Roughing It

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Roughing It


Up to the date of our visit to Utah, such had been the Territorial
record. The Territorial government established there had been a hopeless
failure, and Brigham Young was the only real power in the land. He was
an absolute monarch--a monarch who defied our President--a monarch who
laughed at our armies when they camped about his capital--a monarch who
received without emotion the news that the august Congress of the United
States had enacted a solemn law against polygamy, and then went forth
calmly and married twenty-five or thirty more wives.




B.
THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.

The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long--and which they
consider they still suffer in not being allowed to govern themselves
--they have endeavored and are still endeavoring to repay. The now almost
forgotten "Mountain Meadows massacre" was their work. It was very famous
in its day. The whole United States rang with its horrors. A few items
will refresh the reader's memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri
and Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City and a few disaffected Mormons
joined it for the sake of the strong protection it afforded for their
escape. In that matter lay sufficient cause for hot retaliation by the
Mormon chiefs. Besides, these one hundred and forty-five or one hundred
and fifty unsuspecting emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a
noted Mormon missionary had lately been killed, and in part from
Missouri, a State remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of
the saints when they were few and poor and friendless, here were
substantial additional grounds for lack of love for these wayfarers.
And finally, this train was rich, very rich in cattle, horses, mules and
other property--and how could the Mormons consistently keep up their
coveted resemblance to the Israelitish tribes and not seize the "spoil"
of an enemy when the Lord had so manifestly "delivered it into their
hand?"

Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite's entertaining book, "The Mormon
Prophet," it transpired that--

"A 'revelation' from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee or God, was
dispatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop Higbee and J. D. Lee
(adopted son of Brigham), commanding them to raise all the forces they
could muster and trust, follow those cursed Gentiles (so read the
revelation), attack them disguised as Indians, and with the arrows of the
Almighty make a clean sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and
if they needed any assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as
their allies, promising them a share of the booty. They were to be
neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be punctual in
sending the teams back to him before winter set in, for this was the
mandate of Almighty God."

The command of the "revelation" was faithfully obeyed. A large party of
Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook the train of
emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and
made an attack. But the emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses
of their wagons and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for
five days! Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the
sort of scurvy apologies for "Indians" which the southern part of Utah
affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred of them.

At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They
retired to the upper end of the "Meadows," resumed civilized apparel,
washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to
the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants
saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with
cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt,
they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag
of truce!

The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President Haight and
Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a
term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from
Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next
proceeded:

"They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented
them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the
matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having
(apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages;
which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving
everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon
bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the
settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of
saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and
subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were
marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the
Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about
a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost
all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who
fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before
they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two
or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid
of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all
the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the
eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of
September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and
bloody murders known in our history."

The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was one
hundred and twenty.

With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and proceeded
to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what a spectacle it must
have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and
his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory,
deriding them by turns, and by turns "breathing threatenings and
slaughter!"

An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of him and of
the occasion:

"He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson;
but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while
threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the
U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in his course.

"Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged
with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a committing
magistrate, he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made
arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the
saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom
was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping
to save their necks; and developments of the most starling character were
being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many
murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight
years."

Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in his
work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this
massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred
gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use
them. But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious
pretense of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands
of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his
protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh's
proceedings.

Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great massacre with
the following remark and accompanying summary of the testimony--and the
summary is concise, accurate and reliable:

"For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt of
Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the testimony is here collated
and circumstances given which go not merely to implicate but to fasten
conviction upon them by 'confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ:'

"1. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, as shown
by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U.S. Marshall Rodgers.

"2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it in his
Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his failure to make any
allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until several years after the
occurrence.

"3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in the Mormon
Church and State, when this affair was brought to the ordeal of a
judicial investigation.

"4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the only
paper then published in the Territory, to notice the massacre until
several months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons were engaged
in it.

"5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre.

"6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in possession
of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the very day after the
massacre.

"7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene of the
massacre: these statements are shown, not only by Cradlebaugh and
Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who was,
in 1859, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. To all
these were such statements freely and frequently made by the Indians.

"8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent in
the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road to
California and to inquire into Indian depredations."




C.
CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT WAS NEVER CONSUMMATED

If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold Hill,
Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought itself unfired
gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. If ever there was an
oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a jack-o'lantern, confined to a
swamp, that fancied itself a planet with a billion-mile orbit; or a
summer zephyr that deemed itself a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand.
Therefore, what wonder is it that when he says a thing, he thinks the
world listens; that when he does a thing the world stands still to look;
and that when he suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met
Conrad, he was "Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office"--and he was
not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he was a street
preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own invention, whereby he
expected to regenerate the universe. This was years ago. Here latterly
he has entered journalism; and his journalism is what it might be
expected to be: colossal to ear, but pigmy to the eye. It is extravagant
grandiloquence confined to a newspaper about the size of a double letter
sheet. He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all
alone; but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block
and employs a thousand men.

[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several people
mercilessly in his little "People's Tribune," and got himself into
trouble. Straightway he airs the affair in the "Territorial Enterprise,"
in a communication over his own signature, and I propose to reproduce it
here, in all its native simplicity and more than human candor. Long as
it is, it is well worth reading, for it is the richest specimen of
journalistic literature the history of America can furnish, perhaps:]

From the Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 20, 1870.

SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENTERPRISE: Months ago, when Mr. Sutro incidentally
exposed mining management on the Comstock, and among others roused me to
protest against its continuance, in great kindness you warned me that any
attempt by publications, by public meetings and by legislative action,
aimed at the correction of chronic mining evils in Storey County, must
entail upon me (a) business ruin, (b) the burden of all its costs, (c)
personal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then (d)
assassination, and after all nothing would be effected.

YOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING.
In large part at least your prophecies have been fulfilled, for (a)
assaying, which was well attended to in the Gold Hill Assay Office (of
which I am superintendent), in consequence of my publications, has been
taken elsewhere, so the President of one of the companies assures me.
With no reason assigned, other work has been taken away. With but one or
two important exceptions, our assay business now consists simply of the
gleanings of the vicinity. (b) Though my own personal donations to the
People's Tribune Association have already exceeded $1,500, outside of our
own numbers we have received (in money) less than $300 as contributions
and subscriptions for the journal. (c) On Thursday last, on the main
street in Gold Hill, near noon, with neither warning nor cause assigned,
by a powerful blow I was felled to the ground, and while down I was
kicked by a man who it would seem had been led to believe that I had
spoken derogatorily of him. By whom he was so induced to believe I am as
yet unable to say. On Saturday last I was again assailed and beaten by a
man who first informed me why he did so, and who persisted in making his
assault even after the erroneous impression under which he also was at
first laboring had been clearly and repeatedly pointed out. This same
man, after failing through intimidation to elicit from me the names of
our editorial contributors, against giving which he knew me to be
pledged, beat himself weary upon me with a raw hide, I not resisting, and
then pantingly threatened me with permanent disfiguring mayhem, if ever
again I should introduce his name into print, and who but a few minutes
before his attack upon me assured me that the only reason I was
"permitted" to reach home alive on Wednesday evening last (at which time
the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE was issued) was, that he deems me only half-witted,
and be it remembered the very next morning I was knocked down and kicked
by a man who seemed to be prepared for flight.

[He sees doom impending:]

WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN?
How long before the whole of your prophecy will be fulfilled I cannot
say, but under the shadow of so much fulfillment in so short a time, and
with such threats from a man who is one of the most prominent exponents
of the San Francisco mining-ring staring me and this whole community
defiantly in the face and pointing to a completion of your augury, do you
blame me for feeling that this communication is the last I shall ever
write for the Press, especially when a sense alike of personal
self-respect, of duty to this money-oppressed and fear-ridden community,
and of American fealty to the spirit of true Liberty all command me, and
each more loudly than love of life itself, to declare the name of that
prominent man to be JOHN B. WINTERS, President of the Yellow Jacket
Company, a political aspirant and a military General? The name of his
partially duped accomplice and abettor in this last marvelous assault, is
no other than PHILIP LYNCH, Editor and Proprietor of the Gold Hill News.

Despite the insult and wrong heaped upon me by John B. Winters, on
Saturday afternoon, only a glimpse of which I shall be able to afford
your readers, so much do I deplore clinching (by publicity) a serious
mistake of any one, man or woman, committed under natural and not
self-wrought passion, in view of his great apparent excitement at the
time and in view of the almost perfect privacy of the assault, I am far
from sure that I should not have given him space for repentance before
exposing him, were it not that he himself has so far exposed the matter
as to make it the common talk of the town that he has horsewhipped me.
That fact having been made public, all the facts in connection need to be
also, or silence on my part would seem more than singular, and with many
would be proof either that I was conscious of some unworthy aim in
publishing the article, or else that my "non-combatant" principles are
but a convenient cloak alike of physical and moral cowardice. I
therefore shall try to present a graphic but truthful picture of this
whole affair, but shall forbear all comments, presuming that the editors
of our own journal, if others do not, will speak freely and fittingly
upon this subject in our next number, whether I shall then be dead or
living, for my death will not stop, though it may suspend, the
publication of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. [The "non-combatant" sticks to
principle, but takes along a friend or two of a conveniently different
stripe:]

THE TRAP SET.
On Saturday morning John B. Winters sent verbal word to the Gold Hill
Assay Office that he desired to see me at the Yellow Jacket office.
Though such a request struck me as decidedly cool in view of his own
recent discourtesies to me there alike as a publisher and as a
stockholder in the Yellow Jacket mine, and though it seemed to me more
like a summons than the courteous request by one gentleman to another for
a favor, hoping that some conference with Sharon looking to the
betterment of mining matters in Nevada might arise from it, I felt
strongly inclined to overlook what possibly was simply an oversight in
courtesy. But as then it had only been two days since I had been bruised
and beaten under a hasty and false apprehension of facts, my caution was
somewhat aroused. Moreover I remembered sensitively his contemptuousness
of manner to me at my last interview in his office. I therefore felt it
needful, if I went at all, to go accompanied by a friend whom he would
not dare to treat with incivility, and whose presence with me might
secure exemption from insult. Accordingly I asked a neighbor to
accompany me.

THE TRAP ALMOST DETECTED.
Although I was not then aware of this fact, it would seem that previous
to my request this same neighbor had heard Dr. Zabriskie state publicly
in a saloon, that Mr. Winters had told him he had decided either to kill
or to horsewhip me, but had not finally decided on which. My neighbor,
therefore, felt unwilling to go down with me until he had first called on
Mr. Winters alone. He therefore paid him a visit. From that interview
he assured me that he gathered the impression that he did not believe I
would have any difficulty with Mr. Winters, and that he (Winters) would
call on me at four o'clock in my own office.

MY OWN PRECAUTIONS.
As Sheriff Cummings was in Gold Hill that afternoon, and as I desired to
converse with him about the previous assault, I invited him to my office,
and he came. Although a half hour had passed beyond four o'clock, Mr.
Winters had not called, and we both of us began preparing to go home.
Just then, Philip Lynch, Publisher of the Gold Hill News, came in and
said, blandly and cheerily, as if bringing good news:

"Hello, John B. Winters wants to see you."

I replied, "Indeed! Why he sent me word that he would call on me here
this afternoon at four o'clock!"

"O, well, it don't do to be too ceremonious just now, he's in my office,
and that will do as well--come on in, Winters wants to consult with you
alone. He's got something to say to you."

Though slightly uneasy at this change of programme, yet believing that in
an editor's house I ought to be safe, and anyhow that I would be within
hail of the street, I hurriedly, and but partially whispered my dim
apprehensions to Mr. Cummings, and asked him if he would not keep near
enough to hear my voice in case I should call. He consented to do so
while waiting for some other parties, and to come in if he heard my voice
or thought I had need of protection.

On reaching the editorial part of the News office, which viewed from the
street is dark, I did not see Mr. Winters, and again my misgivings arose.
Had I paused long enough to consider the case, I should have invited
Sheriff Cummings in, but as Lynch went down stairs, he said: "This way,
Wiegand--it's best to be private," or some such remark.

[I do not desire to strain the reader's fancy, hurtfully, and yet it
would be a favor to me if he would try to fancy this lamb in battle, or
the duelling ground or at the head of a vigilance committee--M. T.:]

I followed, and without Mr. Cummings, and without arms, which I never do
or will carry, unless as a soldier in war, or unless I should yet come to
feel I must fight a duel, or to join and aid in the ranks of a necessary
Vigilance Committee. But by following I made a fatal mistake. Following
was entering a trap, and whatever animal suffers itself to be caught
should expect the common fate of a caged rat, as I fear events to come
will prove.

Traps commonly are not set for benevolence.
[His body-guard is shut out:]

THE TRAP INSIDE.
I followed Lynch down stairs. At their foot a door to the left opened
into a small room. From that room another door opened into yet another
room, and once entered I found myself inveigled into what many will ever
henceforth regard as a private subterranean Gold Hill den, admirably
adapted in proper hands to the purposes of murder, raw or disguised, for
from it, with both or even one door closed, when too late, I saw that I
could not be heard by Sheriff Cummings, and from it, BY VIOLENCE AND BY
FORCE, I was prevented from making a peaceable exit, when I thought I saw
the studious object of this "consultation" was no other than to compass
my killing, in the presence of Philip Lynch as a witness, as soon as by
insult a proverbially excitable man should be exasperated to the point of
assailing Mr. Winters, so that Mr. Lynch, by his conscience and by his
well known tenderness of heart toward the rich and potent would be
compelled to testify that he saw Gen. John B. Winters kill Conrad Wiegand
in "self-defence." But I am going too fast.

OUR HOST.
Mr. Lynch was present during the most of the time (say a little short of
an hour), but three times he left the room. His testimony, therefore,
would be available only as to the bulk of what transpired. On entering
this carpeted den I was invited to a seat near one corner of the room.
Mr. Lynch took a seat near the window. J. B. Winters sat (at first) near
the door, and began his remarks essentially as follows:

"I have come here to exact of you a retraction, in black and white, of
those damnably false charges which you have preferred against me in
that---infamous lying sheet of yours, and you must declare yourself their
author, that you published them knowing them to be false, and that your
motives were malicious."

"Hold, Mr. Winters. Your language is insulting and your demand an
enormity. I trust I was not invited here either to be insulted or
coerced. I supposed myself here by invitation of Mr. Lynch, at your
request."

"Nor did I come here to insult you. I have already told you that I am
here for a very different purpose."

"Yet your language has been offensive, and even now shows strong
excitement. If insult is repeated I shall either leave the room or call
in Sheriff Cummings, whom I just left standing and waiting for me outside
the door."

"No, you won't, sir. You may just as well understand it at once as not.
Here you are my man, and I'll tell you why! Months ago you put your
property out of your hands, boasting that you did so to escape losing it
on prosecution for libel."

"It is true that I did convert all my immovable property into personal
property, such as I could trust safely to others, and chiefly to escape
ruin through possible libel suits."

"Very good, sir. Having placed yourself beyond the pale of the law, may
God help your soul if you DON'T make precisely such a retraction as I
have demanded. I've got you now, and by--before you can get out of this
room you've got to both write and sign precisely the retraction I have
demanded, and before you go, anyhow--you---low-lived--lying---, I'll
teach you what personal responsibility is outside of the law; and, by--,
Sheriff Cummings and all the friends you've got in the world besides,
can't save you, you---, etc.! No, sir. I'm alone now, and I'm prepared
to be shot down just here and now rather than be villified by you as I
have been, and suffer you to escape me after publishing those charges,
not only here where I am known and universally respected, but where I am
not personally known and may be injured."

I confess this speech, with its terrible and but too plainly implied
threat of killing me if I did not sign the paper he demanded, terrified
me, especially as I saw he was working himself up to the highest possible
pitch of passion, and instinct told me that any reply other than one of
seeming concession to his demands would only be fuel to a raging fire,
so I replied:

"Well, if I've got to sign--," and then I paused some time. Resuming,
I said, "But, Mr. Winters, you are greatly excited. Besides, I see you
are laboring under a total misapprehension. It is your duty not to
inflame but to calm yourself. I am prepared to show you, if you will
only point out the article that you allude to, that you regard as
'charges' what no calm and logical mind has any right to regard as such.
Show me the charges, and I will try, at all events; and if it becomes
plain that no charges have been preferred, then plainly there can be
nothing to retract, and no one could rightly urge you to demand a
retraction. You should beware of making so serious a mistake, for
however honest a man may be, every one is liable to misapprehend.
Besides you assume that I am the author of some certain article which you
have not pointed out. It is hasty to do so."