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Joseph Smith Documents from 16 May through 28 June 1844

On the morning of 27 June 1844, while incarcerated on a charge of treason in the jail in , Illinois, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to his wife in , Illinois. “I am very much resigned to my lot knowing I am justified and have done the best that could be done,” he wrote. “As for treason I know that I have not commited any.” He assured Emma that she “need not have any fears that any harme can happen to us on that score.” Sometime after five o’clock in the afternoon, less than ten hours later, Joseph Smith lay dead outside the jail, the victim of a mob attack.
This volume of The Joseph Smith Papers covers the tumultuous final six weeks of Joseph Smith’s life, illuminating especially the events that led to his death. It features 105 documents, representing the core of his documentary output during this period, including his correspondence, accounts of his discourses, administrative minutes, municipal documents, military orders, and legal papers. Representative samples of certain routine papers—such as pay orders and recommendations—that form a large part of his documentary record are also featured; samples of other routine documents—such as deeds, promissory notes, and licenses—are not featured.
Some of the letters in this volume did not or likely did not arrive in until after Joseph Smith’s death on 27 June. They are included within this volume because they were written, at least in part, while he was alive or on the presumption that he was still alive. Furthermore, some documents that do not appear within this volume—such as deeds, recorded in Joseph Smith’s name because of his position as trustee-in-trust for the —were entered after his death but still constitute Joseph Smith documents.
While most of the documents created during these six weeks relate to the events leading up to the murders of Joseph Smith and his brother , some reflect Joseph Smith’s multifarious activities. He corresponded with individuals who had questions about , the church, and his role as prophet. He received reports from missionaries and conducted other matters of church business. He handled business affairs connected to his . As trustee-in-trust for the church, he managed its lands in Nauvoo and other areas of and corresponded with individuals about real estate matters. As mayor of Nauvoo, an office he had held since mid-1842, he made payments to police officers and other city employees and presided over meetings of the Nauvoo City Council and over the city’s mayoral and municipal courts.
kept a detailed journal on behalf of Joseph Smith for much of this time. While it did describe the troubling circumstances that Smith faced during his final six weeks, the journal also highlighted other aspects of his life, including his relationships with family and friends. Richards’s entries referenced Smith’s concerns over the health of his wife during late May 1844. The journal included succinct notations about the time that he spent at home with his family. Richards also recorded Smith’s efforts to visit with and minister to friends, including a call on while she battled an illness.
Throughout his time in , and especially during the early months of 1844, Joseph Smith became increasingly involved in politics, with many of his political ideas being influenced by the Latter-day Saints’ experience in from 1831 to 1839. Church members experienced debilitating persecution in Missouri, the place they considered to be the site of their . In 1833 a group of Saints was forcibly removed from their homes in , and in 1838 Governor signed an extermination order calling for the immediate removal of the Saints from their homes in northern Missouri. Smith and others were arrested for treason and other crimes and were subsequently incarcerated for long periods. The memory of these events together with a lack of redress at either the state or federal level weighed heavily on Smith and influenced his political involvement for the rest of his life. His constant aim was to protect his people from persecution.
In January 1844 members of the nominated Smith as a candidate for president. The following month, he published a pamphlet containing his platform. Between March and May, he helped organize electioneering efforts, including the call of a large number of men to campaign throughout the United States. On 21 May he joined several other residents in bidding farewell to a large group of these men, including and other apostles. During the period covered by this volume, apostles and wrote a letter to Joseph Smith on the results of their campaigning efforts and other matters. Smith also corresponded with various individuals and groups about his political ideas.
During Smith’s presidential campaign, the , which he had organized in March 1844 to serve as the political arm of the kingdom of God, continued to meet. The council considered the potential relocation of church members to other regions of North America, such as the , , or the disputed area of , all of which were outside the in 1844. Remembering their troubled past in , Smith and the council hoped for a location where the Saints could find peace and freedom to practice their religion. Under Smith’s leadership, the council also sent both verbal and written directions to apostle , who was in on the council’s assignment. Hyde had traveled to the nation’s capital with copies of a March 1844 memorial, composed under Smith’s direction, to submit to both houses of Congress and the . The petition requested that Smith be accepted as a member of the United States Army and authorized to raise volunteers to protect Americans emigrating to Oregon and Texas. Shortly after his arrival, Hyde met with congressman , who pledged to help submit the memorial. Despite their efforts, Wentworth and Hyde reported in May and June that the request never received serious consideration in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Other individuals wrote letters to Smith proposing that church members migrate to the western regions of Texas or Oregon.
While Joseph Smith’s political activities played an important role in this period, still more significant were the growing conflicts between Smith and his opponents. Since at least 1841, the Saints’ neighbors had criticized Smith and his followers on economic, political, legal, and religious matters. The influx of thousands of church members between 1840 and 1844 caused outsiders to fear that was growing into a political kingdom with Smith at its head.
One major point of contention was the organization and distribution of civic authority in . In 1840 the state legislature passed an act, commonly known as the Nauvoo charter, that incorporated the city. Like the charters of other Illinois cities, Nauvoo’s constitution vested power in a city council that was composed of the mayor, city councilors, and aldermen. The city council was empowered to pass any ordinance that was “not repugnant” to the constitutions of the and the state of Illinois. The mayor and city aldermen operated courts that adjudicated alleged breaches of city ordinances. In addition, the mayor and aldermen together formed the Nauvoo Municipal Court. In May 1842, when Smith became mayor of , he therefore became a member of the city council, judge of the mayor’s court, and chief justice of the municipal court. In addition, Smith was lieutenant general of the , which, although effectively independent, operated under the umbrella of the Illinois state militia. Latter-day Saint residents of Nauvoo trusted Smith to exercise these extensive powers justly, while the church’s opponents viewed the concentration of executive, legislative, judicial, and military authority in one man as dangerous and potentially tyrannical.
Further, Smith’s opponents decried what they saw as an unconstitutional exercise of power under the authority granted in the charter, taking particular exception to the Nauvoo Municipal Court’s controversial use of , a common law writ that permitted courts to review the legality of a prisoner’s detention. The Nauvoo charter granted the municipal court power to issue writs of habeas corpus “in all cases arising under the ordinances of the City Council.” During 1842 the city council passed a series of ordinances that expanded the city court’s authority, allowing it to review arrests not only for violations of city ordinances but also for breaches of state and federal laws. The ordinances further granted the municipal court authority to review both procedural defects and the merits of the underlying charge. Smith and his associates viewed these powers as essential protections against persecution. In addition, they argued that the municipal court’s use of habeas corpus was a legitimate extension of the state-sanctioned city charter and that it fit broadly within acceptable applications of habeas corpus. The church’s critics, however, contended that the municipal court’s habeas corpus powers went beyond traditional interpretations of the writ and shielded Smith and others from the reach of the law. Although they failed, resulting efforts to repeal the charter during winter 1842–1843 manifested the mounting opposition to the city leaders’ use (and perceived abuse) of their authority.
Outsiders also feared that in addition to presiding over the mayor’s court and the Nauvoo Municipal Court, Smith would gain power over the county commissioners’ court during the upcoming August 1844 election. state law provided that the county commissioners’ court would select the members of grand juries, which were the bodies designated to evaluate the validity of criminal indictments before trials held in county-level circuit courts. Accordingly, fears that Smith had growing influence over these courts caused many of his opponents to worry that it was increasingly unlikely that any court in would convict him of a crime he might be accused of committing. If Smith went unchecked, they argued, the law would be “cheated out of its efficacy” and would no longer have the power to “protect our persons and property.” These concerns convinced some citizens of Hancock County that they might need “steel and gun powder” to resolve their concerns if Smith and the Saints were not opposed.
Joseph Smith faced intense opposition from several people in and around , especially from a group of opponents consisting of , , , , , , , and . The majority were disaffected Latter-day Saints, and some had occupied prominent positions within the church and community. Between 1841 and January 1844, William Law was a counselor to Joseph Smith in the . Both Wilson Law and Robert D. Foster had held prominent positions within the , with Law serving as a major general and Foster as the surgeon general. Sylvester Emmons held a seat on the Nauvoo City Council during 1843 and 1844. During the six weeks covered in this volume, Smith’s disputes with these men, which had lasted anywhere from a few months to a few years, reached their apex.
Among the most significant factors in Joseph Smith’s disagreements with these men was the principle of plural marriage. Smith had privately taught the principle to close associates during the early 1840s and had dictated a lengthy revelation on it in July 1843. Although he had been to several women between 1841 and 1844, he did not enter into any additional marriages during these six weeks. Nevertheless, the teaching of this principle and its practice in were key factors in Smith’s controversies with this group of opponents and in the disaffection of some of his closest associates, including .
In March 1844 Smith told a congregation that and another individual had informed him that and , , , and were involved in a conspiracy against Smith’s life. During April both Law brothers and Foster were excommunicated from the church “for unchristianlike conduct.” Shortly after his excommunication, William Law organized a new church with other dissenters. The new church repudiated many of the principles that Smith had begun teaching in , such as plural marriage, that Law and others saw as contrary to the original doctrines and principles espoused by the Saints. Additionally, during the April 1844 , Joseph Smith had taught the Saints about the nature of God—specifically that God had the form of a man and that God had once been a man and had incrementally advanced to a state of divinity. He further explained that men and women could follow a similar path. The dissenters deemed this teaching to be blasphemy and additional proof that Joseph Smith had become what they termed a fallen prophet.
This group of dissenters also shared the concerns of Joseph Smith’s opponents in about the level of Smith’s power in . Several dissenters laid out these criticisms in early May as part of the prospectus for a new opposition newspaper that they intended to publish in Nauvoo. They chose to be the new paper’s editor. Around 10 May the group published the prospectus for the newspaper, which they called the Nauvoo Expositor. The prospectus declared that the publishers had “a knowledge of the many Gross abuses exercised under the ‘pretended’ authorities of the Charter of the City of Nauvoo, and by the Legislative authorities of said city.” They announced their determination to renew earlier efforts to repeal the Nauvoo charter and pledged their determination to “censure and decry gross moral imperfections” of Nauvoo’s populace, including Joseph Smith, whom they dubbed a “Self-Constituted MONARCH.”
Joseph Smith’s opponents also attempted to overwhelm him with litigation during the May 1844 term of the Circuit Court. Smith was a defendant in five civil and two criminal cases initiated by his opponents in . The first criminal indictment was on charges of adultery and fornication, stemming from Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage. This indictment charged that during 1843, Smith had allegedly lived “in an open state of adultery with one ,” who had evidently become one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives during May 1843. Both and apparently offered supporting testimony for the indictment on 27 May. The second was for perjury, based on an allegation that Smith had falsely sworn to an affidavit in January 1844. The civil suits against Smith related to wrongs allegedly committed in the execution of his civic duties as a mayor.
In late May, Joseph Smith traveled to —the seat of government in —to answer the charges against him. During Smith’s stay there, privately warned him that some of the dissenters were plotting against his life. Although the two men had been at odds, Foster reportedly told Smith that he “did not want to see blood shed.” The following week, Smith learned that Charles’s brother was “almost ready to come back” into church fellowship and that a conciliatory effort on Smith’s part could bring it about. Smith agreed to welcome Robert Foster back if he agreed to drop his lawsuits against Smith and “do right.” On 7 June, Foster approached Smith and asked if they could meet privately, but Smith insisted that there be witnesses present and explained that he already had friends in his home who were ready to meet. Foster departed to obtain his own witnesses. But instead of returning, Foster wrote an incendiary letter to Joseph Smith, rejecting both his conditions and his fellowship. The hoped-for reconciliation had failed.
That same day, Joseph Smith’s opponents published the first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, which included serious complaints about Smith, the City Council, and conditions in Nauvoo. The editors professed belief in the doctrines that Smith had taught from the church’s canon of scripture: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. They accused Smith and other church officials of departing from those principles and from the “cardinal virtues” that “ought to be found [in] those of faith.” They claimed that Joseph Smith was privately and publicly teaching “heretical and damnable” doctrines about marriage and Deity. The editors published resolutions that condemned the union of church and state in Nauvoo, “the hostile spirit and conduct manifested by Joseph Smith, and many of his associates towards ,” and Smith’s influence in the financial affairs of the church. The dissenters denounced all secret organizations, alluding to the secretive , and they refused to “acknowledge any man as king or law-giver to the church.” On the whole, the newspaper suggested that Nauvoo was overrun by “religious despotism” and was “incompatible with [American] free institutions.”
The Expositor also criticized the involvement of Joseph Smith and the Municipal Court in a federal case involving , a miller from who had been accused of fraudulently obtaining money from the government, a federal crime. To evade prosecutors, Smith fled Iowa and took refuge in Nauvoo. Eventually, federal agents found and arrested him there on two separate warrants. Joseph Smith, believing that the man was falsely accused and therefore in need of protection from the Nauvoo Municipal Court, encouraged Jeremiah Smith to petition the court for habeas corpus. The court, with Joseph Smith presiding as chief justice, subsequently discharged Jeremiah Smith from both arrests. The case highlighted the concerns of Joseph Smith’s opponents, including the editors of the Expositor, regarding the ways that the Nauvoo Municipal Court utilized writs of habeas corpus. The editors of the Expositor implied that Jeremiah Smith had purchased protection in Nauvoo with stolen funds and argued that unless the city’s powers of habeas corpus were curtailed, Nauvoo would become a “refuge for every offender who can carry in spoils enough to buy protection.”
The day after the Expositor’s publication, the City Council held a regularly scheduled meeting. Much of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of the Expositor’s editor and publishers, and the council suspended as a member of the city council. Joseph Smith also proposed that the city council prepare and pass an ordinance prohibiting public misrepresentation and libelous publications within the city. Two days later, on 10 June, the city council again assembled. Following additional discussion, it passed the ordinance on libels.
Joseph Smith then proposed that the council take more immediate action and declare the Expositor a public nuisance. Council members deliberated over the legality of such a declaration, concluding that it was justified under English common law as well as the constitutions of the and the state of . Furthermore, the council cited a provision in the charter that granted the city council authority “to declare what shall be a nuisance, and to prevent and remove the same.” Despite opposition to the measure from councilman , the city council ultimately declared the newspaper a public nuisance and ordered Smith to see to its in his capacity as Nauvoo city mayor.
Accordingly, on 10 June, Joseph Smith issued a mayor’s order to city marshal to destroy the Expositor’s press and scatter the type in the street. That evening, around sundown, a posse led by Greene carried out Smith’s order. Later that day, Smith spoke to a part of the group and approved of their actions. He told the crowd that he “cared not how ma[n]y pape[r]s there were in the city” so long as “they would pr[i]nt the truth.” The audience cheered. The following day, Smith asked another group of Saints “if th[e]y would sta[n]d by me” and was greeted with cries of “yes— fr[o]m all qua[r]ters.” The publishers of the Expositor and Smith’s opponents outside of Nauvoo responded to the abatement with declarations of their own. Within a day, the publishers began vacating the city and vowed retribution. At , filed a legal complaint against Joseph Smith and others associated with the press’s destruction before , a justice of the peace. On the basis of this complaint, Morrison issued a warrant for the arrest of Smith and seventeen others on a charge of riot, with orders that they be brought to Carthage to answer the charge.
On 12 June, constable arrested Joseph Smith in and attempted to transport him to . Fearing that his life would be in danger outside Nauvoo, Smith refused to go to Carthage and applied to the Nauvoo Municipal Court for a writ of habeas corpus. After receiving the writ, Smith appeared before the court for a habeas corpus hearing and was discharged from arrest. The following day, Smith presided over a habeas corpus hearing for the other men listed in the warrant on the riot charge and discharged them as well. The destruction of the Expositor and the subsequent discharges in the Nauvoo court infuriated Smith’s opponents in the county. The Warsaw Signal called for people to take up arms and to make their voices heard with “POWDER and BALL,” as the destruction of the Expositor had made “war and extermination” in the county seem inevitable. Other opponents held mass meetings in Carthage and , where they passed resolutions that members of the church “should be driven from the surrounding settlements, into Nauvoo” and that “a war of extermination should be waged” against them if they refused to deliver Smith and the others responsible for the Expositor’s destruction into the hands of Smith’s opponents.
Joseph Smith sought to defuse the explosive situation in by clarifying the recent events in . On 11 June he instructed to write a proclamation to Nauvoo’s residents explaining that the Expositor had been abated to protect Nauvoo against various efforts to abolish the Nauvoo charter, to prevent “the promulgation of false statements, libels, [and] slanders,” and to “suppress the gathering of mobs” that Smith feared the newspaper would incite. The proclamation appeared in the Nauvoo Neighbor the following day under Smith’s signature as the mayor of Nauvoo. Two days later, on 14 June, he justified the decision to abate the Expositor in a letter to governor . Smith explained that the city council had ordered the destruction of the press because it had endangered the “constitutional rights and chartered privileges” of the people of Nauvoo and had therefore constituted a public nuisance. Drawing upon the same legal sources the council had used to justify the abatement, Smith argued that the Nauvoo City Council was authorized to remove such a nuisance. Acting in his capacity as mayor on 16 June, Smith wrote another proclamation, which attempted to explain these rationales to the broader citizenry of Hancock County. Further, during a sermon to the Saints in Nauvoo, he called for volunteers to explain the abatement to the citizens in surrounding towns and villages.
Even while Smith tried to explain the destruction of the Expositor to the public, reports of mob activity persuaded him to act in his capacity as a militia commander to protect the city. As circumstances deteriorated, Smith received various reports that demonstrated the significance of the threat against the Saints throughout . Rumors circulated that militia and munitions were being assembled at and in preparation for an assault upon . In some outlying communities, opponents demanded that local Latter-day Saints choose between assisting with Smith’s arrest, surrendering their arms, and abandoning their homes and farms. Smith responded to these statements by ordering the threatened Saints to “never give up your arms, but die first.” In response to the increasingly dangerous situation, Smith wrote another letter to on 16 June, informing him of the threats of violence within the county and offering the ’s help in quelling insurrections. He also requested that the governor, as commander in chief of the state militia, travel to Nauvoo with his staff to maintain law and order in the county. In addition to writing to Ford, Smith instructed Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo to “prepare their arms for def[e]nce of the city” and ordered church members outside of Nauvoo to hold themselves “in readiness to act at a moments warning.” As additional rumors of an impending attack circulated throughout Nauvoo, Smith issued orders to and the Nauvoo Legion to ensure that peace and order were maintained within the city.
Still hoping to effect a peaceful solution, Smith met with Judge of ’s fifth judicial circuit—which included —on 16 June to discuss the circumstances. According to Smith and those close to him, Thomas advised that those named in the 11 June warrant “go before some Jusstice of the peace— & have an examntion [examination]” of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor’s press. Accordingly, on 17 June, alderman and justice of the peace issued a new warrant for Smith and sixteen others on the charge of riot. They were then arrested and appeared before Wells on the charge. After hearing testimony, Wells discharged the prisoners. Smith hoped that the participation of Wells, who was not a Latter-day Saint, in the new trial would help mollify those who had been angered by the discharges by the Nauvoo Municipal Court on 12 and 13 June. This effort, however, only intensified the concerns of Smith’s adversaries that he was above the law. apparently informed Smith that the trial had failed to “satisfy the feelings of the people in and about .”
The troubling circumstances in only grew more volatile after Joseph Smith assembled the and placed the city under martial law on 18 June. That afternoon at around two o’clock, Joseph Smith informed the legion that he had placed the city under martial law. In connection with this, he instructed to prevent people and property from leaving the city without a pass. In a discourse near the , he explained the action, saying that the mob intended to wage “a war of extermination” upon the Saints.
Following the declaration of martial law, further reports of potential mob violence, including a threat of vigilantes from , reached Smith and likely helped persuade him to appeal for additional assistance. During May, Smith’s presidential campaign had taken many of his closest supporters and confidantes, including all but two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, away from . Accordingly, on 20 June, Smith made plans to request all members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles campaigning for him in the eastern states to return immediately to Nauvoo. Additionally, he wrote a formal appeal to the president, , apprising him of the dangers from Missouri vigilantes and requesting federal protection. He also requested to write to , a prominent New Yorker, a longtime correspondent of Joseph Smith, and inspector general of the , and petition him to come to their aid “with as many volunteers” as he could muster. Responding to a letter closer to home, Smith asked the members of a small of the church at Doyle’s Mills, Illinois, to forward any available “wheat or provisions” to Nauvoo in order to mitigate deficiencies in food and other supplies in the city.
Although Joseph Smith had sent two letters to asking that he come to to assuage the situation, an envoy from persuaded Ford to leave for before either of Smith’s letters arrived. Ford reached Carthage on the morning of 21 June. Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter to Joseph Smith and the other members of the Nauvoo City Council asking them to send representatives to Carthage to explain the events of the previous eleven days. Upon receiving Ford’s letter, Smith immediately convened a special meeting of the council. During the meeting, the council compiled fifteen affidavits and other documents detailing threats made against the Saints. Smith sent the items to Ford that evening with a delegation of trusted associates— and —acting as his representatives. The following morning, Smith wrote a longer explanation of events to Ford and sent it to him along with some additional affidavits.
found the explanations from , , and the documents they carried with them unsatisfactory. On 22 June, before receiving the additional documents, he wrote another letter to Smith and the city council, stating his belief that they were responsible for the upheaval in the and that the destruction of the Expositor had been “a very gross outrage upon the laws and the liberties of the people.” He further explained that unless Smith and the others named in the warrant appeared at to answer the charges against them, he feared that mob violence would ensue against church members at . Emphasizing the gravity of the situation, a posse of the state militia, under the command of Captain Christopher Yates, accompanied by Taylor and Bernhisel, delivered Ford’s letter to Smith at Nauvoo that night at around ten o’clock and then waited to escort him back to Carthage.
’s letter, particularly his insinuation that he might not be able to control those who were threatening violence against the Saints, caused immediate concern for Joseph Smith and his advisers. Around midnight, Smith dictated a letter to Ford responding to each of the arguments that the governor had outlined in his letter. Toward the end Smith explained that the presence of the mob made it impossible for him to appear at and stated that he intended to lay his case “before the federal goverment” in . After finishing the letter, sometime before dawn, Smith crossed the into along with his brother , , and .
Later that morning in , Joseph Smith contemplated his next steps. He sent a letter to his wife reiterating his intent to petition the federal government in for assistance and expressing a desire to see her and his other loved ones again. That afternoon, a group from visited Joseph Smith’s party and provided clarification of ’s 22 June letter, as well as an assurance from Ford that Smith would be protected if he surrendered himself at . With that promise, Smith wrote a letter to Ford agreeing to travel to Carthage to answer the riot charge, provided he would receive a fair trial. He accordingly returned to Nauvoo and instructed and to carry his letter to Ford that evening. In an attempt to prepare for his hearing in Carthage, Smith also sent letters to attorneys and a potential witness.
Early in the morning of 24 June, Joseph Smith and several companions—including most of the others who had been charged with riot and one of JS’s attorneys—left for . The trip to Carthage was somber. Watching the group leave, prayed that God would protect them from those that “thirst[ed] for their blood,” even while she acknowledged her belief that “their giveing themselves up, is all that will save our city from destruction.” , a member of the traveling party, later recalled that Smith paused with his brother momentarily at the and remarked, “This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens, little do they know the trials that await them.” Around ten o’clock that morning at the farm of , approximately four miles west of Carthage, the group met with Captain and a company of men from the Augusta Dragoons, a detachment of the state militia. As Dunn and his company approached Smith’s party, Smith remarked to the members of his group, “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter but I am as calm as a summer’s morning and if I die I will die innocent.” Dunn was carrying a military order from instructing the to surrender all its state-issued arms to Dunn. At Dunn’s request, Smith and the group returned to Nauvoo, where they assisted Dunn with collecting weapons that afternoon. The requisition drew criticisms from many of the Saints, who “looked upon this as another preparation for a massacre.” On Smith’s orders, however, they “very unwillingly gave up the arms,” which amounted to three cannons and 220 stands of small arms. After the weapons had been retrieved, Smith and his party resumed their journey to Carthage, arriving there shortly before midnight.
The next day, before appearing for a hearing on the riot charge, Joseph and were arrested for treason against the state of , evidently in connection with Joseph Smith’s calling out the and declaring martial law in . That afternoon, Smith and fourteen others appeared before justice of the peace at ’s to answer the riot charge. Smith released them on bail and ordered them to appear before the circuit court for trial during its October 1844 term. While some in the party returned to Nauvoo, Joseph and Hyrum Smith remained at in custody on the treason charge. That night, they were committed to the Hancock County jail, joined voluntarily by a few others, to await an examination on the new charge.
Except for a short visit to the court, Joseph and spent their two final days incarcerated within the jailhouse. At their request, met with them on 26 June to discuss the legitimacy of their imprisonment and the details surrounding the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press and the subsequent declaration of martial law. Although he acknowledged some merits of their explanations, Ford stated that his position as governor did not allow him to intervene in the matter, which was under the jurisdiction of a local justice of the peace. He did intimate, however, that he would likely go to the following day and that the Smiths could accompany him on the trip. Hoping to make the most of their potential visit to Nauvoo, Joseph Smith dictated a letter inviting Judge to meet them in Nauvoo to “investigate the whole matter.” Smith was convinced that as a circuit court judge, Thomas was authorized to review the legality of the Smith brothers’ detention on a writ of habeas corpus. Despite these hopes for a trial outside of , Smith “could n[o]t help” feeling “a good deal of anxiety about [his] safety.”
On the evening of 26 June, reportedly read various passages about “imprisonments and [the] deliverance of the servants of God” to the group in the jail. Joseph Smith then spoke to the guards “of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon— the restoration of the Gospel, the administration of angels, and that the Kingdom of God was again upon the Earth.” He further testified to the guards that “he had [not] violated any law of God or of man.” Sometime around eight o’clock that evening, Smith learned that he would not accompany to the next day but rather would remain in the jailhouse, watched over by a guard of fifty men. The news cast a depressive spirit over Smith and the others in the jail. Sometime during the night, he reportedly asked if he was “afraid to die.” When Jones pledged his loyalty to Smith to the death, Smith promised that Jones would yet “see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed” to him. The following morning, he wrote a letter to assuring her that the governor had told him there was no danger of “any ‘exterminating order’” against the Saints. He also disclosed to her that while he had come to terms with his circumstances, he felt confident that he had not committed treason. Smith also made one more attempt to secure additional legal aid, writing a letter to , Illinois, lawyer .
Although several men had voluntarily stayed in the jail with the Smith brothers on the nights of 25 and 26 June, by the midafternoon of 27 June, only apostles and remained in the second-story bedroom of the jail where Joseph and were being held. Richards later recounted the events of that afternoon in his journal and in a newspaper article detailing his experience. According to him, as the afternoon wore on, the guards became “more severe in their ope[r]ations— threat[e]ning among themselves or telling what they would do when the war was over.” Later, shortly after five o’clock, a mob of 150 to 200 men stormed the jailhouse and trapped the Smith brothers, Taylor, and Richards in the bedroom. To defend themselves against their attackers, the four men braced themselves against the door. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were armed with pistols, which they had received from and , while Taylor and Richards were armed with canes. Moments into the assault, Hyrum Smith was shot and killed. Following his brother’s death, Joseph Smith opened the door slightly and fired his pistol repeatedly into the crowd of assailants. Taylor attempted to escape through a window but was wounded and rolled under the bed for shelter. Joseph Smith then made his way to the same window and attempted to jump to the ground below. He was shot by balls fired from both within and outside the jail, and he fell out of the window, landing close to a nearby well. The entire attack had lasted mere minutes, leaving Joseph Smith dead at the age of thirty-eight and his brother Hyrum Smith dead at the age of forty-four. Taylor was severely wounded during the assault, while Richards escaped unscathed except for a small wound on the lower part of his left ear.
News of the murders traveled quickly to . Witnessing the anguish of the Smith family, recorded that “the agony of the widows & orphan children was inexpressible and utterly beyond description.” The news affected every aspect of Nauvoo, creating a scene of sorrow that closed down businesses and shops throughout the city. The day following the murders, the bodies of Joseph and were taken to the , where they were met by “a very large procession of mourners.” Outside the mansion, and , along with attorneys and , addressed the mournful crowd and urged them “to be peaceable and calm and use no threats.” After the bodies had been washed and prepared for burial, the brothers’ widows and along with other family members were allowed to see them. , their mother, later recalled hearing “the sobs and groans of [her] family” as “the cries of ‘Father! Husband! Brothers!’ [fell] from the lips of their wives, children, brother and sisters.” Joseph Smith was survived by four living children and an unborn son, and Hyrum Smith was survived by six children. Both Joseph and Hyrum Smith had also entered into plural marriages with numerous women, who were also affected by their deaths.
Throughout July, various articles were published in the Nauvoo Neighbor and the Times and Seasons detailing the events in the jail, while other articles and poems were published as tributes to Joseph and . This volume’s appendix features the formal announcement of their deaths, which draws from these previous accounts and tributes and was prepared for publication in the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, a compilation of Joseph Smith’s revelations. The announcement briefly narrates the events at the jail on 27 June, placing the responsibility for the murders upon a “conspiracy of traitors and wicked men,” aided by the failure of to protect the brothers. It further depicts Joseph and Hyrum Smith as martyrs and lauds Joseph Smith’s life and accomplishments, stating that he had “sealed his mission and works with his own blood.”
Individual Saints echoed the eulogies that were printed in the various publications of the church. Writing about the events in her diary, , a plural wife of Joseph Smith, praised Joseph and not only as “the Prophet and of the Church” but also as “the kind husbands[,] the affectionate Father[,] the venerable statesman[,] the Friends of man kinde.” Describing her grief, she referred to the days immediately following the murders as “lonely h[e]art sorrowful day[s].” Similarly, , another plural wife of Joseph Smith, poetically extolled the brothers as “two, so wise, so virtuous, great and good” who had been “one in their life, and one in death.” Their deaths had left “hart broken widows” and “helpless orphans.” echoed the sentiments of the public announcement and expressed the feelings of believers when he wrote in his journal that Joseph and Hyrum Smith would be appropriately “ranked with the Martyrs of Jesus Christ.”
While not praising Joseph Smith, some outside of likewise condemned the murders. referred to the events as a “disgraceful affair.” Responding to suggestions that some of the men under his command had been involved in the murders, Ford stated that such an act would have “added treachery to murder,” resulting in “disgrace [to] the , and sully [to] the public honor.” Private individuals also denounced the murders. Writing to her aunt in , resident Martha McConnell Walker explained that although she had earlier thought “that he [Joseph Smith] ought to be killed,” the events of 27 June convinced her that the murders were wrong, or at least that “the time and manner it was done appeared barbarous.”
National newspapers similarly condemned the killings. The Daily Missouri Republican in described them as “perfidious, black-hearted, cowardly murder,” while the New York Herald called them “a brutal, bloody, and dark tragedy” and predicted the Smith brothers would “be regarded as martyrs to their faith.” Responding to such sentiments, however, the Warsaw Signal argued that such condemnations were issued without “all the facts” and suggested that the community was merely protecting itself when it seemed that the government would offer no protection. The Signal further suggested that ultimately either the Saints or “the old citizens” would have to leave and that would not “be quieted, until the [e]xpulsion of one or the other [was] effected.”
The documents in this volume illuminate the chaotic final six weeks of Joseph Smith’s life. They demonstrate his activities in several different roles: as a husband and father; as a businessman; as a municipal judge, a plaintiff, and a defendant; as a commander of militia forces and a citizen charged with treason; as the mayor of a growing frontier town and a presidential candidate for a burgeoning nation; as a church administrator and a charismatic prophet. Indeed, so esteemed was Joseph Smith within the church and within that his death created a vacuum within the community that led to temporary confusion and conflict. Observing the city after returning from his electioneering mission to the eastern states, wrote that “it seamd [seemed] as though menny wanted to draw off a party and be le[a]ders. . . . The saints looked as though they had lost a frend that was able and willing to councel them in all thing[s].” He also opined that the Saints were “like children with out a Father.” Joseph Smith’s documentary record for these final six weeks provides students of his life with rich insights into the ways that a single individual could leave such a tremendous void in the lives of an entire community and the reasons friends would eulogize him with the high praise contained within the announcement of his murder.
Although a small number of financial, legal, and other records were created in his name after 27 June, Joseph Smith’s death brought an end to the vast documentary record of his life. “No man knows my history,” Smith told a congregation of church members in April 1844, just a couple of months before he was killed. “If I had not experienced what I have I should not have known it myself.” The publication of Joseph Smith’s documentary record—including journals, revelations, correspondence, meeting minutes, discourses, narrative histories, and business and legal records, among other types of documents—provides a solid foundation for scholars and others to access and assess Smith’s history. It allows for new opportunities to gain insights into his life and personality. Through these papers, the world of Joseph Smith is illuminated, allowing both believers and scholars to better know him.