Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 13

Chapter 12

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: Sally Denton

Chapter 14

Claims made in Chapter 13: "Mountain Meadows, May 25, 1861"

Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
209	Brigham's trip south in May 1861 was "to insure the southern Utahns understood the need for silence on the subject of Mountain Meadows."	Church blocked prosecution of Massacre?	Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 246. Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 246.
210	Brigham is said to have ordered the cross and cairn at Mountain Meadows torn down.	Brigham Young orders MMM monument demolished	Wilford Woodruff journal, May 25, 1861.
213	The "Godbeites" were "demanding disclosure" about the massacre.	Anonymous source: "Argus"	The author references a series of anonymous letters written under the pseudonym "Argus" that were published in the Utah Reporter between 1870 and 1871.
215	The "entire blame of the massacre was shifted to [John D. Lee's] shoulders."	The author's claim is false: This is clearly false. Contemporary government documents show that federal officials continued to "show...efforts by the federal machinery to prosecute others for at least eight years after Lee's trial."[1] If blame rested on Lee alone, this would make no sense. Deal with Brigham to blame only Lee? Prosecution for Mountain Meadows	Brooks, John Doyle Lee, 296.
215	The author claims that Lee was "regaling" his family with "the divinity of [Joseph] Smith and their one true religion."	Prejudicial or loaded language LDS doctrine has never regarded Joseph Smith as divine. Joseph Smith's status in LDS belief.	Brooks, Emma Lee, 57.
216	Former bishop Klingensmith is said to have claimed that the militia was "called out for the purpose of committing acts of hostility" against the emigrants, and that they were ordered to "kill all of said company of emigrants except the little children."	Bishop Philip Klingensmith Denton fails to tell us that the "former bishop" had admitted to participation in the murder, that his testimony was uncorroborated, and that he was deemed to be so unreliable that he was not called during the successful second trial of John D. Lee.	"A MORMON MONSTROSITY": New York Herald, September 14, 1872. Philip Klingensmith affidavit, April 10, 1871, printed in T.B.H. Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints: a full and complete history of the Mormons, from the first vision of Joseph Smith to the last courtship of Brigham Young (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 439-442. Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, 238-242. Backus, Mountain Meadows Witness, 274-277. New York Herald, September 14, 1872. Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 178.

Endnotes

1. [note]  Robert D. Crockett, "The Denton Debacle (Review of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 135–148. off-site