Prophecy While confined in Liberty Jail during the winter of 1838-39, the Prophet was taken to the law office of Alexander Doniphan. Joseph told Doniphan that one day much of Jackson County would be left in ruin. Doniphan reported Joseph as saying, “You will live to see the day when Jackson County will be visited by fire and sword… The fields and farms and houses will be destroyed, and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation.” During the Civil War (1860-1865) severe destruc- tion did occur along much of the western border of from the punishing forces of Order No. 11. The stage for the destructive military order had been set by the brutality of civilian Confederate raiders in Jack- General Order No. 11 son County in the bloody border war between Missouri by George Caleb Bingham and . The conflict was fed by the fact that Mis- sourians were divided on the war. A history of Missouri adds, “For a hundred miles, William Quantrill, a brutal guerrilla leader for a the smoke-stained chimneys, scorched grass, and proslavery party known as the Bushwhackers, had been blackened stumps were all that remained of hard-won punishing Union sympathizers in Jackson County with homesteads.” violent raids on their property, burning their homes and When he learned of the intensity of the destruction sometimes killing the people. Quantrill’s brutality was and suffering of the residents of Jackson County during made more treacherous by his enlisting the strength of the Civil War, Alexander Doniphan was reminded of armed local civilians. Union general Thomas Ewing is- what he called “the remarkable prediction of the Mor- sued Order No. 11 to stop Quantrill and his network of mon prophet.” subversive citizens in Jackson County. Two civil war battles were fought in Independence, including a skirmish at the site of the Temple Lot. In “Western Missouri suffered more addition, the Battle of Westport, referred to as the “Get- than any other state of the Union tysburg of the West” was fought October 21-23, 1864, in modern day Kansas City, Missouri. This Union victory during the Civil War.” was one of the largest battles fought west of the Missis- The order authorized the military to destroy much sippi, with over 30,000 men engaged. of western Jackson, Bates, and Cass Counties (all of Brigham H. Roberts wrote, “Missouri… and espe- which made up the original Jackson County) and there- cially western Missouri suffered more than any other by create a wasteland buffer between Kansas and the rest state of the Union” during the Civil War. of Missouri. Union officers felt that this action would Sources punish Confederate sympathizers, neutralize guerril- 1. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ la warfare, and end Quantrill’s raids into Missouri. In of Latter-day Saints, Roberts, Brigham H., 6 vols. Salt executing the order, Ewing’s union army and the sup- Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day portive but unrestrained abolitionist Jayhawkers from Saints, 1930, Volume 1, page 538. Kansas vandalized and burned homes and other prop- 2. The Heritage of Missouri-A History, Meyer, Duane. St. erty in western Jackson County and southward along Louis, MO: State Publishing, 1973. the Missouri border. They showed little mercy for the 3. Sacred Places, Missouri, LaMar C. Berrett, Deseret inhabitants of Jackson County on either side of the war. Book Company 2004, pages 66-68. A visitor to Jackson County in 1862 described the 4. Gettysburg of the West: The Battle of Westport, October destruction: “I went down to Blue River (where I) found 21-23, 1864, Lee, Fred L., Independence, Missour: Two houses, barns, outbuildings, nearly all burned down, Trails Publishing, 1996, revised edition. and nothing left standing but the chimneys.”