Alex Beam, Boston Globe columnist, has penned a new Mormon-themed history, “American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church,” 2014, PublicAffairs Books. This relatively slim volume, 334 pages, is not a scholarly book, and its exteriors -- including characterizations of major characters, including Smith and newspaper publisher Thomas Sharp -- lack depth. However, the events in Carthage, Illinois, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed by a Warsaw, Ill. mob, goaded in part by Sharp and others, is covered well by the author. Also, the sham trial that exonerated “suspects” who were not among the chief murderers is also well-recapped by Beam.
Beam accurately describes how the enemies of the Mormon Church, once they had Hyrum and Joseph Smith in Carthage, deliberately and patiently lay in wait for the proper opportunity to strike. The courts were on their side; a faux charge was approved by a hostile judge to make sure the Smiths stayed in jail, avoiding a bond release. Thomas Ford, the weak, impotent, self-important governor of Illinois, accurately described by Beam as “pusillanimous,” was easily played by the mob. Ford, a truly ridiculous figure, was traveling to Nauvoo to make a pompous speech to the Latter-day Saints when the Smiths were murdered.
The Carthage Greys, a militia hostile to Mormons, were “guarding” the Carthage jail. One June 27, 1844, the Greys were uncharacteristically slow to defend an attack on the jail by two Warsaw militias. As Beam recounts, the Smith brothers were not in a secure cell, but in a guest room. While companions John Taylor and Willard Richards helped try to keep the mob out, Hyrum Smith was killed by shots through the door. Joseph Smith, who had a small firearm, wounded some of the attackers but was overwhelmed and shot by attackers in the jail and outside firing through a window. Smith, mortally wounded, fell from a second-floor window and was later riddled with bullets. Taylor was badly wounded but survived; Richards suffered only a scratch.
As Beam notes, the murders occurred in minutes, and Carthage was soon emptied of mob participants, now worried that thousands of Mormons would hunt them to avenge the Smiths’ deaths. However, church members were in shock after the violent deaths, and exhortations from Richards not to avenge the murders were overwhelmingly accepted. The Mormons instead focused on a long series of discussions and disputes over who would succeed Smith as church leader. After the murder trial which exonerated Sharp and other Mormon-haters, the anti-Mormon persecution resumed until the majority of Mormons left Nauvoo to go west with Brigham Young.
I have problems with Beam’s portrayal of Joseph Smith and the Mormons of Nauvoo. I’m not looking for a hagiography, and I’m as tired as anyone of the Mormon-themed films that portray Smith as if he has a halo. But Beam casts Joseph Smith as an extreme narcissist, a one-dimensional mixture of lechery, deceit and megalomania. I’m sure many see him that way but one should be allowed a better depiction of an historical figure as complex and gifted as the Mormon Church’s founder. To Beam, Smith appears no better than scoundrels such as Dr. John Bennett, or ill-fated “successor” James J. Strang. They are appropriately historical footnotes, Smith’s legacy includes a church of 14 million.
Smith had faults, and he merits a complex overview. The man who created a city of 10,000 and a church of 20,000, and whose death did not destroy his church, or heartfelt devotion among members to the controversial doctrine of polygamy, needs a deeper study than Beam allows. One tactic used by the author is the “freak show” depiction, in which visitors to Nauvoo who were repelled by Smith are provided as sources; one is a future mayor of Boston, one the son of a U.S. president. This tactic was used often against Utah Mormons in the 19th century, with condescending visitors to Salt Lake City later trashing Young, Parley P. Pratt, or others in articles or books.
Beam does a good explaining the destruction of an anti-Mormon newspaper, started by Mormon leader turned dissident William Law. Smith’s approval of this unwise act served as the prelude to the murders. Nevertheless, the term “rabid anti-Mormons” is not enough to wonder why the antipathy was so deadly. Much of the blame falls to the yellow journalist Sharp, but his character is never explored in sufficient detail. Beam, in an effort to set the scenario prior to the deaths, includes Nauvoo-strife anecdotes, but they are curiously lifeless, with the characters seeming to play roles rather than acting spontaneously.
Despite my concerns, I recommend “American Crucifixion” to readers. Like the Joseph Smith biography, “Rough Stone Rolling,” it does in part convey the isolation of Illinois, as well as the savage bloodlust that was allowed to flourish. The recap of the murders are terrifying. It captures the deliberate killings, as well as the temporary satiation of deadly impulses that the deaths accomplished.
Beam has included a couple of odd footnotes. On page 98, the author claims that Mormon apologists hid polygamy for decades after Nauvoo. But if the author had merely read easily accessible church publications, he would learn that the Mormons were advocating polygamy openly by 1852. Beam’s source for this claim is from “Elder” Ebenezer Robinson, long after Nauvoo. But he was no longer a Utah Mormon. In short, this source is in no position to support Beam’s claim of a long polygamy cover up.
Also, a key source of Beam’s, one Isaac Scott, is listed as a Mormon missionary in 1844 Nauvoo. Besides other quotes, Scott is used by the author to refute historical accounts that Joseph Smith thought he would not survive his jailing in Carthage. Smith is reputed by stronger sources than Scott as believing both he and Hyrum would be murdered. Also, Scott was a critic of Mormonism by early 1844 and subsequently emerged as an enemy as harsh of Smith as Law or Francis Higbee, former members turned apostates. Scott, who eventually became a follower of Strang, seems a poor choice to comment on Smith’s emotions as his death neared. He would not have had access to such information.
Nevertheless, as mentioned, the book’s account of the murders and the ensuing trial makes it worth a read.
-- Doug Gibson
-- Originally published at StandardNet
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