What do you think?
Rate this book
The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri
In the summer and fall of 1838, animosity between Mormons and their neighbors in western Missouri erupted into an armed conflict known as the Mormon War. The conflict continued until early November, when the outnumbered Mormons surrendered and agreed to leave the state.
In this major new interpretation of those events, LeSueur argues that while a number of prejudices and fears stimulated the opposition of Missourians to their Mormon neighbors, Mormon militancy contributed greatly to the animosity between them. Prejudice and poor judgment characterized leaders on both sides of the struggle. In addition, LeSueur views the conflict as an expression of attitudes and beliefs that have fostered a vigilante tradition in the United States. The willingness of both Missourians and Mormons to adopt extralegal measures to protect and enforce community values led to the breakdown of civil control and to open warfare in northwestern Missouri.
In this major new interpretation of those events, LeSueur argues that while a number of prejudices and fears stimulated the opposition of Missourians to their Mormon neighbors, Mormon militancy contributed greatly to the animosity between them. Prejudice and poor judgment characterized leaders on both sides of the struggle. In addition, LeSueur views the conflict as an expression of attitudes and beliefs that have fostered a vigilante tradition in the United States. The willingness of both Missourians and Mormons to adopt extralegal measures to protect and enforce community values led to the breakdown of civil control and to open warfare in northwestern Missouri.
296 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1987
2 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 22, 2008
I read this book when it was first published in 1987 and it really opened my eyes to the fact that there are more than one side to the historical story. The Mormons where not always innocent in the conflicts that arose in Missouri. This book really helped me to better understand the social conflicts. It changed the way that I approached Mormon history.
January 14, 2013
I had the opportunity to visit Nauvoo this past summer and purchased this book at the Joseph Smith Historic Site, a highly recommended historical site. The book is well researched, well written--an excellent read.
October 12, 2012
Revealing. Interesting. Well written.
March 13, 2017
I liked this book for several reasons. I also had some issues with LeSueur's presentation of events. LeSueur cites some of the sources that I have not researched over the years. Most issues have two sides, and this conflict is generally presented as one-sided. For this reason, this book is valuable. There were two sides, and the author shows the human side of the Latter-day Saints in this conflict. They did react, sometimes violently. This is good history and must be told.
LeSueur is fair in that he does give it to the Missourians that they started the conflict. When the Missouri mobs kick the Saints out of Jackson County in 1833, beating them, destroying their property and taking away their Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, the Saints have real emotion tied to this. These were real events that caused pain. I don't find that the author presented these memories with enough force to show how the Saints were disenfranchised and how unfair they thought this treatment was. While he admits that the Missourians started it, his recollection of these events were sanitized, to say the least. He writes, "following their expulsion from Jackson County, Mormon exiles fled to neighboring Clay County, where they were treated with kindness and respect. But Clay citizens offered their county only as a temporary refuge for the Saints. In 1836 some of Clay's settlers became agitated because the Mormons still remained in the county and additional Mormons were arriving from outside the state. When vigilantes began gathering in large numbers and a county war seemed imminent, Clay's leading citizens met with Mormon leaders and asked them to leave the county." (p. 17)
Seems like a great deal! Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness? Where is the fairness? Not once on page 17 does the historian present this as anything less than normal in this narrative. It just is. To be fair, it would be good to show how the Saints' reaction was one that would be expected in the 1838 American West. How would the Missourians have reacted had the situation had been reversed?
So while he does show (in a weak manner) the bad behavior of the Missourians, Lesueur also demonstrates that the Saints were not perfect either. They did retaliate. They did resort to violence that goes beyond what we are generally told in LDS histories. Most Saints know something about the Battle of Crooked River, when David Patten is killed. But they are not aware of the violence that some of the Saints perpetuated against dissenters and some of the Missourians.
Lesueur is quick to dismiss many of the accounts of violence against the Saints, and perhaps we will never know the true story in this regard. He paints the Missourians as generally peaceful before the November 1, 1838 surrender, and I have a real hard time with this. It just isn't true. Page 149 is an example of this type of history, where I would argue that most of his claims on this page are just not true. For example, on this page he states, "the Missourians were primarily concerned with disarming the Mormons and stopping them from migrating into the northern section of the state."
Then he says, "the attack on Haun's Mill was a notable exception."
How is this history?
"OJ Simpson was primarily concerned that his wife not sleep with other men. His chopping off her head with a Rambo knife was a notable exception."
I mean, please.
I will say that presentation is everything. The author does demonstrate that Joseph Smith probably knew a lot more about the Danites than most LDS histories would present. This is valuable history. It should be told. But the events in 1833 that happened prior to the events in 1838 are very important, and in my opinion the author did not include any of this with any kind of fairness.
His assessment that the Saints were going to be kicked out of Missouri whether they fought back or not is one I would agree with. No way was Missouri going to let a bunch of Northerners who believed the Kingdom of God was imminent and that slavery is evil come into their territory without a fight. Well, the fight did happen. The Saints lost.
LeSueur is fair in that he does give it to the Missourians that they started the conflict. When the Missouri mobs kick the Saints out of Jackson County in 1833, beating them, destroying their property and taking away their Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, the Saints have real emotion tied to this. These were real events that caused pain. I don't find that the author presented these memories with enough force to show how the Saints were disenfranchised and how unfair they thought this treatment was. While he admits that the Missourians started it, his recollection of these events were sanitized, to say the least. He writes, "following their expulsion from Jackson County, Mormon exiles fled to neighboring Clay County, where they were treated with kindness and respect. But Clay citizens offered their county only as a temporary refuge for the Saints. In 1836 some of Clay's settlers became agitated because the Mormons still remained in the county and additional Mormons were arriving from outside the state. When vigilantes began gathering in large numbers and a county war seemed imminent, Clay's leading citizens met with Mormon leaders and asked them to leave the county." (p. 17)
Seems like a great deal! Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness? Where is the fairness? Not once on page 17 does the historian present this as anything less than normal in this narrative. It just is. To be fair, it would be good to show how the Saints' reaction was one that would be expected in the 1838 American West. How would the Missourians have reacted had the situation had been reversed?
So while he does show (in a weak manner) the bad behavior of the Missourians, Lesueur also demonstrates that the Saints were not perfect either. They did retaliate. They did resort to violence that goes beyond what we are generally told in LDS histories. Most Saints know something about the Battle of Crooked River, when David Patten is killed. But they are not aware of the violence that some of the Saints perpetuated against dissenters and some of the Missourians.
Lesueur is quick to dismiss many of the accounts of violence against the Saints, and perhaps we will never know the true story in this regard. He paints the Missourians as generally peaceful before the November 1, 1838 surrender, and I have a real hard time with this. It just isn't true. Page 149 is an example of this type of history, where I would argue that most of his claims on this page are just not true. For example, on this page he states, "the Missourians were primarily concerned with disarming the Mormons and stopping them from migrating into the northern section of the state."
Then he says, "the attack on Haun's Mill was a notable exception."
How is this history?
"OJ Simpson was primarily concerned that his wife not sleep with other men. His chopping off her head with a Rambo knife was a notable exception."
I mean, please.
I will say that presentation is everything. The author does demonstrate that Joseph Smith probably knew a lot more about the Danites than most LDS histories would present. This is valuable history. It should be told. But the events in 1833 that happened prior to the events in 1838 are very important, and in my opinion the author did not include any of this with any kind of fairness.
His assessment that the Saints were going to be kicked out of Missouri whether they fought back or not is one I would agree with. No way was Missouri going to let a bunch of Northerners who believed the Kingdom of God was imminent and that slavery is evil come into their territory without a fight. Well, the fight did happen. The Saints lost.
November 3, 2021
A solid book that answers without bias what really happened. Although many issues contributed to the conflict, I wish the author had stated more clearly the fundamental problem. The Missourians thought the formation of Caldwell County in 1836 as a homeland for Mormons restricted them to only settle there. When the Mormons ignored this and began settling large numbers in counties outside of Caldwell, the problems started.
September 30, 2013
In this day and age it seems almost ridiculous that the National Guard would be called out to shoot at members of a religious group rather than to protect their basic civil rights. But the Mormon War in western Missouri was real. This was a different time and place: in 1839, the Missouri militia stood toe-to-toe across the border from the Iowa militia over a border dispute, and the future Kansas City area was very much the frontier, where insulting a gentleman might get you killed.
I read this book a year or two ago for several reasons. I had ancestors in northwestern Missouri in the 1830s. I dabble in reading Mormon history. I attended the "Mormon Experience" conference a couple of years ago at the Capitol building in Jefferson City. I found this book very interesting.
The book includes a brief but markedly understated anticipation of some fascinating historical research presented at the Jeff. City conference and I believe published recently. "The Mormons, like their Missouri neighbors, were 'squatting' on their claims, waiting to purchase the land from the government. The principal Mormon settlements in Daviess County, including Diahman, would become available for public purchase on 12 November. Sidney Rigdon claimed that, shortly after the Saints left DeWitt, Sashel Woods called his men together and told them, 'if they could get the Mormons driven out, they could get all the lands entitled to preemptions.' The Carroll vigilantes hurried their preparations, hoping to reach Daviess and drive the Mormons from the county before they could make good their claims to the land." (p. 110)
The Jeff. city presentation I referred to above was by a historian who mapped 1838 land purchases from public records and confirmed that the feared land grab did happen, and that the largest buyers of the land on the day the government opened it for sale--while the Saints were held at gunpoint for a week by the Missouri state militia--were Lilburn Boggs (commander in chief of the militia) and his minions. "Follow the money" worked on the 1830's frontier just as well as it works now.
Overall I feel the author was pretty even-handed in his coverage of problems on both sides. I felt he was too generous in treating the state's one-sided prosecution after the surrender. Nevertheless he does point out, "The reexamination of Mormon claims regarding the Richmond hearing may lead the reader to conclude that justice was served by this judicial inquiry. Just the opposite is true. ... Missouri officials made no effort to prosecute anti-Mormon vigilantes who drove Mormon settlers from their homes, plundered, and burned. There was no court of inquiry to investigate ... the slaughter of Mormon settlers at Haun's Mill. Western Missouri officials conducted a one-sided investigation." (p. 216) As Parley P. Pratt wrote to Judge King, "When the authorities of the State shall redress all these wrongs, shall punish the guilty according to law, and shall restore my family and friends to all our rights, and shall pay all the damages which we, as a people, have sustained, then I shall believe them sincere in their professed zeal for law and justice; then shall I be convinced that I can have a fair trial in the State." (pp. 217-218)
I read this book a year or two ago for several reasons. I had ancestors in northwestern Missouri in the 1830s. I dabble in reading Mormon history. I attended the "Mormon Experience" conference a couple of years ago at the Capitol building in Jefferson City. I found this book very interesting.
The book includes a brief but markedly understated anticipation of some fascinating historical research presented at the Jeff. City conference and I believe published recently. "The Mormons, like their Missouri neighbors, were 'squatting' on their claims, waiting to purchase the land from the government. The principal Mormon settlements in Daviess County, including Diahman, would become available for public purchase on 12 November. Sidney Rigdon claimed that, shortly after the Saints left DeWitt, Sashel Woods called his men together and told them, 'if they could get the Mormons driven out, they could get all the lands entitled to preemptions.' The Carroll vigilantes hurried their preparations, hoping to reach Daviess and drive the Mormons from the county before they could make good their claims to the land." (p. 110)
The Jeff. city presentation I referred to above was by a historian who mapped 1838 land purchases from public records and confirmed that the feared land grab did happen, and that the largest buyers of the land on the day the government opened it for sale--while the Saints were held at gunpoint for a week by the Missouri state militia--were Lilburn Boggs (commander in chief of the militia) and his minions. "Follow the money" worked on the 1830's frontier just as well as it works now.
Overall I feel the author was pretty even-handed in his coverage of problems on both sides. I felt he was too generous in treating the state's one-sided prosecution after the surrender. Nevertheless he does point out, "The reexamination of Mormon claims regarding the Richmond hearing may lead the reader to conclude that justice was served by this judicial inquiry. Just the opposite is true. ... Missouri officials made no effort to prosecute anti-Mormon vigilantes who drove Mormon settlers from their homes, plundered, and burned. There was no court of inquiry to investigate ... the slaughter of Mormon settlers at Haun's Mill. Western Missouri officials conducted a one-sided investigation." (p. 216) As Parley P. Pratt wrote to Judge King, "When the authorities of the State shall redress all these wrongs, shall punish the guilty according to law, and shall restore my family and friends to all our rights, and shall pay all the damages which we, as a people, have sustained, then I shall believe them sincere in their professed zeal for law and justice; then shall I be convinced that I can have a fair trial in the State." (pp. 217-218)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews