Review: Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

 

Review by Doug Gibson

In “Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath” (Oxford University Press, 2023), authors Richard E. Turley Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown relate, 19 years after the massacre, the second trial of John D. Lee, the only man convicted.

It was a quick trial. One that easily garnered a conviction from a jury comprised entirely of Mormon men. As the book relates, this was in direct contrast to an earlier trial of Lee – before a jury of Mormons and non-Mormons – that resulted in a hung jury.

The reason for Lee’s conviction was simple. In this second trial, prosecutor Sumner Howard focused solely on the evidence against Lee, and did not waste time, and taxpayer dollars, attempting to convict LDS leaders Brigham Young, George A. Smith, and the faith itself. The first trial was a semi farce, with prosecutors, a newspaper (the Salt Lake Tribune), and a Utah political party hoping that failure to secure a conviction would lead to federal action that would crush the Mormon faith and its political power.

To get a hung jury, prosecutors in the first trial openly insulted the faith of the Mormon jurors during the trial. With a more mature prosecutor, Howard, actively working with Mormon cooperation -- something the previous prosecution had refused to do – testimony against Lee from participants and observers clearly established Lee’s guilt of truly horrible crimes.

There is truth that Lee, executed on the site of the massacre, was a scapegoat. The slaughter of 100-plus emigrants involved dozens of conspirators. William Higbee, Nephi Johnson, Philip Klingensmith, Isaac Haight, are examples of those who escaped court justice. But Lee was guilty. He deserved to be shot for his crimes.

“Vengeance is Mine …” is a follow-up to the 2008 book “Massacre at Mountain Meadows,” of which Turley was one of the authors. The follow up provides a thorough recap of the years after the massacre, including how the Civil War put the issue aside for a while.

The book describes a period of rhetorical “fire-and-brimstone” eras leading to the massacre – the Mormon Reformation of the mid 1850s, the assassination of apostle Parley P. Pratt, and the movement of federal troops to Utah. Speeches from Young, Smith and others promised violence -- and alliance with Native Americans -- if the federal government threatened the Mormon faith. It’s not difficult to imagine a gross over-response to a perceived threat to settlers, given the harsh rhetoric from ecclesiastical leaders.

I’ve read just about every book published on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. For some reason the horrors of the massacre hit hardest while reading “Vengeance is Mine ...”. Perhaps it’s the book’s narrative approach. The authors are very effective in conveying the horror of what occurred.

Offered a white flag of truce from Lee, the emigrants surrendered their weapons, with a promise of being led to safety. Shortly into the march, the men were shot – most in the head – by the supposed Mormon protectors.

As awful as that is, there was a worse fate for woman, infirm men, and nearly all children 7 or over. They were knifed and clubbed to death by Native Americans and settlers. Seventeen children were spared, only because Lee and other conspirators felt they wouldn’t be able to remember. There was a very young survivor, about 1, being brought to a home with her arm essentially hanging by a thread; a bone was shattered. The descriptions of the aftermath are sickening. They include Mormon participants laughing hysterically as they (unsuccessfully) tried to bury massacre victims. There’s an account of Lee – during an LDS church address – saying the massacre was the fulfilment of a revelation from God that he had received in a dream. I can’t get that out of my head – fast and testimony thanksgiving for killing.

An iconic presence through the book are bones, hair, and clothing littering the once-beautiful  site of the massacre. Repeatedly, wolves and other predators uncover meager efforts to bury the massacred. Even 19 years later, as Lee meets his fate, bones still litter the site.

The historian Hannah Arendt described evil as banal. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was banal evil. It was so stupid. Vicious men, full of prejudices and hate – motivated by unwise speeches -- tried to get Paiute Indians to kill emigrants from Arkansas.  That failed. When Mormon settlers shot at two emigrants, with one killed and the other fleeing to the wagons, the fate of the entire party was sealed. Lee and others were worried that survivors would relate their crimes once they arrived in California. It was ridiculous to think that killing 100-plus more people would hide a crime.

So, everyone had to die. No one waited for a messenger dispatched to Salt Lake City to get Brigham Young’s advice. He said to let the emigrants pass through. But it was too late. The cover up began. “It was all the Paiute’s fault.” … “Those emigrants killed were comprised of prostitutes and former tormenters of the faith in Missouri.” “They poisoned a cow and killed Indians and a young settler boy.” All lies; the ringleaders knew it.

But these false rationalizations endured for scores of years.

As mentioned, Lee – while guilty – served as a scapegoat for the massacres. It’s a compliment to the authors’ writing skills that one can feel a small measure of sympathy for Lee as over time he is abandoned by his faith, many of his wives, most of his church colleagues, and even the man he arguably loved most in the world, Brigham Young.

However, those most culpable did suffer, as the authors relate. Isaac Haight lived a nomadic, rough life. Every time he tried to settle into conventional Mormon life, outrage eventually sent him fleeing. He died of pneumonia. William Stewart  had a lonely, nomadic, running-away life. He died in Mexico due to gangrene in his leg. John Higbee eventually became insane before his death. His life “was a living hell,” a former Mormon is quoted as saying.

Philip Klingensmith became a loner, trying to avoid the stigma of his mere existence. Reports seem to indicate that he died in the same manner as Loyal Blood, the character on the run in E. Annie Proulx’s novel, “Postcards.”

And Nephi Johnson, while living a long life, never escaped the personal hell that his participation in the massacre brought him. Prior to his death, trying to speak to a young Juanita Leavitt (Brooks), all he could utter was “Blood! BLOOD! BLOOD!”

This is an excellent, well-researched history book by two talented historians. Both “Vengeance is Mine …” and “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” belong together as must-reads to learn the story, beginning to end, of the 1859 atrocity in Southern Utah.