War Hysteria Preceding The Mountain Meadows Massacre - George A. Smith's Circuit Through Southern Utah

George A. Smith's Circuit Through Southern Utah

On August 3, 1857, Mormon apostle George A. Smith left Salt Lake City to visit the southern Utah communities. He arrived at Parowan on August 8, 1857, and on August 15, 1857, he set off on a tour of Stake President-Colonel W. H. Dame's military district. During the tour, Smith gave military speeches and counseled Mormons that they prepare to "touch fire to their homes, and hide themselves in the mountains, and to defend their country to the very last extremity." Smith instructed Mormons to stockpile grain, and not to sell it to emigrants for animal feed. Scholars have asserted that Smith's tour, speeches, and personal actions contributed to the fear and tension in these communities, and influenced the decision to attack and destroy the Baker-Fancher emigrant train near Mountain Meadows, Utah. John D. Lee accompanied Smith on part of this tour, during which Smith addressed a group of Native Americans in Santa Clara, counseling them that "the Americans" were approaching with a large army, and were a threat to the Native Americans as well as the Mormons. Riding in a wagon afterwards, Lee said he warned Smith that the Native Americans would likely attack emigrant trains, and that Mormons were anxious to avenge the blood of the prophets, and according to Lee, Smith seemed pleased, and said "he had had a long talk with Major Haight on the same subject".

Major Isaac C. Haight, the stake president of Cedar City, met with Smith again on August 21. Haight told Smith he had heard reports that 600 troops were already approaching Cedar City from the East, and that if the rumors were true, Haight would have to act without waiting for instructions from Salt Lake City. Smith agreed, and "admired his grit". Smith later said he was uncomfortable, perhaps "on account of my extreme timidity", because some of the militia members were eager that "their enemies might come and give them a chance to fight and take vengeance for the cruelties that had been inflicted upon us in the States", such as the Haun's Mill massacre.

On his return to Salt Lake City, Smith was accompanied by a party including Jacob Hamblin of Santa Clara, a newly appointed Mormon missionary to the Natives in the region who also ran a federally funded Indian farm near Mountain Meadows.

Also traveling north with the Smith party were several Native chiefs from southern Utah Territory On August 25, 1857, Smith's group camped next to the Baker-Fancher party, headed the opposite direction, at Corn Creek (now Kanosh). Smith later said he had no knowledge of the Baker-Fancher party prior to meeting them on the trail. When the Baker-Fancher party inquired about places to stop for water and grazing, Jacob Hamblin directed them to Mountain Meadows, near his home and, the Indian farm, a regular stopover on the Old Spanish Trail.

Some members of Smith's party later testified that during their encampment they saw the Baker-Fancher party poison a spring and a dead ox, with the expectation that Native Americans would be poisoned. Silas S. Smith, the cousin of George A., testified that the Baker–Fancher party suspiciously asked whether the Native Americans would eat a dead ox. Although the poisoning story supported the Mormon theory that Native Americans had been poisoned and therefore conducted a massacre on their own, Modern historians generally discount the testimony and rumors about the poisoned ox and spring as false. Nevertheless, the poisoning story preceded the Fanchers on their trip southward.