On 1 September 1842, wrote a letter from , New York, to JS in , Illinois, regarding ’s recent denunciations in of JS and the Latter-day Saints following Bennett’s acrimonious departure from Nauvoo. Just as Bennet had done in a 16 August letter to JS, he instructed JS to keep the contents of this letter confidential. The 1 September letter was prompted in part by a circa August 1842 letter from to James Arlington Bennet’s wife, Sophia Smith Bennet, as well as by a series of lectures John C. Bennett was giving in New York City. James Arlington Bennet had written an earlier letter to JS after meeting with Bennett and in August 1842. Bennett went to New York City to continue his efforts to cultivate public outrage over JS and the Latter-day Saints, and he evidently hoped to sway Bennet’s opinion of JS and the . While James Arlington Bennet did not ally himself with John C. Bennett’s cause, Bennett found an advocate and supporter in famed evangelical apologist and religious debater Origen Bacheler. Accordingly, during late August and early September 1842, Bennett and Bacheler delivered a series of lectures denouncing JS and the Saints at a church on the corner of Delancey and Chrystie streets in Lower Manhattan. Writing to JS, who was both his commanding officer in the and a personal friend, Bennet reassured him of his continued support for the Saints, despite Bennet’s association with John C. Bennett and the nature of Bennett’s accusations.

also used his letter to alert JS to the New York Herald’s publication of a general order that JS and purportedly issued to the Nauvoo Legion on 4 August 1842. The order called for James Arlington Bennet and New York Herald editor to come to in accordance with their appointed duties with the Nauvoo Legion. According to the order, JS and McFall were activating “the most able and experienced officers” of the legion in response to governor ’s recent request that JS be extradited from in connection with the attempted assassination of . The published order then explained that if Reynolds’s “demand is persisted in, blood must be shed.” Published in the 30 August 1842 issue of the New York Herald, the statement seemed to lend further credence to ’s suggestion that “the strong arm of military power” was necessary to deal with the Latter-day Saints.

The postmark on the letter indicates that mailed it from on 1 September 1842, the same day he wrote it. JS’s journal reports that JS received the letter on 14 September, and copied the letter into the journal around that date. The letter was then “placed in the hands of Genl ,” who wrote a refutation of the order that was published in the New York Herald, arguing that the document was a hoax. McFall’s statement was published in the 24 September 1842 issue of the Wasp. Extant records do not indicate if JS ever responded to Bennet’s letter.