LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 628, 23 June 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE EMIGRANT CABAYAN. ( Concluded .) Closely beleaguered in their camp, cut off from both frnd and water, the wretched emigrants felt their hearts failing them, and saw but one horrible termination to their long-continued sufferings. Their joy may therefore be imagined when they suddenly beheld a small party of soldiers approaching their camp, bearing aloft a flag of truce, an emblem held sacred by all civilised nations. Nothing doubting, they gladly hailed the pleasing spectacle; and trusted that at last deliverance from all their troubles was at hand. The occurrence has been fully described by several who were eye-witnesses of the parley and its results. A man stepped out of the line of soldiers, and, holding up the flag so that all might see it and understand its import, he advanced towards the corral where the immigrants were intrenched. He was accompanied by two or three others, chief among them being John D. Lee, subIndian agent, who had been specially selected by the Mormon Government to carry out this treacherous act to its swift and bloody conclusion. Two or three of the emigrants came out from the corral and went to meet the bearers of the Hag of truce. Lee then declared he had come as a friend ; and he proceeded to inform them that the Indians were greatly irritated, and were determined to destroy the whole party ; that he and the company of soldiers had come there in the hope of assisting them ; but that, on conversing with the Indians, he had found them very jobdurate, and nothing would pacify them but the surrender on the part of the emigrants of the whole of their provisions, arms and cattle. ‘ If you will deliver up those, ’ he assured his dismayed listeners, ‘ the Indians will cease’to molest you ; and under any circumstances we will protect you from their violence.’ The alternative presented to them was not an encouraging one, but the poor emigrants had little choice. Still they hesitated; and a long and anxious consultation followed. Lee entered the corral, and remained for a considerable time, some say for hours, urging his treacherous proposal. A great dread filled the hearts of the Arkansans. If they yielded to the imperative demand, and evil consequences ensued, there remained to them no power of resistance ; their fate they knew would be sealed. Many among them feared deception; others expressed their willingness to trust the solemn assurances made to them by Lee. Finally, his specious arguments 'prevailed, and the emigrants consented to the terms which alone—so they were repeatedly told—would insure their safety. Lee then arranged the plan of capitulation. The wounded men and the younger children were placed in the waggons, and driven past the troops, the women and elder children accompanying them on foot. The work of destroying them had been already assigned to the Indian allies, who were waiting in ambush for the signal that should direct them to commence their share of the massacre. The men of the emigrant party were then reduced to single file, and by the side of each defenceless victim marched a Mormon soldier carrying a loaded musket. In this maimer they proceeded for half a mile, till the chosen spot was reached. Here a halt was called, a signal given, and next moment every soldier had fired on the man beside him, and nearly all the brave Arkansas settlors lay dead or desperately wounded. A few, loss injured than the rest, sought safety in flight, but they were pursued and overtaken, and immediately slaughtered. Not one man was left to tell the tale.

Meanwhile, the Indians had darted from their ambush and fallen on the unfortunate women and children. All the women were massacred, and nearly all the children. The lives of seventeen innocent little creatures were spared, because they were so young that no after-revelation of the atrocious deed could be feared from them. In this manner perished the entire body of emigrants. The designs of the Mormons being thoroughly consummated, what remained to be done ? Merely to dispose in some rough fashion of the bodies, and to share the spoils of the deserted encampment. The little children, who had been spared, were mostly given over to the Indians; probably to lend a colour to the report, at once spread abroad by the Mormons, that the massacre had been the work of the red men. Some of the cattle were driven to Salt Lake, where they were sold.

At the time of the commission of this horrid deed, Utah was completely isolated from the world; and as the work of extermination was made so thorough that none survived to tell the tale, except a few chil-

dren too young to recollect it. A dark mystery shrouded the whole occourrence; and nothing was known of it for a considerable time, except among the few scattered communities living in the neighbourhood. They scarcely dared to whisper it among themselves ; the Mormon leaders kept their guilty secret; and soon a collection of bonesfwas all that met the eye to tell the passing traveller of the treacherous deed that had been perpetrated in that lonely region. At first, it was supposed that the Indians had massacred the company, and the story was told to the world as a caution to those designing to cross the plains ; but so terrible a secret could not be for ever kept from the knowledge of mankind, and in the course of time a report was gradually spread that it was not the result of Indian barbarity alone, but that the Mormons had had a large share in the butchery. About eighteen months later, by which time the reports had acquired some consistency, a district judge of Utah attempted to make some investigation into the occurrence, and summoned a grand jury to inquire into the various murders and assassinations that had for some time been notoriously prevalent in the colony, among them this massacre at Mountain Meadows. Testimony was produced which implicated a number of prominent men in the Mormon community ; but it was impossible to get the grand jurors to act with honesty ; they refused to find indictments, and were finally discharged. Many years passed, and no special notice was taken of the massacre at Mountain Meadows ; various difficulties between the Federal and Territorial authorities in Utah, throwing fresh obstacles in the way of an investigation. But the carefully hidden secret had gradually transpired; public attention had been drawn towards this atrocious deed, which had so long remained unpunished; and when, in the year 1874, an Act was passed, by which grand and petit juries can he summoned, one of the earliest cases set down for hearing was the Mountain Meadows massacre. After various delays, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring witnesses, the trial was fixed for July 12th, 1875, in the District Court at Beare., in Southern Utah. Fresh obstacles intervening, occasioned a further delay; but the triad eventually began on the 23rd, and extended through the first week of August. It was called “The Lee trial,” the indictment being laid against John D. Lee, who was known to have been the leading instigator of the massacre, though it was equally well known that he but acted in obedience to orders from the Mormon chiefs. District Attorney Carey opened the case for the pro- \ secution; Judge Foreman presided; a great array of legal talent assembled for the prosecution and the defence; numerous witnesses were summoned to testify to what they knew, and to facts that many of them had actually seen. The defence was of the most lame and inconclusive description. Statements were advanced for which no particle of proof was forthcoming. All present felt that it was a total failure. The prosecution detailed the circumstances connected with the massacre in the minutest manner; many witnesses swore to the previous knowledge of the cruel deed about to be perpetrated; while others described the horrid tragedy, which they had not only seen, but in which some of them had lent a helping hand. Only one impression remained on the minds of all impartial and unbiassed listeners, that Lee had acted as principal throughout the whole affair. The case was then left to the jury, who consulted for three days, and then announced themselves unable to agree upon a verdict—nine being for acquittal, and three for conviction. The jury was thereupon discharged, and the prisoner was held over for a second trial—if such should ever take place. Much interest was awakened by the Lee trial in the United States. The public prints were full of the details of the massacre and the trial; and with the exception of two or three journals published in the interest of the Mormons, which attempted faintly to palliate the crime and justify the jury by making light of the evidence, every paper which expressed an opinion on the ~ subject joined in the chorus of abhorrence of the treacherous affair. Looking, however, to the generally corrupt and feeble administration of justice in the United States, it does not appear probable that the instigators and perpetrators of the massacre will be visited with the punishment which is justly their due. In the narrative as usually given, little ia said“as regards the motives which led to such a wholesale slaughter. The cruelty seems senseless and gratuitous. We can only gather that a jealousy of being intruded upon by large bodies of strangers not of their own religious (profession, induced the Mormon chiefs, with Brigham Young at their head, to adopt this infamous method of securing their permanent seclusion. In aim? —i of this kind, and with many acts of tyranny they secured their object until the opening of the railway to Salt Lake City, when a more tolerant state of things, and some modification of the absurd Mormon usages, were successfully introduced.