The “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account, Draft,” and the “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account” are the two complete, extant iterations of efforts by later church historians to record the murder of JS and , including the events leading up to their deaths and the immediate aftermath. As stated at the beginning of both accounts, the information was compiled from a number of different sources, including other journals, letters, and various other documents. It was put into a cohesive narrative during the 1850s by Church Historian’s Office clerks , Jonathan Grimshaw, and , presumably under the direction of the church historian, .
was the initial scribe for approximately the first half of “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account, Draft,” and Grimshaw was the primary scribe for the remainder. Sometimes slips of paper were attached to pages of the draft with additional or alternative text to be included with a specific page. Page 12 of the draft has a notation by Grimshaw indicating that previously drafted text was to be added to the draft; instead of copying the text, he simply inserted a whole leaf into the draft. This leaf, in ’s handwriting, contains various numbered vignettes. It appears to be part of a larger collection of vignettes, as it is paginated “5” and “6,” and is likely the surviving portion of an earlier iteration of the martyrdom account by Thomas Bullock. The remainder of Bullock’s effort is not extant.
“Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account,” which is a more final copy written primarily by Grimshaw in the mid-1850s, similarly has slips of papers attached. It also includes several leaves that were physically removed from “Martyrdom Account, Draft”; these leaves were renumbered to match the pagination of the copy: pages 7–10 in the draft became pages 11–14 in the more final copy; pages 13–14 became 19–20; most extensively, pages 19–52 became 27–60; and finally, page 57, the last page of the draft, became page 73 in the new version. Although these leaves are cataloged with the more final copy, this website presents the pages both in the draft, as originally paginated, and in the more final copy, with the new pagination. Two additional items were added at the end of the more final copy. A bifolium paginated as “75” and “2” and written on the back of a printed Utah Territory legal form gives an account of the arrival of the bodies of JS and Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo as well as the funeral and burial. It was written by Grimshaw and edited by from information given by . On the final leaf, which is torn and is paginated “76,” Bullock drafted an introduction to a passage from ’s History of Illinois, with instructions to include the passage from Ford’s history in the martyrdom account.
Both the draft and the more final copy were edited by , Grimshaw, and . It is not clear when the edits were made. The more final copy of the account appears to be what was used in 1856 when the final version was copied into the last volume of the Joseph Smith’s multivolume manuscript history (JS History, vol. F-1, 147, 151–204).
Page 16a
NoteA.
knew this was illegal (for he had formerly been <an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the > a <Circuit> Judge) and also when he was appealed to by Captain <Robert F.> Smith to know what he must do in the illegality of his <as he had found his mittimus <as a magistrate> was illegal and therefore that it was a false committal.>, replied “You have the Carthage Greys at your command. Captain Smith therefore commanded his “Greys” to execute and carry into effect his <illegal> mittimus as a magistrate; thus practically blending the civil and military in the same person, and at the same time; and the prisoners were violently and illegally dragged to jail without any examination, <whatever> or any sentence pronounced on them, while was <in> occupying, in person, the adjoining room <to that> from which they were thus taken. So much for his professions that the law must be executed.
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Thus a justice of the peace, acting as a military officer also, by virtue of his commission as such, orders his command to appear under arms, and to incarcerate the prisoners whom he had just before ordered the constable to commit to jail by mittimusere they had been < without having been> brought before him for examination; and the , having been himself at one time a judge upon the bench, knew and well understood the illegality of the above proceedings; he also well knew that military power and authority were <had been> used <by one & the same person>; and yet he, acting at that time as Commander in Chief, in a military point of view, which gave him at the supervision over his officers, and in fact, made him responsible for all their acts and movements, refused to interfere <when requested by the prisoners to interpose his authority on their behalf against an illegal civil process,> or <& also refuse> to countermand the order— this illegal, oppressing and unofficialike order of one of his captains. Moreover, having taken the oath of office, he was by virtue of that oath bound to see the <civil> laws faithfully executed, and not, as in [p. 16a]