George A. Smith - The Utah War

The Utah War

During the hurried series of actions Brigham Young and LDS Church leaders initiated on learning of the eminent arrival of U.S. troops into Utah Territory, Smith left Salt Lake City to visit southern Utah communities. 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. This event was later known as the Mountain Meadows massacre.

Leaving on August 3, 1857, Smith arrived at Parowan on August 8, 1857, and on August 15, 1857, he set off on a tour of the local military district manned by the Utah militia known as the Nauvoo Legion, led by Stake President-Colonel W. H. Dame. Although Smith's rank in the Legion was simply a private (see George A. Smith, JD 1:79; Smith 1875), one Parowan resident understood that part of the purpose of Apostle Smith's trip was represent the church leadership and to organize the regiment, inspect the troops, and provide instructions (see Martineau 1857). During the tour, Smith gave military speeches and counseled Mormons that they should 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 church members to stockpile grain, and not to sell it to emigrants or use it for animal feed.

In addition to Parowan, Smith's tour included visits to Cedar City and Santa Clara. The group stopped at Mountain Meadows to eat dinner on August 20 (see Martineau 1857) with a group of resident missionaries(see Smith 1857, p. 222). Smith addressed a group of Indians in Santa Clara, counseling them that "the Americans" were approaching with a large army, and were a threat to the Indians as well as the Mormons. Riding in a wagon afterwards, John D. Lee said he warned Smith that the Indians 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".

Isaac C. Haight, LDS stake president of Cedar City, and second in military command under Dame, 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 where 18 Mormons were killed in 1838 in a skirmish with the Missouri Militia during the Mormon War .

On the way back 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" next to Mountain Meadows(Smith 1875; "Case of the Defense", Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 3, 1875). Also traveling north with the Smith party were several Native chiefs of the southern Utah Territory

On August 25, 1857, Smith's group camped next to the Fancher-Baker 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, Hamblin directed them to Mountain Meadows, near the "Indian farm" there, a regular stopover on the Old Spanish Trail.