Vengeance Is Mine Quotes

“This third attack on the combined Dukes company was yet another of the multiple raids on emigrant trains that took place that fall of 1857, all aligned with Young’s strategy to stop emigration until Washington pulled its troops back from Utah.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Meanwhile, the Dukes company limped along the trail to California, abandoning wagons as their oxen collapsed in the heat. One of them later “swore he would kill the first man who said he was a Mormon.”24”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Hamblin told Young the Indians divided the cattle among the various bands and brought a hundred cows to the Santa Clara missionaries for breeding.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Not long after the raid, a California-bound emigrant traveling with a different party saw what he thought were the tracks of some three hundred cattle, heading from the Muddy toward the Mormons’ Santa Clara fort. Among the cattle tracks were those of “several shod horses and mules,” the emigrant, John Aiken, said. The “drove of Cattle” that ended up at the fort, wrote a Santa Clara resident, “was called the publick herd.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“As the minutes ticked by, with no sign of their guides, the emigrants realized they had been fooled.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Southern Utah leaders had tried to cover up Aden’s murder, Mormon involvement in cattle raiding, and the attack at Mountain Meadows by silencing all witnesses of these acts. They refused to let the emigrants go for fear they would “raise hell in California.” But that happened anyway.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Lee told Young and Woodruff that when he heard about the massacre, “he took some men & went & buried their bodies,” which “was a horrid awful Job.” He then continued his victim blaming. “Many of the men & women was rotten with the pox [venereal disease] before they were hurt by the Indians,” he claimed, reflecting what freighter Billy Mathews said William Dame told him the day after the massacre. He “did not think their was a drop of innocent Blood in their Camp.” He had taken in two of the surviving children and “could not get but one to kneel down in prayer time & the othe[r] would laugh at her for doing it.” And, he added, the children “sw[o]re like pirats.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“After dishing up plenty of both Indian and white motive, Lee said only that “the Indians became inraged” at the emigrants’ conduct, surrounding them on a “prairie.” To defend themselves, “the Emigrants formed a Bulwark of ther wagons.” But “the Indians fought them five days” until “they killed all their men about 60 in number.” Omitting mention of his and other white men’s roles in decoying the emigrants from their wagon fort, Lee lied that Indians “rushed into their Carrall & Cut the throats of their women & Children except some 8 or 10 Childrn which they brought & sold to the whites.” Finally, he said, the Indians “strip[p]ed the men & women Naked & left them stinking in the boiling sun.”15”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Lee brought “an awful tale of blood,” Woodruff recorded. A company of California-bound emigrants, totaling about 150 men, women, and children, came through the territory with numerous cattle and horses, Lee began. He asserted they “belonged to the mob in Missouri & Illinois.” As they traveled south, “they went damning Brigham Young [and Young’s counselor] Heber C Kimball & the Heads of the Church saying that Joseph Smith ought to have been shot a long time before he was.” Lee knew mention of Smith’s murder rankled Latter-day Saint nerves, especially Young’s.13 Next, Lee launched into the poisoning story. The emigrants “wanted to do all the evil they Could,” he claimed, “so they poisond Beef & gave it to the Indians & some of them died.” Lee also said “several of the saints died” from springs the emigrants poisoned.14”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Albert also showed Jacob two girls, their bodies left lying where they “had run some ways off before they were killed.” The girls looked about fourteen or fifteen, “lying there with their throats cut,” Jacob said.41”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“As the congregation came downstairs from Lee’s Sunday speech, Hoag spotted children she had not seen before. One of them, a boy called Calvin, was weeping. Though he was only six, his height made him look seven or eight. Pointing to a man called “Indian Joe,” the boy cried “that was the Indian” who killed his Pa, “for he had his best coat and pants on.”25 Hoag did not see the child again. “They said they had to keep the child secreted,” she said. Another child taken in by Lee’s family was a five-year-old boy Lee called Charles. “Lee said we was not to ask ‘em any questions whatever,” Hoag said. Nothing was to be said to the surviving children that might “cause them to remember. . . . They wanted them to forget everything that had transpired from this affair.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Not long after, Shirts said, “the citizens of Harmony were called together and told that if they ever mentioned a word of . . . Lee’s speech of Sunday their throats would be cut.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“According to Hoag’s recollection, Lee told his congregation about encountering an emigrant man holding his baby. “Give up that child,” Lee demanded. The emigrant seemed to know Lee and his beliefs. “No, Lee,” he replied. “I recognize you,” and “you know the penalty of shedding innocent blood.” If Lee was going to shoot, the man said, Lee would have to kill the child too, and bear the consequences. The Bible condemned those who shed innocent blood, meaning those who were blameless, and Latter-day Saints taught that shedders of innocent blood forfeited their chance to enter the highest heaven.21 Lee gave the emigrant another chance to hand over the baby, but he refused. “Then,” Lee told his congregation, “it was [my] turn to shoot.” He killed the baby and the man with the same bullet. Defending his actions to the stunned Harmony residents, Lee explained that he did not “consider himself under the penalty of shedding innocent blood.” The killing of the baby, he said, could not be helped.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Separating the women and children from the men, Lee instructed them all to walk out in a line. Outside the corral, militiamen and Indians waited, also separated into two groups. After the militiamen marched the company for a distance, the emigrant men were “all shot dead at the first fire,” Lee said, with the exception of a few. He did not say how the women and children were killed, and so Shirts later asked Indians. “The women and children were knocked down with stones, clubs and gun barrels,” they told him.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“According to Shirts’s account, Lee sent messengers south to Santa Clara to bring more Paiutes to the Meadows. By Friday, September 11, there were also “a good many whites come along.” That morning, the militiamen gathered near the besieged wagons and raised a white “flag”—a handkerchief on a stick—signaling they were there to help.18 The emigrants allowed Lee into their corral for negotiation. Hoag remembered how Lee relayed the story to the Harmony congregation. The emigrants’ spokesman asked Lee if “he meant what he showed by the flag.” “Yes,” Lee answered, he “meant peace.” “Do you give us peace?” Lee asked in return. “Yes,” the negotiator replied, but another emigrant protested, “No!” “All I wish,” Lee insisted, is for you “to surrender your arms and we will see that you go unhurt.” “If you give up your arms you are a fool,” the protesting emigrant urged their spokesman. “I don’t know,” the negotiator hesitated. “He promises peace.” “Don’t you be such [a] god damned fool as that,” a third man jumped in. “If you do you are dead men.” “No, I will promise you peace,” Lee assured. “All I want is your arms.”19 After a tense parley, the emigrants finally surrendered their guns on Lee’s promise to protect them back to Cedar City.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“As Lee recounted the story to his congregation on September 13, he showed them bullet holes in his clothing. Though he had painted his face dark in disguise, riflemen spotted him on the knoll and fired, he explained. Bullets whizzed through his sleeve and hat, but they “didn’t even as much as graze” him—evidence, Lee claimed, that “the Lord had blessed him.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“At the Meadows, Lee had wanted the gathered Indians “to attack the emigrant party before daylight when they would be in the most profound slumber, and to massacre them before they could awake and arm themselves,” Shirts remembered. Not wanting to appear at the main assault, Lee crept up on a herdsman sleeping on a knoll above the cattle. When he pulled the trigger of his caplock pistol to kill the man, it failed to fire. Startled, the herdsman leaped up and raced down the rocky knoll for the camp, with Lee in close pursuit. As the man stooped to dive into a tent, Lee shot him dead.13 The shot and barking dogs woke the emigrants, who fired on their attackers.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Thank God [I] ha[ve] come back all right,” Lee declared as he took the stand. Looking over his audience, he claimed to have seen a vision months before. In it he saw ninety-six sheep lying in a pile—bucks, ewes, and lambs. He proclaimed “he had just seen the vision fulfilled.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“To hasten their removal,” Illinois governor Thomas Ford admitted, the twelve apostles “were made to believe that the [U.S.] President would order the regular army to Nauvoo” to arrest them as soon as the frozen Mississippi thawed and troops could travel upstream by riverboat.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“He told apostle Wilford Woodruff in 1856 that “were we now Commanded to go & avenge the Blood of the prophets,” the Saints would not “know what to do.” Fortunately, Young confided to Woodruff, “there is one thing that is a consolation to me[.] And that is I am satisfied that the Lord will not require it of this people untill they become sanctifyed & are led by the spirit of God so as not to shed inocent Blood.”16”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“The people of Nauvoo did not use violence to avenge the Smiths’ deaths.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“George Q. Cannon and an apostle himself, said his father told him “that he understood when he had his endowments in Nauvoo that he took an oath against the murderers of the Prophet Joseph as well as other prophets, and if he had ever met any of those who had taken a hand in that massacre he would undoubtedly have attempted to avenge the blood of the martyrs.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“I have covenanted, and never will rest nor my posterity after me until those men who killed Joseph and Hyrum have been wiped out of the earth.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“The two were awaiting a hearing on a treason charge for declaring martial law and calling out their state militia unit to protect Nauvoo from anticipated attack”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Reacting to these practices, vigilante mobs used violence, including mass murder, to drive “Mormons,” as they called them, from their communities. At times the Saints fought back, only to be overwhelmed by more violence and then fleeing to a new place.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

“Multiple raids on emigrant wagon trains in Utah Territory, both before and weeks after September 11, 1857, demonstrate that the train massacred at Mountain Meadows was not the only one attacked. These assaults were motivated by political wrangling over federal and local rule and tensions between church and state that reached a deadly peak in 1857 but roiled Utah for decades. Modern readers may recognize similar tensions today, not only in Utah but throughout the United States. This jostling for power between Latter-day Saints and federal authority continued long after the massacre. Attempts to wield the case as a political weapon resulted in justice delayed—and justice denied—for the innocent victims of the massacre and their families.”
― Richard E. Turley, Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath