Appendix 3: Willard Richards, Journal Excerpt, 23–27 June 1844
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Source Note
, Journal Excerpt, 23–27 June 1844; handwriting of ; nineteen pages; in Willard Richards, Journal, CHL. Portions of some entries were written in pencil before they were overwritten in ink.
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Historical Introduction
JS’s journal, kept by , ended with the entry of 22 June 1844, just before JS left , Illinois, in company with Richards, , and . Richards, who remained with JS until the moment of JS’s death on 27 June, evidently left JS’s journal in Nauvoo when the four men departed for , Illinois. Richards, however, recorded in his own journal many of the events of the last five days of JS’s life. These events include JS’s arrival on the bank in on the morning of 23 June and his trip to Carthage, during which JS and Hyrum gave themselves up to authorities on the charge of treason. Richards’s journal also recounts JS’s activities in Carthage during the days preceding his and Hyrum’s deaths. The material Richards recorded in his own journal during this time is in the same format and style as the record he had been keeping for JS. Richards’s hasty, terse notations and precise attention to details—illustrated by his practice of recording the specific times events occurred—indicate that he continuously carried his journal with him and recorded many of the events as he witnessed them, possibly with the intention of using the record to fill in JS’s journal at a later date. Richards’s journal entries for 23–27 June 1844 provide a contemporaneous firsthand account of JS’s activities during the last five days of his life, and they are reproduced here in full. Richards first inscribed portions of these entries in pencil and then rewrote them in ink. In a few cases, while overwriting, he skipped or altered the original penciled text. The transcription here reproduces the final ink version and does not capture the slight variations in the penciled text.
Footnotes
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1
For additional details on the events leading to the deaths of JS and Hyrum Smith, see Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy.
Oaks, Dallin H., and Marvin S. Hill. Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.
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1
& said the guard wanted some wine Joseph gave 2,½ dollars— to give the guard— but the guard said one was enough & would take no more.— Guard immediately sent for a bottle of wine. pipe & 2 small papers of tobacco.— & one brought them in soon after the Jailer went out. topped the bottle presented a glass to Joseph. he tastd . tasted the Tasted.— gave the bottle to the guard.— who tund [turned] to go out. when at the stairs top. some one below calld him 2 or 3 times. he went down—— a little rustling at the door.— the cry surrender &— discharge of 3 or 4 arm— followd intntly [instantly].— glanced an eye by the curtain— saw a 100 armed men around the door.— Joseph & s coat were of off—Josep sprang to his coat for his 6. shooter, for his single barrel— for s — cane— & for s— cane—— all sprang agist [against] the door— the balls whistled up the stair way— & in an instant. one came through the door—— Joseph & — sprang to the left. back in front of the door— & snapped his pistol.— when a ball struck him in the left side of his nose. fell back on floor saying— I am a dead man Joseph discharged his 6 shooter— in the entry reaching round— the door casing continual discharges came in the room.— 6 shooter missed fire 2 or 3 times.— sprang to leap from the east window— was shot in the window
Editorial Note
’s incomplete account of the attack on the jail was written some time after JS and were killed. Changes in ink density and line spacing suggest that the last thing he wrote before the attack on the jail was the time “4.15—”, on page 35 of his journal featured here. Richards later completed his account of the last violent minutes in the jail and published it in , Illinois, as part of a detailed article he wrote on the attack. The following excerpt of that article is from the 24 July 1844 issue of the Nauvoo Neighbor:
rushed into the window, which is some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. When his body was nearly on a balance, a ball from the door within entered his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch . . . and smashed it . . . leaving the hands standing at 5 o’clock, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds,—the force of which ball threw him back on the floor, and he rolled under the bed which stood by his side, where he lay motionless, the mob from the door continuing to fire upon him, cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a man’s hand, and were hindered only by my knocking down their muzzles with a stick; while they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left handed, and aimed their discharge so far around as almost to reach us in the corner of the room to where we retreated and dodged, and then I recommenced the attack with my stick again. Joseph attempted as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward exclaiming, “O Lord my God!” As his feet went out of the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man. At this instant the cry was raised, “He’s leaped the window,” and the mob on the stairs and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around Gen Smith’s body. Not satisfied with this I again reached my head out of the window and watched some seconds, to see if there were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see the end of him I loved; being fully satisfied, that he was dead, with a hundred men near the body and more coming round the corner of the jail, and expecting a return to our room I rushed towards the prison door, at the head of the stairs, and through the entry from whence the firing had proceeded, to learn if the doors into the prison were open. When near the entry, Mr. Taylor called out “take me;” I pressed my way till I found all doors unbarred, returning instantly caught Mr. Taylor under my arm, and rushed by the stairs into the dungeon, or inner prison, stretched him on the floor and covered him with a bed in such a manner, as not likely to be perceived, expecting an immediate return of the mob. I said to Mr. Taylor, this is a hard case to lay you on the floor, but if your wounds are not fatal I want you to live to tell the story. I expected to be shot the next moment, and stood before the door awaiting the onset.
[p. [37]]
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