ported a battle as having been fought at Gallatin, in which several of the fraternity were killed. Considerable excitement followed the announcement, and several parties went to Diahman to learn the truth of the matter. Ascertaining the facts, and being desirous of preventing further trouble, one of the brethren went to the magistrate, Adam Black, and proposed bonds on both sides to keep the peace. The proposition was accepted, Joseph Smith and Lyman Wight signing for the Mormons, and Black for the gentiles. The Mormons then returned to Far West; but the people of Daviess county, not approving the action of the magistrate, disputed Black's right to bind them; whereupon, to appease them. Black went to the circuit judge and obtained a writ for the arrest of Smith and Wight on a charge of having forced him, by threats of violence, to sign the agreement. Brought before Judge King at Gallatin, Smith and Wight were released on their own recognizances.
Nevertheless the excitement increased. In Daviess and adjacent counties, three hundred gentiles met and armed. The Mormons say that the gentiles made prisoners, and shot and stole cattle, and the gentiles say that the Mormons did the same.[1] Finally affairs becanie so alarming that Major-General Atchison concluded to call out the militia of Ray and Clay counties, under command of generals Doniphan and Parks, the latter being stationed in Daviess county.[2] Their purposes in that quarter being thus defeated, the men of Missouri threw themselves on a small settlement of saints at Dewitt, where they were joined by a party with a six-pounder from Jackson county. Setting fire
- ↑ In Daviess county the saints killed between 100 and 200 hogs and a number of cattle, took at least forty or fifty stands of honey, and at the same time destroyed several fields of corn. The word was out that the Lord had consecrated through the bishop the spoils unto his host, Harris' Mormonism Portrayed, 30-1.
- ↑ One thousand men were then ordered into service under the command of Major-General Atcliison and brigadier-generals Parks and Doniphan. These marched to Daviess co., and remained in service thirty days. But judging from the result, they had no intention of coming in contact with the mob, but only to make a show of defending one neighborhood while the mob was allowed to attack another.' Pratt's Autobiography, 191.
