubted.... Such a series of outrages and bold
violations of law as have marked the history of Hancock County for several
years past is a blot upon our institutions; ought not to be endured by a
civilized people."1
1 Warsaw Signal, December 24, 1845.
Meanwhile, the Mormons went on with their
preparations for their westward march, selling their property as best they
could, and making every effort to trade real estate in and out of the city, and
such personal property as they could not take with them, for cattle, oxen,
mules, horses, sheep, and wagons. Early in February the non-Mormons were
surprised to learn that the Mormons at Nauvoo had begun crossing the river as a
beginning of their departure for the far West. "We scarcely know what to
make of this movement," said the Warsaw Signal, the general belief
being that the Mormons would be slow in carrying out their agreement to leave
"so soon as grass would grow and water run." The date of the first
departure, it has since been learned, was hastened by the fact that the grand
jury in Springfield, Illinois, in December, 1845, had found certain indictments
for counterfeiting, in regard to which the journal of that city, on December
25, gave the following particulars: --
"During the last week twelve bills of
indictment for counterfeiting Mexican dollars and our half dollars and dimes
were found by the Grand Jury, and presented to the United States Circuit Court
in this city against different persons in and about Nauvoo, embracing some of
the 'Holy Twelve' and other prominent Mormons, and persons in league with them.
The manner in which the money was put into circulation was stated. At one mill
$1500 was paid out for wheat in one week. Whenever a land sale was about to
take place, wagons were sent off with the coin into the land district where
such sale was to take place, and no difficulty occurred in exchanging off the
counterfeit coin for paper... .So soon as the indictments were found, a request
was made by the marshal of the Governor of this state for a posse, or the
assistance of the military force stationed in Hancock County, to enable him to
arrest the alleged counterfeiters. Gov. Ford refused to grant the request. An
officer has since been sent to Nauvoo to make the arrests, but we apprehend.
there is no probability of his success"
The report that a whole city was practically for sale
had been widely spread, and many persons -- some from the Eastern states --
began visiting it to see what inducements were offered to new settlers, and
what bargains were to be had. Among these was W. E. Matlack, who on April 10
issued, in Nauvoo, the first number of a weekly newspaper called the Hancock
Eagle. Matlack seems to have been a fair-minded man, possessed of the
courage of his convictions, and his paper was a better one in, a literary sense
than the average weekly of the day. In his inaugural editorial he said that he
favored the removal of the Mormons as a peace measure, but denounced mob rule
and threats against the Mormons who had not departed. The ultra-Antis took
offence at this at once, and, so far as the Eagle was supposed to
represent the views of the new-comers, -- who were henceforth called New
Citizens, -- counted them little better than the Mormons themselves. Among
these, however, was a class whom the county should have welcomed, the boats, in
one week in May, landing four or five merchants, six physicians, three or four
lawyers, two dentists, and two or three hundred others, includ ing laborers.
The people of Hancock and the surrounding counties
still refused to believe that the Mormons were sincere in their intention to
depart, and the county meetings of the year before were reassembled to warn the
Mormons that the citizens stood ready to enforce their order. The vacillating
course of Governor Ford did not help the situation. He issued an order
disbanding Major Warren's force on May 1, and on the following day instructed
him to muster it into service again. Warren was very outspoken in his
determination to protect the departing Mormons, and in a proclamation which he
issued he told them to "leave the fighting to be done by my detachment. If
we are overpowered, then recross the river and defend yourselves and your
property."
The peace was preserved during May, and the Mormon
exodus continued, Young with the first company being already well advanced in
his march across Iowa. Major Warren sent a weekly report on the movement to the
Warsaw Signal. That dated May 14 said that the ferries at Nauvoo and at
Fort Madison were each taking across an average of 35 teams in twenty-four
hours. For the week ending May 22 he reported the departure of 539 teams and
1617 persons; and for the week ending May 29, the departure of 269 teams and
800 persons, and he said he had counted the day before 617 wagons in Nauvoo
ready to start.
But even this activity did not satisfy the ultra
element among the anti-Mormons, and at a meeting in Carthage, on Saturday, June
6, resolutions drawn by Editor Sharp of the Signal expressed the belief
that many of the Mormons intended to remain in the state, charged that they
continued to commit depredations, and declared that the time had come for the
citizens of the counties affected to arm and equip themselves for action. The
Signal headed its editorial remarks on this meeting, "War declared
in Hancock."
When the news of the gathering at Carthage reached
Nauvoo it created a panic. The Mormons, lessened in number by the many
departures, and with their goods mostly packed for moving, were in no situation
to repel an attack; and they began hurrying to the ferry until the streets were
blocked with teams. The New Citizens, although the Carthage meeting had
appointed a committee to confer with them, were almost as much alarmed, and
those who could do so sent away their families, while several merchants packed
up their goods for safety. On Friday, June 12, the committee of New Citizens
met some 600 anti-Mormons who had assembled near Carthage, and strenuously
objected to their marching into Nauvoo. As a sort of compromise, the force
consented to rendezvous at Golden Point, five miles south of Nauvoo, and there
they arrived the next day. This force, according to the Signal's own account,
was a mere mob, three-fourths of whom went there against their own judgment,
and only to try to prevent extreme measures. A committee was at once sent to
Nauvoo to confer with the New Citizens, but it met with a decided snubbing. The
Nauvoo people then sent a committee to the camp, with a proposition that thirty
men of the Antis march into the city, and leave three of their number there to
report on the progress of the Mormon exodus.
On Sunday morning, before any such agreement was
reached, word came from Nauvoo that Sheriff Backenstos had arrived there and
enrolled a posse of some 500 men, the New Citizens uniting with the Mormons for
the protection of the place. This led to an examination of the war supplies of
the Antis, and the discovery that they had only five rounds of ammunition to a
man, and one day's provision. Thereupon they ingloriously broke camp and made
off to Carthage.
After this nothing more serious than a war of words
occurred until July 11, when an event happened which aroused the feeling of
both parties to the fighting pitch. Three Mormons from Nauvoo had been
harvesting a field of grain about eight miles from the city.2 In
some way they angered a man living near by (according to his wife's affidavit,
by shooting around his fields, using his stable for their horses, and feeding
his oats), and he collected some neighbors, who gave the offenders a whipping,
more or less severe, according to the account accepted. The men went at once to
Nauvoo, and exhibited their backs, and that night a Mormon posse arrested
seventeen Antis and conveyed them to Nauvoo. The Antis in turn seized five
Mormons whom they held as "hostages," and the northern part of
Hancock County and a part of McDonough were in a state of alarm.
2 The Eagle stated that the farm where the Mormons were at work had been bought by a New Citizen, who had sent out both Mormons and New Citizens to cut the grain.
Civil chaos ensued. General Hardin and Major Warren
had joined the federal army that was to march against Mexico, and their cool
judgment was greatly missed. One Carlin, appointed as a special constable,
called on the citizens of Hancock County to assemble as his posse to assist in
executing warrants in Nauvoo, and the Mormons of that city at once took steps
to resist arrests by him. Governor Ford sent Major Parker of Fulton County, who
was a Whig, to make an inquiry at Nauvoo and defend that city against rioting,
and Mr. Brayman remained there to report to him on the course of affairs.
What was called at that time, in Illinois, "the
last Mormon war" opened with a fusillade of correspondence between Carlin
and Major Parker. Parker issued a proclamation, calling on all good citizens to
return to their homes, and Carlin declared that he would obey no authority
which tried to prevent him from doing his duty, telling the major that it would
"take something more than words" to disperse his posse. While Parker
was issuing a series of proclamations, the so-called posse was, on August 25,
placed under the command of Colonel J. B. Chittenden of Adams County, who was
superseded three days later by Colonel Singleton. Colonel Singleton was
successful in arranging with Major Parker terms of peace, which provided among
other things that all the Mormons should be out of the state in sixty days,
except heads of families who remained to close their business; but the
colonel's officers rejected this agreement, and the colonel thereupon left the
camp. Carlin at once appointed Colonel Brockman to the chief command. He was a
Campbellite preacher who, according to Ford, had been a public defaulter and
had been "silenced" by his church. After rejecting another offer of
compromise made by the Mormons, Brockman, on September 11, with about seven
hundred men who called themselves a posse, advanced against Nauvoo, with some
small field pieces. Governor Ford had authorized Major Flood, commanding the
militia of Adams County, to raise a force to preserve order in Hancock; but the
major, knowing that such action would only incense the force of the Antis,
disregarded the governor's request. At this juncture Major Parker was relieved
of the command at Nauvoo and succeeded by Major B. Clifford, Jr., of the 33rd
regiment of Illinois Volunteers.
On the morning of September 12, Brockman sent into
Nauvoo a demand for its surrender, with the pledge that there would be no
destruction of property or life "unless absolutely necessary in
self-defence." Major Clifford rejected this proposition, advised Brockman
to disperse his force, and named Mayor Wood of Quincy and J. P. Eddy, a St.
Louis merchant then in Nauvoo, as recipients of any further propositions from
the Antis.
The forces at this time were drawn up against one
another, the Mormons behind a breastwork which they had erected during the
night, and the Antis on a piece of high ground nearer the city than their camp.
Brayman says that an estimate which placed the Mormon force at five hundred or
six hundred was a great exaggeration, and that the only artillery they had was
six pieces which they fashioned for themselves, by breaking some steamboat
shafts to the proper length and boring them out so that they would receive a
six-pound shot.
When Clifford's reply was received, the commander of
the Antis sent out the Warsaw riflemen as flankers on the right and left;
directed the Lima Guards, with one cannon, to take a position a mile to the
front of the camp and occupy the attention of the men behind the Mormon
breastwork, who had opened fire; and then marched the main body through a
cornfield and orchard to the city itself. Both sides kept up an artillery fire
while the advance was taking place.
When the Antis reached the settled part of the city,
the firing became general, but was of an independent character. The Mormons in
most cases fired from their houses, while the Antis found such shelter as they
could in a cornfield and along a worm fence. After about an hour of such
fighting, Brockman, discovering that all of the sixty-one cannon balls with
which he had provided himself had been shot away, decided that it was perilous
"to risk a further advance without these necessary instruments."
Accordingly, he ordered a retreat and his whole force returned to its camp. In
this engagement no Antis were killed, and the surgeon's list named only eight
wounded, one of whom died. Three citizens of Nauvoo were killed. The Mormons
had the better protection in their houses, but the other side made rather
effective use of their artillery.
The Antis began at once intrenching their camp, and
sent to Quincy for ammunition. There were some exchanges of shots on Sunday and
Monday, and three Antis were wounded on the latter day.
Quincy responded promptly to the request for
ammunition, but the people of that town were by no means unanimously in favor
of the "war." On Sunday evening a meeting of the peaceably inclined
appointed a committee of one hundred to visit the scene of hostilities and
secure peace "on the basis of a removal of the Mormons." The
negotiations of this committee began on the following Tuesday, and were
continued, at times with apparent hopelessness of success, until Wednesday
evening, when terms of peace were finally signed. It required the utmost effort
of the Quincy committee to induce the anti-Mormon force to delay an assault on
the city, which would have meant conflagration and massacre. The terms of peace
were as follows: --
"1. The city of Nauvoo will surrender. The
force of Col. Brockman to enter and take possession of the city tomorrow, the
17th of September, at 3 o'clock P.M.
"2. The arms to be delivered to the Quincy
Committee, to be returned on the crossing of the river.
"3. The Quincy Committee pledge themselves to use
their influence for the protection of persons and property from all violence;
and the officers of the camp and the men pledge themselves to protect all
persons and property from violence.
"4. The sick and helpless to be protected and
treated with humanity.
"5. The Mormon population of the city to leave the
State, or disperse, as soon as they can cross the river.
"6. Five men, including the trustees of the
church, and five clerks, with their families (William Pickett not one of the
number), to be permitted to remain in the city for the disposition of property,
free from all molestation and personal violence.
"7. Hostilities to cease immediately, and ten men
of the Quincy Committee to enter the city in the execution of their duty as
soon as they think proper."
The noticeable features of these terms are the omission
of any reference to the execution of Carlin's writs, and the engagement that
the Mormons should depart immediately. The latter was the real object of the
"posse's" campaign.
The Mormons had realized that they could not continue
their defence, as no reinforcements could reach them, while any temporary check
to their adversaries would only increase the animosity of the latter. They
acted, therefore, in good faith as regards their agreement to depart. How they
went is thus described in Brayman's second report to Governor Ford:3
--
"These terms were not definitely signed
until the morning of Thursday, the 17th, but, confident of their ratification,
the Mormon population had been busy through the night in removing. So firmly
had they been taught to believe that their lives, their city, and Temple, would
fall a sacrifice to the vengeance of their enemies, if surrendered to them,
that they fled in consternation, determined to be beyond their reach at all
hazards. This scene of confusion, fright and distress was continued throughout
the forenoon. In every part of the city scenes of destitution, misery and woe
met the eye. Families were hurrying away from their homes, without a shelter,
-- without means of conveyance, -- without tents, money, or a day's provision,
with as much of their household stuff as they could carry in their hands. Sick
men and women were carried upon their beds -- weary mothers, with helpless
babes dying in the arms, hurried away -- all fleeing, they scarcely knew or
cared whither, so it was fr om their enemies, whom they feared more than the
waves of the Mississippi, or the heat, and hunger and lingering life and
dreaded death of the prairies on which they were about to be cast. The ferry
boats were crowded, and the river bank was lined with anxious fugitives, sadly
awaiting their turn to pass over and take up their solitary march to the
wilderness."
3 For Brayman's reports, see Warsaw Signal, October 20, 1846.
On the afternoon of the 17th, Brockman's force,
with which the members of the Quincy committee had been assigned a place,
marched into Nauvoo and through it, encamping near the river on the southern
boundary. Curiosity to see the Mormon city had swelled the number who entered
at the same time with the posse to nearly two thousand men, but there was no
disorder. The streets were practically deserted, and the few Mormons who
remained were busy with their preparations to cross the river. Brockman, to
make his victory certain, ordered that all citizens of Nauvoo who had sided
with the Mormons should leave the state, thus including many of the New
Citizens. The order was enforced on September 18, "with many circumstances
of the utmost cruelty and injustice," according to Brayman's report.
"Bands of armed men," he said," traversed the city, entering the
houses of citizens, robbing them of arms, throwing their household goods out of
doors, insulting them, and threatening their lives."