on their first appearance, that they were friendly troops sent for our protection but on receiving this alarming information of their wicked intentions we were much surprised & sent a with a white flag to inquire of them who they were, & what they wanted of us & by whose authority they came. This flag was fired upon by the Methodist priest who afterwards told me the same with his own mouth. After several attempts however, we got an interview by which we learned who they were & that they pretended to have been sent by the to exterminate our people. Upon learning this fact no resistance was offered to their wills or wishes. They demanded the arms of the Militia & forcibly took them away. They requested that Mr Joseph Smith & other leaders of the church should come into their Camp for consultation giving them a sacred promise of protection & safe return. Accordingly Messrs Joseph Smith , , & myself, started in company with , to their camp, when we were <​soon​> abruptly met by with several hundreds of his soldiers in a hostile manner who immediately Surrounded us & set up the most hideous yells that might have been supposed to have been proceeded from the mouths of demons & marched us as prisoners to their lines. There we were detained for two days & nights & had to sleep on the ground in the cold month of Novvember in the midst of rain & mud.— were continually surrounded with a strong guard whose mouths were filled with cursing & bitterness, blackguardism & blasphemy; who offered us every abuse & insult in their power both by night & day; and many individuals of the army cocked their rifles & taking deadly aim at our heads, swore they would shoot us. While under these circumstances, our ears were continually shocked with the relation of the horrid deeds they had committed & which they boasted of. They related the circumstance in detail of having the previous day, disarmed a certain man in his own house, & took him prisoner & afterwards beat out his brains with his own gun!! in presence of their officers. They told of other individuals laying here & there in the brush, whom they had shot down without resistance & who were laying unburied for the hogs to feed upon, they also named one or two individual females of our Society, whom they had forcibly bound & twenty or thirty <​of them​> one after another committed rape upon. One of these females was a daughter of a respectable family, with whom I have been long acquainted & with whom I have since conversed & learned that it was truly the case Delicacy at present forbids my mentioning the names. I also heard several of the soldiers acknowledge & boast of having stolen money in one place clothing & bedding in another & horses in another, whilst corn pork & & [p. 83]