On 17 May 1842, JS wrote a letter to , general clerk and recorder, instructing him to allow to withdraw his name from church membership if Bennett so desired. Six days earlier, , on behalf of JS and other church leaders, wrote a notice declaring that they had withdrawn fellowship from Bennett, who was accused of seducing several women in , Illinois, and telling those women and others that JS sanctioned such practices. At this time, withdrawing “fellowship” from an individual typically meant that the person was excommunicated from the church. However, in Bennett’s case, as well as in others, being disfellowshipped may not have meant formal excommunication, though Bennett later referred to the 11 May notice of withdrawal of fellowship as a “BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION.” Whatever the 11 May notice meant, JS allowed Bennett to withdraw from the church voluntarily before making the notice of the disfellowshipment public.

himself may not have known about the notice by 19 May. On 17 May, confronted Bennett about his alleged immoral conduct, giving Bennett a clear indication that church leaders were not pleased with him. also stated in an affidavit that “some four or five days” after 11 May, he “intimated” to Bennett that church leaders had withdrawn fellowship from him, thereby persuading Bennett to withdraw from the church “immediately.” Bennett also told the City Council on 19 May that he hoped to “be restored to full confidence. & fellowship. & my former standing in the chu[r]ch,” suggesting that he knew about the 11 May withdrawal of fellowship by that time. However, a 26 May entry in JS’s journal implies that Bennett was not informed about the withdrawal notice until 25 May. Whatever the case, Bennett later claimed that he decided on 17 May to withdraw from the church without any prompting and that church leaders retroactively prepared the 11 May notice to make it seem as though they had taken action first. JS’s 17 May letter, ’s notation, and various statements Bennett and others made about events that transpired on 17 May and 19 May contradict Bennett’s claims.

JS may have had a scribe, possibly , pen the original letter, which is apparently not extant. Later, when Sloan made a copy of the letter, he noted that JS had signed the original. Sloan evidently received JS’s letter on 17 May in and spoke that same day with . Sloan made a note of Bennett’s withdrawal on his copy of the letter, dating the notation 17 May. The letter from JS and Sloan’s notation were later published in the 8 July 1842 issue of the Sangamo Journal and in Bennett’s book The History of the Saints.