Alexander William Doniphan - The Mormons

The Mormons

Starting in 1831, Jackson County, Missouri had become home to several members of the Church of Christ,. commonly known as "Mormons", a sect founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in upstate New York a year earlier. By 1833, approximately 1200 Mormons lived in Jackson County, where they aroused the ire of many earlier settlers by their belief that American Indians, whom they called "Lamanites", were the descendants of ancient Israelites who had migrated to the New World centuries earlier (see Book of Mormon), together with rumors that the Mormons practiced polygamy. Other fundamental differences between Mormons and non-Mormons exacerbated the situation, especially a belief that the Mormons were abolitionists, who planned to foment uprisings among Missouri slaves. Denunciations of abolitionism in the church press did nothing to allay their neighbors' fears, and matters came to a head in late 1833, when the Mormons were forcibly expelled from the county.

Following these events, Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders petitioned the governor of Missouri for protection, but were largely ignored. This led them to hire Doniphan and Atchison, among others, to defend their rights in court. Doniphan assisted in the creation of a special county in northwestern Missouri for the Mormons, but continued friction between Mormons and non-Mormon settlers in that region ultimately led to the outbreak of the 1838 Mormon War. Following a clash between Mormons and state militia at the Battle of Crooked River, governor Lilburn Boggs issued his infamous "Extermination Order", directing that the Mormons be "exterminated, or driven from the state".

As a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard, Doniphan was ordered into the field with other forces to operate against the Mormons, even though he had worked diligently to avoid the conflict, and believed that the Mormons were largely acting in self-defense. After the surrender of Far West, General Samuel Lucas took custody of Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders, and instituted a drum-head court martial which declared Smith and the others guilty of treason, and ordered Doniphan to execute them. Doniphan indignantly refused, saying: "It is cold blooded murder. I will not obey your order. . . . f you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God". The Mormon leaders were accordingly sent to Liberty Jail during the winter, to await trial during the following spring of 1839. Ultimately, they were permitted to escape from custody, and they subsequently made their way to the new Mormon settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, where Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844.

In 1845, Orrin Porter Rockwell, a controversial Mormon figure later known as "the destroying angel of Mormondom", was arrested in St. Louis and accused of carrying out a failed assassination attempt on (now former) governor Boggs. He hired Doniphan to defend him; Doniphan managed to have the main charge dismissed for lack of evidence, and arranged for Rockwell's release after serving only a few hours of a five-month sentence (for a previous jailbreak attempt) in the county jail. Rockwell made his way to Illinois, then later to Utah, where he achieved fame as a lawman and Wild West figure.

Forty years after the events of 1838, an aged Doniphan visited Salt Lake City, Utah, which had become the nucleus for the largest body of Mormons following the death of Joseph Smith. He received a hero's welcome, and was feted and thanked by the Latter-day Saints for his role in saving the life of their prophet.