“It was not me, Joshua,” Joseph reminded him softly. “It was the Lord. But the point is, your wife has been through a terrible ordeal. She
is
healing, but she needs you, Joshua. She can’t be worrying about you being in danger. To be out anywhere in Hancock County is a threat right now, and I can’t make her have to face that too. I can’t.”
Joshua sat there, staring at his hands, and finally he nodded. “I understand.” He looked up. “I hear you’ve called out the Legion.”
“I have. They’ll assemble first thing in the morning. The threats grow more ominous with every passing hour.”
“I would like to help.”
Joseph leaned back, appraising Joshua with that long, steady look that Joshua had come to know. “Joshua, you don’t have to prove to me that you’re sorry for what happened. You don’t have to prove to God that it’s not your fault that Olivia was killed.”
Joshua was stung. “The city is in danger. And if that’s true, my family is in danger. I want to help. I want to join the Nauvoo Legion. I’m not asking to be an officer or anything. Just let me help.”
Joseph was silent for a long moment after Joshua finished; then he spoke quietly. “Your father is a wise and wonderful man, Joshua, but he’s getting older now. As a member of the city council he is under indictment too. Your mother is worried sick about this. Remember, once before he was marched off to jail and very nearly didn’t come back. With Nathan going, your family needs someone strong, Joshua, someone to steady things. That is your place right now. It is enough.”
“I’m not strong!” he cried bitterly.
There was a kind smile, a gentle touch on the arm. “You have to be strong, Joshua. We all have to be strong now.” He stood and Joshua stood too. “You watch over your family, Joshua. If more is required of you than that, I will come to you. Fair enough?”
Joshua finally nodded. “Fair enough.” He started toward the stairs and Joseph turned to go back into his meeting, but Joshua stopped. “Joseph?”
“Yes?”
“Just tell them you were wrong.”
“About destroying the press?” he asked in surprise.
“No.” Joshua hesitated. “About plural marriage.” Seeing Joseph’s reaction, he rushed on. “I’m not being critical, Joseph. I’m just telling you, that’s what has got everyone so stirred up. The way out of this is to just admit that you were wrong.”
A slow, sad smile stole across Joseph’s face. “Oh, Joshua, Joshua. Would that it were that simple.” And with that, he turned and went back into his office, leaving Joshua alone in the hallway.
At eight a.m. the next morning, the men of the Nauvoo Legion began to gather on the assembly ground up near the temple. Matthew, Derek, and Will came together as members of the First Cohort. Benjamin, too old to be in the militia itself, served as an aide-de-camp to Joseph and was not there when the troops began to assemble. Nathan, now a lieutenant, should have been there as well, but he had left for the state capital the previous evening.
By nine o’clock, after much shouting and yelling, they were formed up into their respective cohorts. And then, as has been true of military organizations from time immemorial, they settled down to wait. By noon, any semblance of their former organization had dissipated again and they were scattered here and there, sitting or lying in the shade. Then at about one-thirty, all of that changed. The order came that their commander-in-chief wanted the Nauvoo Legion to form up in the streets by Joseph’s home. Once again they formed into their companies, and their companies into the cohorts. At two o’clock, Joseph appeared.
Across the street from the Mansion House another building was under construction. It was still only framed, but the flooring for the second story was laid down and it provided a perfect platform from which the commander-in-chief could address his troops. The streets in all four directions around the Mansion House were filled with soldiers, and every head turned in Joseph’s direction as he stepped out on the building above them.
At Joseph’s request, W. W. Phelps, one of Joseph’s clerks, began. He had a newpaper in his hands and held it up high. “Men of the Legion,” he cried in a loud voice, “I have here a copy of an extra edition of the
Warsaw Signal,
which has just been put in our hands. The editor, our longtime enemy Mr. Thomas Sharp, has called upon all the ‘old citizens’ of western Illinois to rise up against us. In specific and direct terms, he exhorts the citizens to exterminate Joseph Smith and the other leaders of the Church and to drive the rest of the Mormons from the state.”
That brought an angry rumble from the assembled men.
Phelps went on quickly. “We also have received word that various militia groups are even now undergoing drills in preparation for an attack upon our city. Therefore, at one forty-five p.m., on this eighteenth day of June 1844, Mayor Joseph Smith proclaimed that Nauvoo is now under martial law. We shall now be pleased to hear from our mayor and our commanding general.” He stepped back, lowering the paper.
Joseph moved forward right to the edge of the unfinished building so that he could look down into the faces of the men. Matthew could hardly bear to look up at him. He felt physically ill. Like most of the men here, he had been there when word came of Governor Boggs’s extermination order. He had seen the results of that when Jessica came stumbling into Far West after the massacre at Haun’s Mill. He had lived through the seige and fall of Far West. But then he hadn’t had a wife and two-year-old girl to worry about. He hadn’t had a sister-in-law who was paralyzed from the waist down and who couldn’t even get out of bed without someone to help her.
He glanced at Derek and saw that his jaw was clamped tightly shut and that his fingers were clutching the handle of the sword Benjamin had given him—clutching it so tightly that his knuckles were white.
“Brethren, it is with considerable concern that I stand before you this afternoon. Would that the circumstances which bring us here together were more pleasant. But they are not. As you know, enemies now threaten our city. They say it is me that they want. If that were true, I would give myself up to save all of you. But such is not the case. It is thought by some that our enemies would be satisfied with my destruction; but I tell you that as soon as they have shed my blood, they will thirst for the blood of every man in whose heart dwells a single spark of the spirit of the fulness of the gospel. Make no mistake. The opposition of these men is moved by the spirit of the adversary of all righteousness. They wish to destroy not only me, but every man and woman who dares believe the doctrines that God hath inspired me to teach to this generation.”
His voice was sharp with anger now.
“You and I both know that we have never violated the laws of our country. We have every right to live under their protection and are entitled to all the privileges guaranteed by our state and national constitutions. We have turned the barren, bleak prairies and swamps of this state into beautiful towns, farms, and cities by our industry. I call on God, angels, and all men to witness that we are innocent of the charges which are brought forth against us by our enemies.”
There was a great stamping of feet, their way of applauding their commander.
“We have forwarded a particular account of all our doings to the governor. We are ready to obey his commands if we get the protection which we know to be our just due. We have been tried before a civil magistrate on the charge of riot—not that the law required it, but because the judge advised it as a precautionary measure—and we were legally acquitted by Esquire Daniel Wells, who is a good judge of law and who”—he added pointedly—“is not a member of our church. We are American citizens. We live upon a soil for the liberties of which our fathers periled their lives and spilt their blood upon the battlefield. Those rights, so dearly purchased, shall not be disgracefully trodden underfoot by lawless marauders without at least a noble effort on our part to sustain our liberties.”
Now the men, besides stamping their feet, pounded heavily on their rifle butts or slapped their hands against their legs. The ground trembled and clouds of dust rose around them.
Joseph was visibly touched. He let his eyes sweep in each direction where the men stood. “Brethren of the Nauvoo Legion, will you all stand by me to the death and, even though your lives may be in peril, sustain the laws of our country, and the liberties and privileges which our fathers have transmitted unto us, sealed with their sacred blood?”
“
Aye!
” It was a mighty shout torn from thousands of throats.
Now his shoulders pulled back and one hand dropped to rest upon the handle of his sword. “I call upon all men, from Maine to the Rocky Mountains, and from Mexico to British America, to come to the deliverance of this people from the hand of oppression, cruelty, anarchy, and misrule to which they have long been made subject.” His voice rose in a great shout. “Come, all ye lovers of liberty, break the oppressor’s rod! Loose the iron grasp of mobocracy, and bring to punishment all those who trample underfoot the glorious Constitution and the people’s rights.”
With one swift motion, Joseph drew his sword and thrust it upward, as if he wanted to pierce heaven itself. “I call upon God and angels to witness that I have unsheathed my sword with a firm and unalterable determination that this people shall have their legal rights and be protected from mob violence, or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground like water, and my body consigned to the silent tomb.”
Matthew felt a little thrill run up and down his body, and without realizing it, he squared his own shoulder and laid a hand upon his pistol.
“Bear witness, one and all,” Joseph cried, the sword still thrust upward, catching the afternoon sun on its steel. “While I live, I will never tamely submit to the dominion of cursed mobocracy. I do not regard my own life. I am ready to be offered a sacrifice for this people. What can our enemies do? Only kill the body, and their power is then at an end.”
The sword lowered slowly, and Joseph looked around, his face suddenly sad. “God has tried you. You are a good people. Therefore, I love you with all my heart. Greater love hath no man than that he should lay down his life for his friends. You have stood by me in the hour of trouble, and I am willing to sacrifice my life for your preservation. May the Lord God of Israel bless you forever and ever. I say it in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and in the authority of the holy priesthood, which he hath conferred upon me. Amen.”
With a mighty roar the nearly five thousand men of the Nauvoo Legion answered their prophet. “Amen!” they cried as if with one voice. “Amen.”
On the seventeenth of June, Hyrum Smith had written a letter to Brigham Young suggesting that, due to the deteriorating situation in Nauvoo, the Twelve ought to come home as quickly as possible. When Hyrum showed the letter to Joseph, his brother advised him not to mail it. Three days later, conditions had reached the point that Joseph changed his mind. He sat down and dictated ten letters to those members of the Twelve who were out on missions promoting Joseph’s candidacy for the presidency. Only John Taylor and Willard Richards were in Nauvoo. The message was the same in each letter. Conditions are very serious here. Return home immediately. With the mails in disarray because of the martial law, Joseph sent a special rider to take the letters beyond the confines of the county and see that they got posted.
As the rider left with the letters, Joseph turned to Hyrum. “Hyrum?”
“Yes, Joseph?”
“I want you to leave.”
Hyrum was stunned. “What?” he cried.
“I want you to take Mary and your family and go to Cincinnati. Hyrum, I want you to live through all of this.”
“Joseph, I cannot leave you.” There was complete finality in his voice.
Joseph sighed and turned to the others in the room with them. “I wish I could get Hyrum out of the way so that he could live to avenge my blood.” He turned back to the brother who had stood by his side for so long. “But I will stay with you and see it out.”
With the news from Hancock County growing more grim with every day, Governor Thomas Ford finally decided to try to get control of the situation. He left Springfield, unknowingly passing somewhere along the trail the delegation Joseph Smith had sent to meet him. When Nathan’s group learned that the governor was no longer in Springfield, they decided they would rest for a day before starting back. But Nathan himself felt too much anxiety for his family to do that. He slept for a couple of hours, bought some extra grain for his horse, and started back.
Springfield was normally a four-day ride from Nauvoo, being about a hundred and fifty miles. But they hadn’t gone the full way and Nathan pushed hard on the way back, sleeping in quick snatches along the road, then moving on. When he reached Carthage, however, which was still about twenty miles from Nauvoo, he knew that both he and his horse had reached their limit. Just before midnight on June twenty-first, he pulled up in front of the Hamilton House, a hotel, and stiffly slid off his horse. Inside, as he signed the register book, his eye was caught by the two signatures just above his. John Taylor and John Bernhisel, both of Nauvoo, had checked in just an hour before. He determined that he would seek them out before going on the next morning, to see what was happening.
The hotel clerk had been right. As Nathan approached the courthouse, he saw Elder Taylor and Brother Bernhisel just coming out of the building. With a shout and a wave, he caught their attention and moved quickly over to join them.
“I thought you were in Springfield,” Elder Taylor said.
Nathan explained briefly what had happened. The Apostle nodded. “When Joseph received a message from Governor Ford, stating that he was here and requesting to hear the Mormons’ version of matters, we realized that you had probably not reached Springfield in time. So Joseph asked Brother Bernhisel and me to bring another letter and some additional documents down to the governor. We’ve got an audience with him at ten. Why don’t you stay for that, then we’ll ride home with you.”
Nathan nodded immediately. He would feel much better about riding in this part of the county with someone else.