Scott Woodward: It was near midnight on June 24, 1844, that Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and over a dozen members of the Nauvoo City Council arrived in Carthage, Illinois to answer the charge of riot for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press. Although the case for this charge had already been heard and dismissed by two separate judges, Governor Thomas Ford insisted that they needed to be tried in Carthage specifically in order to prove to the general public that they were willing to be governed by law. And in response to Nauvoo leaders’ resistant fears of being tried in the extremely unsafe environment of Carthage due to the number of their enemies prowling about there, Ford pledged his faith as governor and the faith of the state of Illinois that they should be protected and that he would guarantee their perfect safety. And so they had now arrived in Carthage, reluctantly throwing themselves under the immediate protection of Governor Ford, trusting his word and faith for their preservation. And within three days, Joseph and Hyrum were dead. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we carefully walk through a play-by-play from the historical record of what exactly happened from the time Joseph, Hyrum, and the City Council arrived at Carthage on June 24 under the supposed protection of Governor Ford to the time of Joseph and Hyrum’s martyrdom on June 27. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today Casey and I dive into our fifth episode in this series about the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Now let’s get into it.

Casey Griffiths: Hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward: Hi, Casey. How are you, sir?

Casey Griffiths: Hey, we’re back, and we’re also back after a little adventure that you went on and that I went on, but we didn’t go on together except for, like, one lunch in the middle there.

Scott Woodward: That’s true. We just got back from actually visiting the church history sites. I was there on a little family trip, and you were—what? You were leading a tour?

Casey Griffiths: I was leading a tour, and we met in Nauvoo and actually talked over this episode in the famous Nauvoo restaurant, the Red Front.

Scott Woodward: The Red Front. Shout out to the Red Front.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, they’re awesome.

Scott Woodward: One of the few places you can eat in Nauvoo.

Casey Griffiths: And then I think we ran into each other again at the new Joseph Smith properties, the ones that were transferred from Community of Christ.

Scott Woodward: That’s right.

Casey Griffiths: You asked some challenging questions of the sister missionaries. I was like, Scott, knock it off.

Scott Woodward: What? No, those were sincere. They were sincere. Like, there was a fireplace, and I wanted to know, is that the fireplace where Emma threw section 132 and burned it? And they didn’t know.

Casey Griffiths: That was a little bit of a fastball. You got to admit.

Scott Woodward: Sorry.

Casey Griffiths: And I want to point out we toured through Red Brick Store, Joseph Smith Homestead, Mansion House. Sister Missionaries did an outstanding job. Just wonderful.

Scott Woodward: They were so good.

Casey Griffiths: It was really, really surreal to be there and tour through those properties with a sister missionary leading the tour, so—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —our compliments to all the missionaries in Nauvoo and the wonderful job they did on all the sites, but especially they got those Community of Christ sites up running within I think about two weeks.

Scott Woodward: Incredible.

Casey Griffiths: Three weeks’ notice? Just incredible that they did that. So well done.

Scott Woodward: Big shout out to the church historian department and the missionaries making that transition happen. Fantastic.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Well done. All around. Proud of you guys, so . . .

Scott Woodward: And on our trip, we also went to Carthage. I took my family there. I assume you took your tour group there.

Casey Griffiths: Mm-hmm. I took my touring family, yes. My daughter was with me, too.

Scott Woodward: That’s right. Only days ago, we were in Carthage in the place where all of the events occur that we’re going to be talking about today.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And it’s difficult to go to Carthage Jail and not feel, kind of, oof, the significance of these events and how powerful they are. Like—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —it’s usually where most of my church history trips end is we try to go to Carthage Jail near the end, because it’s a great place where everything that’s happened, from Sharon, Vermont, comes together in Carthage Jail, and you have this exquisite testimony of Joseph and Hyrum that they share in the moments before they die.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. With that fresh in our minds, we want to walk our listeners today through the events of Carthage. We want to talk about what happened at Carthage Jail from Monday, June 24, all the way to June 27, when they die. So—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —that’s kind of today, but we should probably do a little recap of our previous episode.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Let me recap, and I’m going to be brief here because we’ve got a lot of material prepared.

Scott Woodward: Okay.

Casey Griffiths: But we started out in our first episode of this series talking about external forces fighting against the saints, that Nauvoo was given this very generous charter that made it really independent, but that in turn made some of the people outside of Nauvoo jealous of political power and also a little fearful of the unity of the saints. The face to this movement is Thomas Sharp, who’s the editor of the Warsaw Signal. Warsaw is a town just downriver from Nauvoo, and Sharp and the Warsaw militia are going to be the ones that attack the jail. Sharp is one of the men indicted for the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. That’s the outside of Carthage, right?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Sharp, we talked about this in the last episode, like, literally calls for their murder in his newspaper.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: We have no time for statements, let it be made with powder and ball, or something close to that is what he says.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, no time for a legal process. Let’s get our guns.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. We’ve got to get this done. Then the second part we talked about was internal forces within Nauvoo. The people that are in the church are close associates of Joseph Smith who, for a number of reasons, become opposed to him and start organizing. The primary figure here is William Law. He organizes his own church. He’s excommunicated over conflicts he has with Joseph over plural marriage, over doctrinal teachings like the nature of God, and he has little helpers, too: his brother Wilson, the Foster brothers, the Higbee brothers—all of them come together and publish the Nauvoo Expositor, which seems to be calculated to sort of push Joseph Smith and the other leaders of the church into a corner to where they’re going to get attacked from the outside or they’re going to be forced to silence the voice of the Nauvoo Expositor, which is what we talked about last time.

Scott Woodward: Which would inevitably lead to a cascade of legal problems for the church.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, so these guys know what they’re doing, and they use very inflammatory language in the Expositor. I mean, they call Joseph Smith Caligula.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Worse than Nero and Caligula.

Casey Griffiths: Jeez. Whoa. This forces Joseph Smith and the city council in turn to act. They issue an order to the marshal, who destroys the Nauvoo Expositor and its press, and then I think it’s fair to say, Scott, that kind of all heck breaks loose at this point: that the people outside Nauvoo are incensed because they see Joseph Smith and the city council as suppressing freedom of the press. Joseph Smith and the city council publish their minutes, explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. We went through a legal analysis by Dallin H. Oaks where he said it was legal, what they did.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But it did kind of set them up for further conflict down the road. And as these tensions escalate, Joseph Smith seems to be searching for ways to resolve the conflict without having another Missouri.

Scott Woodward: Another Haun’s Mill.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He’s writing letters back and forth with Thomas Ford, who’s a character who kind of comes into the story at this point.

Scott Woodward: The governor of Illinois, correct?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Governor of Illinois, a major figure in this whole story.

Scott Woodward: And it’s important, as you’re talking about Missouri, like, it was the governor of Missouri that issued the extermination order, so it seems that Joseph has learned his lesson. He needs to make friends with the governor, keep the governor in the loop, make sure the governor of Illinois, like, is aware of their every movement and every rationale behind why they’re doing what they’re doing so that all the false reports that continue to be just flooding the desk of Governor Ford are put in context of the Saints’ perspective as well.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and Joseph really does do that. The documentary record that emerges from these last few weeks of his life show he’s doing everything he can to explain the situation fully to the governor to be as transparent as possible, and he’s giving instructions to people in Nauvoo to not do anything to worsen the situation. He’s trying to find a peaceful resolution.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Ultimately he decides if he and Hyrum leave, that will defuse the situation, but they only make it across the Mississippi River before a group from Nauvoo comes across and convinces them to come back and submit to the law. So where we left the story last week was on the road to Carthage Jail, and today we’re going to pick up the story in Carthage Jail. And let me just set this up a little bit: What we’re going to try to do today is show you kind of a timeline of events and draw from primary sources, people like Dan Jones, who’s there for almost the entire time they’re in Carthage.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Willard Richards, who is there the entire time and during the attack on the jail.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: John Taylor, same thing: there. So we’re going to present the story through the eyewitnesses that were there. We’re going to try to do it on a rough chronology. We’re working off a chronology that was published in the Church News that we’ll link in the show notes. It was written by Sarah Jane Weaver, but she was assisted by a historian from the Joseph Smith Papers, Chase Kirkham. We want to give credit to all of them.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: What we’re going to do today is just tell the story through the eyes of the people who witnessed it, and then next week we’re going to dive into some controversies that still linger. So this week we’re telling the story. Next week we will analyze and pick apart the story and talk about some of the things that we wish we knew more about or that have changed in the light of recent historical research and so on. So today is the story, and the burning question is, what happened at Carthage Jail?

Scott Woodward: Okay. So let’s pick it up where we left off last time: Joseph, Hyrum, and about fourteen other men from the city council all arrive close to midnight on June 24, 1844. Now, all of these men are part of the city council who are being accused of riot—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press, and so that’s why they’re such a big group together. In John Taylor’s words, he said, “We arrived there late in the night. A great deal of excitement prevailed on and after our arrival. The governor had received into his company all of the companies that had been in the mob. These fellows were riotous and disorderly, hallooing, yelling, and whooping about the streets like Indians, many of them intoxicated. The whole presented a scene of rowdyism and low-bred ruffianism only found among mobocrats and desperadoes, and entirely revolting to the best feelings of humanity.” And then he says, “The governor made a speech to them to the effect that he would show Joseph and Hyrum Smith to them in the morning.” And then they go to bed. This group goes and stays the night in the Artois Hamilton Hotel in Carthage. Is that how you say Artois?

Casey Griffiths: I think so.

Scott Woodward: They’re not in the jail. That first night, they are in a hotel—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —in Carthage. So then what happens the next morning? So now we’re Tuesday, June 25, 1844. This is the first day that they go to trial for riot, correct?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, but there’s already hints that something sinister is going to happen. For instance, Dan Jones is staying with them at the hotel. He says, “I went downstairs in Hamilton’s Hotel, where I overheard the leaders of the mob say that they did not expect to prove anything against him, but that they had eighteen accusations against him, and as one failed, they would try another to detain him there. One of them, by the name of Jackson, replied when I told them to desist from their cruel persecutions that they had worked too hard to get old Joe to Carthage to let him get out of it alive, and pointing to his pistols said, ‘The balls are in there that will decide the case.’ I repaired upstairs and informed Mr. Smith what threats I had heard, and he informed me, ‘They are going to take me to prison without a guard. You will not leave me, will you?’ To which I replied that I had come to die with him than rather.” So it seems like there’s a plan to keep them in Carthage no matter what.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: They’re there to answer charges of riot linked to the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, but the way events play out, it seems like the men in Carthage who are intent on killing Joseph and Hyrum know that they can’t let them leave Carthage and come up with legal maneuverings to get them to stay in Carthage. And it’s also clear that they don’t care that much about riot either.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Because they’re not going after the whole city council: They’re going after Joseph and Hyrum specifically.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, so before their first trial, it looks like between about 2 and 3 p. m. Joseph writes a letter to Emma wherein he describes a personal meeting with Governor Ford that occurred earlier that morning, he describes his confidence in the governor’s ability to enforce the laws and keep the peace, and he notes that he plans to accompany Governor Ford when he marches to Nauvoo with his forces. Joseph is fully convinced at this point, early in the day of June 25, that he’s there in Carthage under the protection of the governor, and he will leave Carthage under the protection of the governor and will be home to Nauvoo soon, or at least he hopes so—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —according to the letter he wrote here to Emma. But it’s then about 4 p. m. that they have their official trial where all sixteen of the men, Joseph and Hyrum and the other fourteen, are brought before Robert F. Smith, who is the Carthage justice of the peace, but he’s also a member of some mobbers, John Taylor says, who had been involved in persecuting the saints as well. So he says that they didn’t think their chances were super great, just seeing who the Carthage justice of the peace was, and so they were heard for the Nauvoo Expositor riot case examination, and it was actually held right there at the Hamilton Hotel. All sixteen men were charged with riot and are released on bail at $500 per person. Joseph and Hyrum Smith pay the bail, but that’s when the charge of treason was leveled.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: There’s this guy named Augustine Spencer and another fellow named Norton, according to John Taylor, who come forth and accuse them of treason for—here’s why—for calling out the Nauvoo Legion to resist the other state militia. So remember, after the Nauvoo Expositor is destroyed and there’s all that hullabaloo out there, you know, Thomas Sharp and others are piping off, and there’s this public outcry against the saints, Joseph is writing letters back and forth to Governor Ford, and he asks him for his counsel, his advice, and Governor Ford thought it would be appropriate for Joseph to have the Nauvoo Legion at the ready, just in case they needed to protect themselves against any sort of attacks that might occur. So, following the governor’s advice, Joseph does bring out the Nauvoo militia, and he puts Nauvoo under martial law. It is for this very reason that he is now being charged with treason: for doing the very thing that the governor gave him the suggestion to do, right? So this is already, like, a little bit whack. John Taylor is incensed when he hears this happening. He says he went right over to the governor and he said, “I reminded him that we had come out here at his instance, not to satisfy the law, which we had done before.” Remember, Joseph had already been acquitted twice for the riot charge here. He says, “but we did it in relation to the affairs of the press,” meaning for, like, PR here, right? Like we have to try to calm things down. “That it was at the governor’s instance that we had given bonds, which we could not by law be required to do to satisfy the people, and that it was asking too much to require gentlemen in their position in life to suffer the degradation of being immured in a jail at the instance of such worthless scoundrels as those who had just made this affidavit.” So he’s, like, pleading this case to the governor, to which Governor Ford responds and says, well, this is an unpleasant affair and it looks hard, but it’s a matter over which I have no control because it belongs to the judiciary, “and that he,” he says, “as the executive, could not interfere with their proceedings and that he had no doubt but that they would immediately be dismissed.” John Taylor says, “I told him that we had looked to him for protection from such insults and that I thought we had a right to do so from the solemn promises which he had made in relation to our coming without guard or arms.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: ”That we had relied upon his faith and had a right to expect him to fulfill his engagements after we had placed ourselves implicitly under his care and complied with all his requests, although extrajudicial.” And then he says, “I expressed my dissatisfaction at the course taken, and I told him that if we were to be subject to mob rule and to be dragged contrary to law into prison at the instance of every infernal scoundrel whose oaths could be bought for a dram of whiskey, then his protection availed very little, and we had miscalculated his promises.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Woo!

Casey Griffiths: And this is shady, right? Really shady. Because only Joseph and Hyrum are charged with treason. They don’t charge the whole city council, they just charge these two individuals, and they’re the only ones that are brought to Carthage Jail. Now, others stay with them, including Willard Richards and John Taylor, who are the only apostles that are in Nauvoo. We might have mentioned this earlier, but all the apostles have been sent out on missions linked to Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: And John and Willard are going to be the ones that stay with them. Now, as you correctly pointed out, Governor Ford could have intervened. He could have said, “Hey, I instructed them to call out the militia,” but he doesn’t. And this is going to be a big theme. John Taylor’s history, as I understand it, was written in response to Thomas Ford writing his history of this.

Scott Woodward: Wow.

Casey Griffiths: And John Taylor’s kind of correcting the record as he sees fit.

Scott Woodward: And so this, I mean, right under the governor’s nose, right? John Taylor’s watching illegal proceedings happen. It’s not just that this was the governor’s idea, but what rubs John Taylor so wrong is that it was explicitly stated in the statute of Illinois that—and he quotes it: he says, “All men shall have a hearing before a magistrate before they shall be committed to prison. But Mr. Robert H. Smith,” this judge, “wrote out a mittimus right away, and he committed them to prison contrary to the law.” Like, and this is happening with the governor just, like, being right there, and John Taylor is like, do something. We are only here because you promised your protection, and now you’re watching what’s happening, and you’re doing nothing. Like, “Sir,” as he said, “we’ve miscalculated your promises,” and this is incredibly disappointing.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So they’re taken to Carthage Jail. This is where they go from the Hamilton House to Carthage Jail.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Who’s with them? Willard Richards, John Green, Stephen Markham, Dan Jones, an individual identified as Dr. Southwick, Lorenzo Wasson, and John Taylor accompany the Smiths. There’s also other records that say John Fullmer and Gilbert Belnap joined the Smiths. And Dan Jones describes this as being a pretty charged environment.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He said, “It was then that Justice Smith made out a mittimus and the Carthage Greys,” this is the militia from Carthage, “escorted him to prison.”

Scott Woodward: Like, these are—the Carthage Greys are, like, the sworn enemies of the Saints, by the way.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So.

Casey Griffiths: This is the fox guarding the hen house, right? I mean, this is bad stuff.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Casey Griffiths: So Dan Jones says, “Colonel Markham on one side with a hickory club while I was on the other. Outside the guard, I parried off the guns and bayonets of the drunken rabble who tried to break the ranks to stab them.”

Scott Woodward: Geez.

Casey Griffiths: So, oh my goodness, like, even getting from the hotel to the jail was sort of running the gauntlet.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And Ford doesn’t—Ford’s like, yeah, you know, they’re a little stirred up, but hey, what’s the big deal? It’s kind of amazing.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, seriously. The only ones keeping them from being stabbed by drunks are not the Carthage Grays who are escorting them, but these volunteer members of the church with hickory sticks. Like, seriously?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, that’s not great protection.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So that’s the first kind of full day in Carthage. That’s June 25. And they then head to—they head to the jail that evening.

Casey Griffiths: Okay, so June 26. Now, this is the point, when they enter Carthage Jail, where knowing some of the geography of the jail can be helpful.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: The jail today looks like a kind of classy old house, because that’s what most of it was. The major part of the jail was the home for the Stigall family, the jailers that were going to take care of Joseph and Hyrum. The back part of the jail on the bottom floor has a jail cell—it’s called the debtor’s cell. It has windows, it’s on the bottom level, but it is a little bit more comfortable than upstairs, where you have the main cell, which is a room that has very little exterior light coming in and actually, you know, looks exactly like what you’d imagine a frontier prison in the 19th century—like, big bars and mattresses on the floor and everything like that. So the first night, Joseph and Hyrum are in the jail. They’re in the debtor’s cell. Is that correct, Scott?

Scott Woodward: That’s what I understand, yes.

Casey Griffiths: Upstairs, the prison cell, and then there’s the jailer’s bedroom, which is where Mr. Stigall and his wife stayed. That’s where they are when the attack happens. But just to kind of familiarize you with where they’re being moved, first night they’re in the debtor’s cell on the first floor. All right, so let’s jump to the 26th of June, Wednesday.

Scott Woodward: By the way, I love Dan Jones’ record of that first night together in prison. He says, “Amusing conversation on various interesting topics engaged in ’till late. After prayer, which made Carthage prison into the gate of heaven for a while, we lay promiscuously on the floor. The last words spoken were by the prophet, who said, ‘For the most intelligent dream tonight, brethren.’ And then we went to sleep.” Okay, the next morning, June 26, 1844, sometime between 7 and 10 a. m., Joseph starts writing to his legal counsel, and he’s requesting a change of venue for the treason hearing, okay? He’s anxious about staying in Carthage and having the hearing there. I mean, everything is stacked against him: the judge, the jury—everything. About 8 a. m., someone named Captain James Singleton and about sixty men are going to meet in Nauvoo with the Nauvoo police. The police agree there to cooperate with Singleton, because this is a guy that Governor Ford had sent to Nauvoo to protect the city from potential mob attacks. At 8:10 a. m., Joseph writes Governor Ford requesting an interview and indicates his desire to be released from jail. I think he is well within his rights to request that, as we’ve indicated. And so at 10:15 a. m., Governor Ford indicates that Joseph and Hyrum Smith will probably return to Nauvoo. Joseph anticipated returning to Nauvoo the next day, Thursday, June 27. So they have a really interesting conversation, which John Taylor does a great job reconstructing. He reconstructs the conversation, like, ten years after it happened, but he says that in substance, it is accurate, and it’s a great exchange between Joseph and Governor Ford about them being there in prison and will Governor Ford help them out, help them get out, and if he goes to Nauvoo, will he take them with him? Repeatedly the governor says that if he goes to Nauvoo, he will take them with him. In fact, let me just read some direct quotes from him. And this is from John Taylor’s recollection, again, about ten years later.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So whether it was exactly these words or not, but John says, I’m confident that the substance of what I’m telling you is true, so . . .

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, he’s reconstructing.

Scott Woodward: Yes. So this is Joseph Smith to Governor Ford: “Let me say to you, Governor Ford, I shall look to you for our protection. I believe you are talking of going to Nauvoo. If you go, sir, I wish to go along. I refuse not to answer any law, but I do not consider myself safe here.” To which the governor answered, “I am in hopes that you will be acquitted, and if I go,” to Nauvoo, “I will certainly take you along.” Let’s remember that phrase. “I will certainly take you along,” he said. “I do not, however, apprehend any danger,” the governor says. “I think you are perfectly safe, either here or anywhere else. I cannot, however, interfere with the law. I am placed in peculiar circumstances and seem to be blamed by all parties.” To which Joseph says, “Governor Ford, I ask nothing but what is legal. I have a right to expect protection, at least from you, for, independent of law, you have pledged your faith and that of the state for my protection, and I wish to go to Nauvoo.” The governor responds, “And you shall have protection, General Smith. I do not make this promise without consulting my officers, who all pledge their honor to its fulfillment. I do not know that I shall go tomorrow to Nauvoo,” that would be June 27, “but if I do, I will take you along.” Twice now, he promises Joseph, if I go to Nauvoo, I will take you along. That’s really important for what happens as we move forward in the timeline.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Now, after this meeting with Tom Ford, sometime in the early afternoon, they’re visited. Dan Jones said, “During the forenoon, we were visited by Judge Phelps, J. P. Green, J. S. Fullmer, and C. H. Wheelock.” And this is where another element of the story comes in. He says, “C. H. Wheelock,” this is Cyrus Wheelock, who’s in the Nauvoo Legion, Dan Jones writes, “brought a revolver in his boot and left it with the prisoners when he retired. Most of my forenoon’s work consisted in hewing with my penknife a warped door to get it on the latch and in preparing to fortify against a night attack. So Cyrus Wheelock brings in a pistol, Joseph takes it, Dan Jones is fully anticipating an attack on the jail. Like, that’s how volatile the situation is.

Scott Woodward: And at this point the jailer had moved them from that debtor’s cell down in the bottom up to his own room, his own, like, bedroom upstairs, and the only problem with that room was that the latch on the door couldn’t lock.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And so Dan Jones is trying to figure out a way to get it to lock in preparation for any sort of a night attack, he says.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. What are Joseph and Hyrum doing? Dan Jones says, “A portion of us were alternately preaching to the guards, at which the prophet, patriarch, and all took turns. And several guards were relieved of duty before their time was out because they admitted they were proselyted to the belief of the innocency of the prisoners, which rendered them incompetent of guarding. Frequently, they admitted they had been imposed upon by tales of the mob, and more than once it was heard, ‘Let us go home, boys, for I will not fight against these men.’ So they’re also teaching the guards in the jail, and Dan Jones says that some of the guards were softened to the point to where they were convinced the men were innocent and were relieved of their duties.

Scott Woodward: I have a question: Why would a guard believing the prisoners were innocent make them incompetent to guard those prisoners? This is where you can just—you smell conspiracy here, right? Like, wait a second. Some of the guards say, “Let’s go home, boys. I will not fight against these men.” Why bring up fighting? I thought your job was just to guard them. Why are they already talking about these things? Like, that there’s something stewing, everyone kind of knows in the background here, right? Like, Dan Jones found out early on that we’re not going to let him out of here. Like, if it’s not this thing, it’s going to be—we have eighteen other allegations. Our goal is just to keep them here long enough for the balls and these pistols to decide this case, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And again, it’s like we’re being set up here. Cyrus Wheelock gives Joseph a pistol. Sometime during the day, John Fullmer gives Joseph Smith a single-barrel pistol, which he keeps with him at Carthage Jail. These are all part of the story as well, as we go here.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. At noon, Joseph writes to Judge Jesse B. Thomas, who’s the circuit judge for Hancock County there, and a justice in the Illinois Supreme Court, and in his letter, he requests for Judge Thomas to come to Nauvoo to investigate the treason charges, reaching out to any other judges that are not Robert Smith here. During that same hour, about 12:30 p. m., Joseph expresses his anxiety about his safety: he says, “I have had a good deal of anxiety about my safety, which I never did before.” That’s an ominous foreboding here as well.

Casey Griffiths: And then at 4 p. m., they’re brought before Robert Smith—again, this is the guy who put them in the jail—for the initial treason examination, which they’d been arrested for the day before. So the treason charge, again, goes back to calling out the Nauvoo Legion and martial law a few days earlier, which they did on the governor’s advisement. The court gives Joseph and Hyrum’s defense team until noon on Thursday. Man. Courts worked a lot faster back then. Like, get your act together, because we’re going to see about this at noon tomorrow to gather witnesses. The treason hearing was set for Thursday, which is the next day, but it’s later moved back to Saturday, which will be June 29. And in the evening, John Fullmer, John Taylor, Stephen Markham, Dan Jones, and Willard Richards all opt to stay the night with Joseph and Hyrum in Carthage Jail in the upper room.

Scott Woodward: I love Dan Jones’ description of that evening as well. This is so good. He said, “In the evening we were again escorted to the prison amidst the whooping, hallooing, and denunciations of infuriated thousands.” I don’t know if he’s exaggerating there, but thousands of people in Carthage that are just gnashing their teeth, wanting to hurt these prisoners. He continues, “While some tauntingly upbraided him, meaning Joseph Smith, for not calling a legion of angels to release him and to destroy his enemies, inasmuch as he pretended to have a miraculous power. Others asked him to prophesy when and what manner of death awaited him, professing themselves to know all about it.” In fact, he says, “One was forcibly reminded of the taunting and jeering of the Jews to our holy and meek Redeemer, so similar did their words and actions prove their spirits to be.” And then he says once they get into the jail, “During the evening the patriarch,” Hyrum, “read and commented upon copious extracts from the Book of Mormon, the imprisonments and deliverance of the servants of God for the gospel’s sake. Joseph bore a powerful testimony 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, for the sake of which he was at that time incarcerated in that prison, and not because he had violated any law of God or of man.” And then he says, “Late, we retired to rest, Joseph and Hyrum on the only bedstead, while four or five lay side by side on mattresses on the floor, Dr. Richards sitting up writing until his last candle left him in the dark. Then they heard the report of a gun,” meaning the sound of gunfire, “fired close by. This caused Joseph, whose head was by a window, to arise, leave the bed, and lay himself by my side in close embrace. Soon after, Dr. Richards retired to the bed, and while I thought all but myself and heaven asleep, Joseph asked in a whisper if I was afraid to die.” Just imagine this moment. He thinks everyone’s asleep, and all of a sudden, he hears Joseph whisper in his ear, are you afraid to die, Brother Jones? Startled, he says, “Has that time come, think you, Joseph?” And then he replies, “Engaged in such a cause, I do not think that death would have many terrors.” Joseph replies, “You will see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed you, ere you die,” he said. “I believed his word and relied upon it through trying scenes which followed. All the conversation evinced a presentiment of an approaching crisis.” This is one of Joseph Smith’s last prophecies of his life, leaning over to Dan and saying, you’re not going to die, Dan. You will yet fulfill your mission in Wales. And by the way, he fulfills that mission in Wales in, like, major fashion. Like, he is the poster boy of missionary work, literally. Like, he’s the guy you’ll see in Preach My Gospel, there’s big posters of him in the MTC holding a Book of Mormon, preaching to big crowds. I think he converts, like, 3,000 people or something there.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He fulfills that prophecy, but it’s just incredible.

Casey Griffiths: My ancestors are from Wales, so I’m just going to add, I’m a big fan of Dan Jones.

Scott Woodward: Are they a result of that mission? Do you know?

Casey Griffiths: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve got to look into it, but at any rate, Dan Jones was practically the mission president. So in some way he’s linked to it.

Scott Woodward: Somehow, some way. So there you go. So that’s the end of Wednesday, June 26, 1844.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Now we move to Thursday.

Casey Griffiths: The morning of June 27 there was intermittent rain. Dan Jones says he stepped outside the jail to inquire concerning the disturbance in the night because they’d heard a shot—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —in the night that kind of caused all of them to sort of huddle down.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He was met by Franklin A. Worrell, an officer of the guard for the Carthage Greys, who warned Jones, “We have had too much trouble to bring old Joe here to let him ever escape out alive, and unless you want to die with him, you better leave before sundown.” Now, Dan goes back in and tells Joseph Smith about this. Joseph asks Dan to go and tell this to Governor Ford, and apparently the governor replied, “You are unnecessarily alarmed for your friend’s safety, sir. The people are not that cruel.”

Scott Woodward: Is the governor that oblivious? You’re unnecessarily alarmed. The people are not that cruel. Like, seriously, governor?

Casey Griffiths: I mean, all the accounts kind of depict Governor Ford as either, like, clueless or complicit, right?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And we’re going to deal with the question of complicity next week because that’s still one of the controversies, but, man, he either completely misread the situation, or he was in on the whole thing. Like, it’s hard to read what they have to say and think that the governor was just like, nah, no big deal, guys. It’s fine.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Unfortunately, because Dan does this, he’s not allowed back into the jail. They won’t let him go back in after he goes to tell Governor Ford what had happened. And he makes his way back to Nauvoo, though he does providentially escape an ambush set for him on the road to Nauvoo.

Scott Woodward: Mm-hmm. 8:20 a. m., Joseph writes a letter to his wife, Emma Smith, instructing Jonathan Dunham and the Nauvoo citizens to be peaceful and respect the authority of Governor Ford, should he visit that day, and then he says some tender things to Emma. Do you want to read that actual letter, Casey?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. This is one of the letters that recently came back into church ownership through the Community of Christ historical properties transfer. Now, I’d seen this letter before. Community of Christ let me photograph it and put it in a book, and this is not the last letter Joseph Smith writes. Last letter he writes is to an attorney, but this is the last letter he writes to Emma. So here’s—there’s a formal part of the letter, and then there’s kind of a postscript, where—formal part’s in another person’s handwriting, Joseph Smith is using scribes, but here’s a couple of things: he says, “I want to tell you to tell brother Jonathan Dunham to instruct the people to stay at home and attend to their own business and let there be no groups for gathering together unless by permission of the governor.” So, again, following the governor’s instruction. He’s trying to calm the situation down. Later on in the letter, he said, “There’s no danger of any exterminating order. Should there be a mutiny among the troops, which we do not anticipate, excitement is abating, a part will remain loyal and stand for the defense of the state and our rights. There is one principle which is eternal: It is the duty of all men to protect their lives and the lives of their household whenever necessity requires, and no power has a right to forbid it. Should the last extreme arrive, but I anticipate no such extreme, but caution is the parent of safety.” So—and this is the formal letter. Then at the end, there is this postscript that’s in Joseph Smith’s handwriting. Last thing he writes to Emma: “P. S. Dear Emma, I am very much resigned to my lot, knowing I am justified and have done the best that could be done. Give my love to the children, and as for treason, I know that I have not committed any, and they cannot prove one appearance of anything of the kind, so you need not have any fears that any harm can happen to us on that score. May God bless you all. Amen. Joseph Smith.” These are the last words that he writes to his wife early that morning.

Scott Woodward: At some point in the late morning there, or early afternoon, after Governor Ford had dismissed the troops, at that point Thomas Sharp, the editor of the Warsaw Signal we’ve been talking so much about, this is where he gives a speech to some of the dismissed troops from Golden Point, and he calls on them to go to Carthage and assassinate Joseph Smith. Casey, you and I have been to the tavern in Warsaw together, a place where liquid courage was drunk by many of those who would go and assassinate Joseph, A. K. A. whiskey, right?

Casey Griffiths: Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward: You start passing around the whiskey, Tom Sharp gives his speech about assassinating Joseph. Meanwhile, back in Carthage, sometime that morning, Cyrus Wheelock visits Carthage Jail again, and he gives Joseph Smith a six-shooter revolver. Here’s what John Taylor says about it: he said, “Cyrus Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving, he drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking at the same time, ‘Would any of you like to have this?’ Brother Joseph immediately replied, ‘Yes, give it to me,’ whereupon he took the pistol and put it in his pantaloons pocket. The pistol was a six-shooting revolver of Allen’s patent,” John Taylor says. “It belonged to me.” He had given it to Cyrus Wheelock, and now Cyrus brings it back to the jail. “Brother Wheelock went out on some errand and was not allowed to return,” he said. Then, 12 p. m., Joseph Smith writes to Orville Browning, and he asks him to act as their attorney for the treason hearing. Now, this is a guy who had served as Joseph’s attorney in 1841, and then later, in 1845, he’ll actually represent the five men accused of killing Joseph and Hyrum Smith, but that’s another thing altogether.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: At 1:30 Stephen Markham leaves the jail to go get a pipe and tobacco for Willard Richards, who had a sour stomach. The Carthage Greys do not allow Markham to return back to the jail. Now, Governor Ford, it turns out, Casey, actually does leave that day to go back to Nauvoo, but what he doesn’t do is take Joseph and Hyrum with him.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Breaks his promise.

Scott Woodward: He breaks his promise big time. What’s going on here? Why does Governor Ford go to Nauvoo?

Casey Griffiths: All kinds of theories and speculations, right? About why Governor Ford goes to Nauvoo. If we’re being optimistic about his character, he just really misread the scene, thought that everything had kind of calmed down, and it seems like he’s more worried about the Saints engaging in violence than he is about the troops that he’s just disbanded engaging in violence. There’s also a number of neutral troops that aren’t from Hancock County, and Ford takes them with him. So just a really dumb move on his part.

Scott Woodward: So, wait, so he releases the local militia who basically had a vendetta against Joseph and Hyrum. He releases them. Go home.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And then he takes with him to Nauvoo the more neutral forces.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Okay. And then those recently released militia in that Carthage-Warsaw area are the very ones that Thomas Sharp then whips up in a frenzy and inspires them to come out and assassinate the prophet.

Casey Griffiths: That’s right. That’s right.

Scott Woodward: Geez. How do the prisoners take the news when they hear that the governor has gone to Nauvoo without them?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, John Taylor says, “We looked upon it not only as a breach of faith on the part of the governor, but also as an indication of a desire to insult us, if nothing more, by leaving us in the proximity of such men. The prevention of Wheelock’s return was among the first of their hostile movements.” So there’s already signs things are going south at the jail. “Colonel Markham,” this is Stephen Markham, goes out, and “he was also prevented from returning. He was very angry at this, but the mob paid no attention to him, and they drove him out of town at the point of a bayonet and threatened to shoot him if he returned.”

Scott Woodward: So they’re not letting anyone back, and they’re telling even, like, Dan Jones that morning, if you don’t want to die, you should be gone by sundown, son.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: This is the Carthage Greys, which—here’s how John Taylor describes the Carthage Greys: he said, “The report of the governor having gone to Nauvoo without taking the prisoners along with him caused very unpleasant feelings, as we were apprised that we were left to the tender mercies of the Carthage Greys, a company strictly mobocratic and whom we knew to be our most deadly enemies. And their captain, Esquire Smith, was a most unprincipled villain.” And so, I mean, the writing’s on the wall. Joseph is more anxious about his life and safety now than he’s ever been in his life, and so they start to feel pretty depressed, all of the prisoners. The only ones that are left now, since everyone’s being sent out and not allowed to return, right? Stephen Markham’s gone. Cyrus Wheelock’s gone. Dan Jones is gone. Now it’s just Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Willard Richards, and John Taylor.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So, feeling gloomy, feeling depressed, John Taylor says, “Sometime after dinner, we sent for some wine.” He says, “It’s been reported by some that this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing. Our spirits were generally dull and heavy, and it was sent for to revive us,” he says. We sent for wine to revive us. “I think it was Captain Jones who went after it,” Dan Jones, “but they would not suffer him to return. I believe we all drank of the wine and gave some to one or two of the prison guards. We all of us felt unusually dull and languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits. In consonance with those feelings, I sang a song that had lately been introduced into Nauvoo entitled, ‘A Poor, Wayfaring Man of Grief.’” He says, “The song is pathetic, and the tune quite plaintive, and was very much in accordance with our feelings at the time, for our spirits were all depressed, dull, and gloomy, and surcharged with indefinite, ominous forebodings. After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me again to sing that song. I replied, ‘Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing,’ when he remarked, ‘Ah, never mind. Commence singing, and you’ll get the spirit of it.’ At his request, I did so.”

Casey Griffiths: So this is kind of the last thing recorded before the attack that actually happens on the jail.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: There’s another story about Willard Richards: he recalled that Joseph asked him, “If we go into the cell, will you go in with us?” He responded, “Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the river with you. You did not ask me to come to Carthage. You did not ask me to come to jail with you. And do you think I would forsake you now? But I will tell you what I will do. If you are condemned to be hung for treason, I will be hung in your stead, and you shall go free.” Willard Richards chose to be there, and now we’ve kind of made it in the timeline up to the actual attack on the jail. There’s accounts from different people, some of them in the mob, about what happened in the jail, some of them, like John Taylor’s, that are written several years later. Probably the most accurate one is Willard Richards’, and it’s written near the time, a couple weeks after the attack happens on Carthage Jail.

Scott Woodward: So we say that his is the most accurate and reliable because it was written pretty close to the event and he was an eyewitness.

Casey Griffiths: Pretty close to the time of the event, he’s an eyewitness. He also goes out of his way to try and record things in as much detail as he can remember. So this is kind of the starting point for attack on the jail when you’re going through the histories.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So John Taylor’s singing. They hear guns outside.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Both John Taylor and Richards look outside. They see a bunch of men coming. This is where the story picks up with Willard Richards.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And he calls the title of the account, “Two Minutes in Jail.” This is on the Joseph Smith Papers site. It’s on Doctrine and Covenants Central under section 135, if you want to read it. I’m going to read it. Is that okay?

Scott Woodward: Absolutely. Do it in your best Willard Richards voice.

Casey Griffiths: I don’t know what his accent was. He was from Massachusetts, but I’m not going to attempt it. But I do have an American accent, and I’m going to—

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Use that.

Casey Griffiths: —give that my best shot. Okay. So he writes, “Two minutes in jail. Possibly the following events occupied near three minutes, but I think only about two, and have penned them for the gratification of many friends. Carthage, June 27, 1844. A shower of musket balls were thrown up the stairway against the door of the prison in the second story, followed by many rapid footsteps, while Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Mr. John Taylor, and myself, who were in the front chamber, closed the door of our room against the entry at the head of the stairs and placed ourselves against it, there being no lock on the door and no catch that was usable. The door is a common panel, and as soon as we heard the feet at the stairs’ head, a ball was sent through the door, which passed between us and showed that our enemies were desperadoes and we must change our position. General Joseph Smith, Mr. Taylor, and myself sprang back to the front part of the room, and General Hyrum Smith retreated two-thirds across the chamber, directly in front of and facing the door. A ball was sent through the door which hit Hyrum on the side of his nose when he fell backwards extended at length without moving his feet. From the holes in his vest—the day was warm, and no one had on their coats but myself, pantaloons, drawers, and shirt—it appears evident that a ball must have been thrown from without through the window which entered his back on the right side, and passing through, lodged against his watch, which was in his right vest pocket, completely pulverizing the crystalline face, tearing off the hands, and mashing the whole body of the watch. At the same instant, the ball from the door entered his nose. As he struck the floor, he exclaimed emphatically, “I’m a dead man.” Joseph looked towards him, and responded, “O, dear brother Hyrum,” and opening the door two or three inches with his left hand, discharged one barrel of a six-shooter pistol at random in the entry from whence a ball grazed Hyrum’s breast, and entering his throat, passed into his head while other muskets were aimed at him and some balls hit him. Joseph continued snapping his revolver round the casing of the door into the space as before, three barrels of which missed fire, while Mr. Taylor, with a walking stick, stood by his side and knocked down the bayonets and muskets, which were constantly discharging through the doorway, while I stood by him, ready to lend any assistance with another stick, but could not come within striking distance without going directly before the muzzle of the guns. When the revolver failed, we had no more firearms and expected an immediate rush of the mob, and the doorway full of muskets, halfway in the room, and no hope but instant death from within. Mr. Taylor rushed into the window, which is some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. When his body was nearly on balance, a ball from the door within entered his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch, a patent lever, in his vest pocket near the left breast, and smashed it into pie, leaving the hand standing at five o’clock, sixteen minutes, and twenty six 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 the muzzles with a stick. While they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left handed, and aim 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. Joseph attempted, as a 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 from 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 General 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 the 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 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. Willard Richards.”

Scott Woodward: Now, Willard Richards does not die.

Casey Griffiths: He doesn’t, yeah.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. The mob does not return. Apparently there was a cry outside that said, “The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!” suggesting that the Nauvoo militia was on their way. That spooked the mobbers, and they fled, leaving Willard Richards and John Taylor alive to tell the tale.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Now, Casey, John Taylor was from England originally, correct?

Casey Griffiths: Correct.

Scott Woodward: And so John Taylor’s account, which he gives, I don’t want to attempt to read myself because I don’t have good British accent, Casey.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: I do have the next best thing.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And that is a very good friend, his name is Christian Mawlam, and Christian has agreed to read John Taylor’s account of the martyrdom, and so let’s listen to Christian’s reading of John Taylor’s account of the martyrdom.

Christian Mawlam: John Taylor wrote the following account of the martyrdom: “I was sitting at one of the front windows of the jail when I saw a number of men with painted faces coming around the corner of the jail and aiming towards the stairs. The other brethren had seen the same, for as I went to the door I found Brother Hyrum and Dr. Richards already leaning against it. They both pressed against the door with their shoulders to prevent its being opened, as the lock and latch were comparatively useless. While in this position, the mob, who had come up the stairs and strove to open the door, probably thought it was locked, and fired a ball through the keyhole. At this, Dr. Richards and Brother Hyrum leapt back from the door. Brother Hyrum, standing right opposite to the door with his face towards it, almost instantly another ball passed through the panel of the door and struck Brother Hyrum on the left side of the nose and entering his face and head. Simultaneously, at the same instant, another ball from the outside entered his back, passing through his body and striking his watch. The ball came from the back through the jail, opposite the door, and must, from its range, have been fired from the Carthage Greys, as the firearms shot close to the jail would have entered the ceiling, we being in the second story, and there never was a time after that Hyrum could have received the latter wound. Immediately, when the ball struck him, he fell on his back crying, “I’m a dead man.” He never moved afterward. I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and leaning over him exclaimed, ‘Oh, my poor, dear Brother Hyrum.’ He, however, instantly rose and with a firm, quick step, and a determined expression of countenance, approached the door, and pulling the six-shooter left by Brother Wheelock from his pocket, opened the door slightly and snapped the pistol six successive times. Only three of the barrels, however, discharged. I, afterwards, understood that two or three were wounded by these discharges, two of whom, I am informed, died. I had in my hands a large, strong, hickory stick, brought there by Brother Markham, and left by him, which I had seized as soon as I saw the mob approach, and while Brother Joseph was firing the pistol, I stood close behind him. As soon as he had discharged it, he stepped back, and I immediately took his place next to the door, while he occupied the one I had done while he was shooting. Dr. Richards at this time had a knotty walking stick in his hand, belonging to me, and stood next to Brother Joseph, a little further from the door in an oblique direction, apparently to avoid the rake of fire from the door. The firing of Brother Joseph made our assailants pause for a moment. Very soon after, however, they pushed the door some distance open, and protruded and discharged their guns into the room, when I parried them off with my stick, giving another direction to the balls. It certainly was a terrible scene. Streams of fire as thick as my arm passed by me as these men fired. And unarmed as we were, it looked like certain death. I remember feeling as though my time had come, but I do not know when, in any critical position, I was more calm, unruffled, and energetic, and acted with more promptness and decision. It certainly was far from pleasant to be near the muzzles of those firearms as they belched forth their liquid flame and deadly balls. While I was engaged in parrying the guns, Brother Joseph said, ‘That’s right, Brother Taylor. Parry them off as well as you can.’ These are the last words I ever heard him speak on earth. Every moment, the crowd at the door became more dense as they were unquestionably pressed on by those in the rear ascending the stairs until the whole entrance at the door was literally crowded with muskets and rifles, whilst with the swearing, shouting, and demonical expressions of those outside the door and on the stairs, and the firing of guns mingled with their horrid oaths and execrations, made it look like pandemonium let loose, and was indeed a fit representation of the horrid deed in which they were engaged. After parrying the guns for some time, which now protruded thicker and further into the room, and seeing no hope of escape or protection there, as we were now unarmed, it occurred to me that we might have some friends outside. There might be some chance of escape, and here there seemed to be none, as I expected them every moment to rush into the room, and nothing but extreme cowardice had kept them out. As the tumult and pressure increased, without any other hope, I made a spring for the window, which was right in front of the jail door, where the mob was standing, and also exposed to the fire of the Carthage Greys, who were stationed some ten or twelve rods off. The weather was hot. We all of us had our coats off, and the window was raised to admit air. As I reached the window, and was on the point of leaping out, I was struck by a ball from the door, about midway of my thigh, which struck the bone and flattened out to the size of a quarter dollar, and then passed on through the fleshy part to within about half an inch of the outside. I think some prominent nerve must have been severed or injured, for as soon as the ball struck me, I fell like a bird when shot or an ox struck by a butcher and lost entirely and instantaneously all power of action or locomotion. I fell onto the windowsill and cried out, ‘I’m shot.’ Not possessing any power to move, I felt myself falling outside of the window, but immediately I fell inside, from to me, at that time, an unknown cause. When I struck the floor, my animation seemed restored, as I have sometimes seen squirrels and birds after being shot. As soon as I felt the powers of motion, I crawled under a bed, which was in the corner of the room not far away from the window, when I received my wound. While on my way and under the bed, I was wounded in another three places. One ball entered a little below the left knee and never was extracted. Another entered the fore part of my left arm, a little above the wrist, and passing down by the joint, it lodged in the fleshy part of my hand, about midway in my hand, and a little above the upper joint of my little finger. Another struck me on the fleshy part of the left hip and tore away the flesh, as large as my hand, dashing the mangled fragments of flesh and blood against the wall. My wounds were painful, and the sensation produced was as though a ball had passed through and down the whole of my leg. I very well remember my reflections at the time. I had a painful idea of becoming lame and decrepit, and being an object of pity, and I felt as though I’d rather die than be placed in such circumstances along. Brother Richards proceeded to the door and opened it, and then returned and dragged me along to a small cell prepared for criminals. Brother Richards was very much troubled and exclaimed, ‘Oh, Brother Taylor, is it possible that they’ve killed both Hyrum and Joseph? It cannot surely be, and yet I saw them shoot him.’ And elevating his hands two or three times, he exclaimed, ‘Oh Lord, my God, spare thy servants.’ He then said, ‘Brother Taylor, this is a terrible event.’ And he dragged me further into the cell, saying, ‘I’m sorry I cannot do better for you,’ and taking an old, filthy mattress, he covered me with it and said, ‘That may hide you, and you may yet live to tell the tale, but I expect they will kill me in a few moments.’ While laying in this position, I suffered the most excruciating pain. Soon afterwards, Brother Richards came to me, informing me that the mob had precipitately fled, and at the same time confirming my worst fears that Joseph was assuredly dead. I felt a dull, lowly, sickening sensation at the news. When I reflected that our noble chieftain, the Prophet of the Living God, had fallen, that I had seen his brother in the cold embrace of death, it seemed as though there was an open void or vacuum in the great field of human existence to me, and a dark, gloomy chasm, blank, or void in the kingdom, and that we were left alone. Oh, how lowly was that feeling, how cold, barren, and desolate. In the midst of difficulties, he was always the first in motion. In critical positions, his counsel was always sought. As our prophet, he approached our God and obtained for us his will. But now our prophet, our counsellor, our general, our leader, was gone, and amid the fiery ordeal that we then had to pass through, we were left alone, without his aid, and as our future guide, for things spiritual or temporal, for all things pertaining to this world or the next, he had spoken for the last time on earth. These reflections, and a thousand others, flashed upon the mind. I thought, ‘Why must the good perish and the virtuous be destroyed? Why must God’s nobility, the salt of the earth, the most exalted of the human family, and the most perfect types of all excellence, fall victims to the cruel, fiendish hate of incarnate devils?’ The poignancy of my grief, I presume, however, was somewhat allayed by the extreme suffering that I endured from my wounds.”

Casey Griffiths: We want to thank Christian for reading that for us.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: You’ve now listened to Willard Richards’ account and John Taylor’s account. Willard Richards’ account was written right after, John Taylor’s about ten years later. These are the two eyewitnesses. These are the two people we trust most—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —to explain and tell about the final moments of Joseph Smith’s life. And this is pretty poignant, like, the part that always gets me, honestly, is when Willard Richards is literally telling John Taylor, you have to live. You have to tell the story of what happened here, because he thinks they’re going to come and kill him any minute.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. There’s a strong feeling that comes from these accounts, and a lot of that was sort of distilled down and sort of synthesized into an account that is in our Doctrine and Covenants, section 135. We don’t know who wrote that exactly, but we know that if it wasn’t John Taylor or Willard Richards, they certainly drew from these accounts.

Casey Griffiths: I think that’s a controversy we’re going to deal with next week.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, let me just quote a little bit from section 135 here, and then we’ll just go ahead and land this plane today and pick things up next week. Here’s how it begins: “To seal the testimony of this book,” meaning the Doctrine and Covenants, “and the Book of Mormon, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith the prophet, and Hyrum Smith the patriarch. They were shot in Carthage Jail on the 27th of June 1844, about 5 o’clock p. m., by an armed mob painted black from 150 to 200 persons. Hyrum was shot first and fell calmly, exclaiming, “I am a dead man.” Joseph leaped from the window and was shot dead in the attempt, exclaiming, “Oh Lord, my God.” They were both shot after they were dead in a brutal manner, and both received four balls. John Taylor and Willard Richards, two of the twelve, were the only persons in the room at the time. The former was wounded in a savage manner with four balls, but has since recovered. The latter, through the providence of God, escaped without even a hole in his robe.” And then maybe the most quoted verse from this section, and for good reason, verse 3: “Joseph Smith, the prophet and seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fullness of the everlasting gospel which it contained to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints; founded a great city; and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people and, like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood. And so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated.” Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week Casey and I discuss a list of various Carthage controversies, from Governor Ford’s complicity in the murders, to Joseph’s use of firearms in his last moments, to the prisoners drinking wine just before the attack, to John Taylor’s pocketwatch, and more. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Also, we’d love to hear your suggestions for future series on this podcast. If there’s a church history topic you think would be worth exploring for multiple episodes, send us your idea to podcasts@scripturecentral.org. We’ll consider all suggestions. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.