Isaac C. Haight - Mountain Meadows Massacre

Mountain Meadows Massacre

At the time of the massacre, Haight was ecclesiastical leader of several Mormon congregations in the area. He served in the Utah Territorial Legislature and was the mayor of Cedar City, Utah. Haight was in command of the Second Battalion, Tenth Regiment (or Iron County Militia), in which capacity he ordered the massacre of September 11, 1857, of the Baker-Fancher party of emigrants during the Utah War.

The Baker-Fancher train was one of several emigrant trains traveling through the area on their way to California at the time. Apostle George A. Smith had come down to southern Utah settlements and given orders for residents to prepare for war with United States troops then approaching Utah to replace Governor Brigham Young. Haight promised Smith that the Tenth Regiment (of which Haight was second-in-command) could accomplish the ambush and destruction of "invading" federal troops before the troops would be able to make their way down through the canyons into the valleys of the Mormons' settlements.

Jacob Hamblin had just been called to be the new president of a mission to Utah's Native Indian tribes. Hamblin had been dispatched to escort Chief Tutsegavit and other southern Utah Paiute chiefs to Salt Lake City where they were to meet with Brigham Young. At this meeting, Young communicated to them the policy that if the natives assisted the Mormons in fighting the Americans, the tribes were to be granted all the cattle on the California trails. Meanwhile, militia in southern Utah were mustered to search the canyons for invading troops and assist natives raiding settlers' stock.

Later in the afternoon of September 5:

at a meeting of the high council in Cedar City, a divisive and quarrelsome debate was held to discuss the recent troubles with the passing emigrant train. Those present - stake president Haight, his counselor John Higbee, Bishop Klingensmith and high councilor Laban Morrill among others - generally agreed on the grievances they perceived in the company that had passed the previous Thursday. The cloud of war spreading over the territory prompted open debate of such extreme measures as attacking the train. Other, more moderate options were proposed. But there was no consensus on what action to take. Morrill extracted a promise that an express rider would be dispatched immediately for Great Salt Lake Valley to get directions from Brigham Young.

On September 6, Haight gave a speech in which he said, "I am prepared to feed to the Gentiles the same bread they fed to us. God being my helper, I will give the last ounce of strength and if need be my last drop of blood in defense of Zion."

That evening, the extended families making the Baker-Fancher train set up their camp in Mountain Meadows. After a siege of the train by Paiutes and militiamen (some of whom were disguised as Natives) for four or five days, militiamen ceremoniously arrived at the scene without disguise and approached the embattled train. For reasons still unclear, the militia used a subterfuge of offering safe passage to the emigrants in exchange for the emigrants' disarming and turning their cattle over to the Paiutes—but after the emigrants were disarmed, militia members and Paiutes murdered all of the emigrant party except young children: about 120 slaughtered with seventeen children spared.

Scholars still debate whether senior Mormon leadership, including Brigham Young, directly instigated the massacre or if responsibility lies with the local leaders of southern Utah.