The Saints in Nauvoo received the news of the assassination on the following morning. Their grief was indescribable. It was "a day of sorrow and of darkness—a day of lamentation, and mourning, and of woe."
"With the news from Carthage came the recommendation from the apostles Taylor and Richards, and Samuel H. Smith (a brother of the murdered men), to the Saints to "be still—be patient." The Governor added to that brief epistle an injunction that the Mormons should act upon the defensive until protection could be furnished them.
The Legion was called out at ten o'clock in the morning, and addressed by W. W. Phelps, Colonel Buckmaster, the Governor's aide-de-camp, and others. Preparations were made to receive the last remains of the murdered Prophet and his brother, the Patriarch.
When the bodies were brought to the city in the afternoon, they were met by ten thousand people of every age and of both sexes, who followed the earthly relics of the martyrs to the Mansion House, and there Willard Eichards, Judge Phelps, and other prominent men, addressed the multitude. Every heart was stirred. Sorrow and indignation were mingled in every breast, and a desire for vengeance smouldered beneath the sentiments of wonder and grief.
The assembly separated peacefully, resolved to trust to the law for justice upon the assassins, and, if that failed, their implicit confidence in God for deliverance remained unshaken.[1]
- ↑ The interment of the mortal remains of the Prophet and Patriarch was attended to with proper solemnity, and a sorrowing multitude accompanied the mourners to the burial-place; but there was a sequel to the public services which the people never knew. The bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were not in that funeral procession: they were reserved for private interment. It was believed that sacred as the tomb is always considered to be, there' were persons capable of rifling the grave in order to obtain the head of the murdered Prophet for the purpose of exhibiting it or placing it in some phrenological museum—the skull of Joseph Smith was worth money. This apprehension in point of fact proved true, for the place where the bodies were supposed to be buried was disturbed the night after the interment.
The coffins had been filled with stones, etc., to about the weight which the bodies would have been. The remains of the two brothers were then secretly buried the same night by a chosen few in the vaults beneath the Temple. The ground was then levelled and pieces of rock and other débris were scattered carelessly over the spot. But even this was not considered a sufficient safeguard against any violation of the dead, and on the following night a still more select number exhumed the remains and buried them beneath the pathway behind the Mansion House. The bricks which formed the path were carefully replaced, and the earth removed was carried away in sacks and thrown into the Mississippi.
[N. B. If this last statement is true, the bodies must have been removed a third time, as, since writing the above, the Author has it on unquestionable authority that they now repose in quite a different place.]
Brigham Young has endeavoured to obtain possession of the remains of the Prophet, that they might be interred beneath the Temple at Salt Lake. It is stated by Brigham that Joseph, like the son of Jacob, made the request that the Saints when they went to the Rocky Mountains should carry his bones with them. The family of Joseph maintain that the Prophet never expressed any such desire, but said very much to the contrary. It is affirmed that, "previous to Joseph's death, he predicted that the Church would be scattered, and saw that the time might come when Brigham Young would lead the Church; and that if he did, he would lead it to perdition. He told his wife, Emma, to remain at Nauvoo, or if she left, to go to Kirtland, and not to follow any faction."
To have given the bones of Joseph into Brigham's charge would have been to confirm the Saints in the Rocky Mountain Zion, to which the Smith family are decidedly opposed. The remains of the martyrs are destined for Zion in Missouri.
