Docket Entry, 1–circa 6 July 1843 [Extradition of JS for Treason]
Source Note
Docket Entry, [, Hancock Co., IL, 1–ca. 6 July 1843], Extradition of JS for Treason (Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court 1843); Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 55–87, 116–150; handwriting of and ; CHL.
blooded murder, & all the pretence they made of excuse, they, had done it, because the ordered them to do it. The same jury, sat as a jury in the day time and placed over us as a guard in the night time, they tantalized & boasted over us of their great achievements at & at other places, telling us how many houses they had burned, & how many sheep, cattle & hogs they had driven off, belonging to the mormons & how many rapes they had committed & what squealing & killing there was among the damned bitches; saying they had lashed one woman upon one of the damned mormon meeting benches tying her hands & her feet fast & sixteen of them abused her as much as they had a mind to & then left her bound & exposed in that distressed condition Those fiends of the lower region boasted of these acts of barbarity & tantalized our feelings for ten days. We had heard of these acts of cruelty previous to this time but we were slow to believe that such acts of cruelty had been perpetrated The lady who was the subject of their brutality, did not recover health, to be able to help herself for more than three months afterwards. This grand jury constantly celebrated achievements with grog & glass in hand like the Indian warriors at their war dances, singing & telling each other of their exploits, in murdering the Mormons, in plundering their houses & carrying off their property: at the end of every song, they would bring in the chorus: “God damn God, God damn Jesus Christ, God damn the Presbyterians, God damn the Baptists, God damn the Methodists” reiterating one sect after another in the same manner until they came to the mormons to them it was God damn the God damn mormons; we have sent them to hell!’ Then they would slap their hands & shout hosanna, hosanna glory to God & fall down on their backs & kick with their feet a few moments then they would pretend to have swooned away in a glorious trance in order to imitate some of the transactions at camp meetings. Then they would pretend to come out of their trance & would shout & again slap their hands & jump up, while one would take a bottle of Whiskey and a tumbler & turn it out full of Whiskey & pour it down each others necks, crying ‘damn it take it, you must take it;” & if any one refused to drink the whiskey, others would clinch him <and hold him> whilst another poured it down his neck & what did not go down the inside, went down the outside this is part of the farce acted out by the grand jury of , whilst they stood over us as guards, for 10 nights successively. And all this in the presence of the great , who had previously said in our hearing that there was no law for the Mormons in the State of . His brother was then acting as district attorney in that circuit and if any thing was a greater cannibal than the . After all these ten [p. 77]