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62-65_briggs_botp_review.qxd 12/23/02 11:36 AM Page 62 SUNSTONE was convicted in the second and was ulti- BOOK REVIEW mately executed by firing squad in early 1877, the same year Brigham Young died. More than a third of the narrative deals with the events of this twenty-year period. WRESTLING BRIGHAM In the remaining sixty pages, Bagley dis- cusses the fate of such massacre planners or participants as Isaac C. Haight, Philip BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS:BRIGHAM YOUNG Klingensmith, John M. Higbee, and William AND THE MASSACRE AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS H. Dame, all of whom died between 1880 and 1910. He briefly treats the contributions by Will Bagley of massacre commentators such as Josiah University of Oklahoma Press, 2002 Gibbs, Josiah Rogerson, Orson Whitney, and 493 pages, $39.95 Robert Baskin. And he highlights the final years of the last of the militia participants and the Fancher party’s surviving children. Reviewed by Robert H. Briggs In the final chapter and epilogue, Bagley recounts Juanita Brooks’s courageous revela- tion of the details of the massacre in the early 1950s, the tentative efforts toward reconcilia- tion between descendants of the Arkansas Historian Will Bagley identifies the victims, train and of southern Utah militiamen in- heroes, and villains of the Mountain cluding John D. Lee, and the successive placing of monuments in 1990 and 1999 at Meadows massacre, but focuses especially the Mountain Meadows massacre site as on the question, “What did Brigham Young more fitting remembrances of the dead. Here and earlier, as he pays respect and know and when did he know it?” acknowledges intellectual debts, Bagley praises Brooks as one of the West’s “best and bravest historians” (xiii) and announces that Y DUSK ON Friday, 11 September tury has brought the conditions that sur- his work “is not a revision but an extension 1857, the massacre at Mountain round horrific massacres into sharper focus. of Brooks’s labors” (xiv). For me, his account B Meadows was over. But the “affair” it Thus, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the courage and contributions of Juanita produced is with us yet. In Blood of the of this lamentable event, with new sources Brooks is one of the most satisfying sections Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at and frameworks, it is appropriate to produce of the book. Mountain Meadows, Will Bagley, an indepen- new histories of this difficult chapter in Utah dent writer and historian, has constructed a and western history. HAT are Bagley’s purposes in narrative that treats both massacre and affair Blood of the Prophets contains nineteen constructing his narrative? One and their combined reverberations down to chapters plus an epilogue, a brief addendum, W stated goal is to “bring to life for- the present. Published by the University of and an appendix identifying the victims of gotten victims and heroes” (xviii). These in- Oklahoma Press, it is a handsome volume the massacre. The story begins in the 1830s clude both the slain and the survivors in the with carefully selected historical maps, illus- with the conflict between Mormons and their Arkansas train, as well as individual trations, and photographs that do much to neighbors in Missouri and later Illinois. Mormons of “integrity and courage” (xviii) enhance the text. Bagley then quickly moves to the massacre’s who opposed the massacre and its cover-up For a half century, Juanita Brooks’s The precursors in frontier Utah, the outbreak of or who later held for a forthright acknowl- Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950) has been the Utah War, and the massacre itself. Nearly edgment of Mormon involvement in it. the standard treatment of the subject. Yet in half the narrative concerns these events. Here Bagley succeeds admirably. Through later editions and reprintings of her classic Next, Bagley details the federal investiga- clever sleuthing, he has unearthed consider- work, Brooks outlined areas of her history tions of 1857–59 (followed by a decade-long able background on the main Arkansas family that warranted further study. Moreover, in hiatus during the Civil War and its after- groupings—Fanchers, Bakers, Camerons, Blood of the Prophets, Bagley has amply math) and the renewed federal investigations Dunlaps, Huffs, Joneses, Millers, Mitchells, demonstrated that sources not available to of the 1870s that culminated in the indict- and Tackitts—that composed the Fancher Brooks should be evaluated and woven into ment of nine southern Utah militiamen, one party. He traces their roots in Arkansas, their our understanding of this event. Further, the of whom, John D. Lee, was brought to trial. blood and marriage connections, their in- widespread ethnic strife of the twentieth cen- Lee’s first trial ended in a hung jury, but Lee volvement in the cattle business, and Alexander Fancher’s previous trips to ROBERT H. BRIGGS is an attorney in Fullerton, California, with an avid interest in California. Later in the account, Bagley traces Western history. Recently he has presented some of his ongoing research on the Mountain the post-massacre lives of some of the child Meadows massacre at the 2002 Juanita Brooks lecture in St. George, Utah, and at the survivors. The resulting portrait humanizes annual conferences of the Utah Historical Society and the Center for Studies of New the members of the Arkansas party far better Religions (CESNUR). He may be contacted at <[email protected]>. than any previous effort, including Brooks’s. PAGE 62 DECEMBER 2002 62-65_briggs_botp_review.qxd 12/23/02 11:36 AM Page 63 SUNSTONE Similarly, Bagley’s narrative includes ceiving confirmation that a large, apparently sketches of little-known Mormon fron- belligerent, contingent of the United States tiersmen. Some, like Laban Morrill of Cedar Army was marching toward Utah. Further City, opposed from the outset an attack on straining Mormon nerves were the several, the emigrant train. Others, like John and California-bound overland companies William Hawley, George A. Hicks, William passing through Utah that season. Laney, and Charles W. Wandell, were out- According to Bagley, in an effort to both spoken in criticizing the cover-up of the mas- demonstrate his control over all overland sacre or supported prosecution of all routes and “avenge the blood of the prophets” perpetrators. Again, Bagley has done a ser- (presumably that of Joseph and Hyrum , COURTESY THE UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY vice in uncovering obscure sources and rec- Smith), as well as the more recent murder of ognizing their value to a fuller account of the Parley Pratt, “Brigham Young initiated the se- complex affair that followed the massacre. quence of events that led to the murder of Bagley also discloses another purpose. one hundred and twenty men, women and Where he feels “official Mormon accounts of BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS children” (380). The hapless Arkansas emi- the crime laid the blame on victims and grants “fell victim to Brigham Young’s deci- Indians,” he has made “a special effort to set sion to stage an incident that would the record straight” (xvii). Like others before PHOTO FROM demonstrate his power to control the Indians him, Bagley agrees that Indians were “accom- BAGLEY PRAISES BROOKS . and to stop travel on the . overland plices” in the massacre but not “instigators,” AS ONE OF THE WEST’S road” (380). as some have charged. “BEST AND BRAVEST Bagley asserts that one concrete step in ef- Bagley’s main purpose, however, is an at- HISTORIANS”AND CONSIDERS fecting these ends was Young’s conference tempt to answer the question, “What did BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS with Utes and Southern Paiutes on 1 Brigham Young know, and when did he September 1857 in Great Salt Lake City, only know it?” (xiv) It is in this focus and his con- “NOT A REVISION BUT AN a week before the first attack at Mountain clusions that Bagley and many fellow investi- EXTENSION OF” HER LABORS. Meadows. To cement a Mormon-Indian al- gators of the massacre part company. To his liance in the anticipated clash with federal credit, Bagley acknowledges the difficulties sanguinary imagery of “avenging the blood of troops, Young granted to these Indians “all and complexities of this issue. He notes that the prophets.” A final factor, Bagley con- the cattle gone to California” on the southern while many federal officials believed Young tends, was Mormonism’s excesses during the route. Bagley interprets this as Brigham was “directly responsible” for the massacre, mid-1850s, the period known as the Young’s “encourag[ing] his Indian allies to at- they could not muster the evidence for an in- “Mormon Reformation.” Taking this line of tack the Fancher party” (379). He asserts that dictment, let alone a conviction. Bagley reasoning to its logical conclusion, Bagley as- these Indians, or at least the Paiutes, high- states: “Those who seek to ‘prove’ that Young serts that frontier Mormonism at this time tailed south to attack the Fancher train in explicitly ordered the massacre should con- was essentially a “culture of violence” (50, southern Utah and relieve them of their live- sider this fact” (xiv). On the other hand, in 378), and at its center was a violent ideology. stock, presumably ignoring all the other agreement with Brooks and citing her con- Thus, “Early Mormonism’s peculiar obses- cattle they passed in their three-hundred- clusion, Bagley judges the evidence for sion with blood and vengeance created the mile journey. Young as an “accessory after the fact” to be society that made the massacre possible if not Bagley contends further that even before “abundant and unmistakable” (xv). Bagley inevitable” (379). Disagreeing with Brooks’s this, Young had conveyed orders concerning further maintains that scholars within the conclusions about the roles played by other the Fancher party to one of his leading lieu- Mormon tradition have “dismissed early circumstances—economic, political, social, tenants, George A.

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