<​December 200,000 appropriated​> Some time during this [HC 3:243] Session the Legislature appropriated two hundred thousand dollars, to pay the troops for driving the Saints out of the — Many of the Journals tried to hide the iniquity of the , by throwing a covering of lies over her atrocious deeds. But can they hide the ’s cruel order for banishment or extermination? Can they conceal the facts of the disgraceful treaty of the Generals, with their own Officers and men at the City of ? Can they conceal the fact that twelve or fifteen thousand men, women, and children, have been banished from the without trial or condemnation; And this at an expense of two hundred thousand dollars, and this Sum— appropriated by the State Legislature, in order to pay the troops for this act of lawless outrage? Can they conceal the fact that we have been imprisoned for many months, while our families, friends and witnesses have been driven away? Can they conceal the blood of the murdered husbands and fathers; or stifle the cries of the Widow and the fatherless? Nay! The rocks and mountains may cover them in unknown depths— the awful abyss of the fathomless deep may swallow them up— and still their horrid deeds will stand forth in the broad light of day, for the wondering gaze of angels and of men! They cannot be hid.

Some time in December and were appointed by the Brethren in to visit us at , as often as circumstances would permit, or occasion required, which they faithfully performed.

We were some times visited by our friends whose kindness and attention I shall ever remember with feelings of lively gratitude, but frequently we were not suffered to have that privilege. Our victuals were of the coarsest kind, and served up in <​a​> manner which was disgusting. Thus in a land of Liberty, in the Town of , Clay County Missouri I and my fellow prisoners, in chains, dungeons, and saw the close of 1838. [HC 3:244]

<​January 1​> Tuesday January 1. 1839 dawned upon us, as prisoners of hope, but not as Sons of Liberty, O Columbia! Columbia! How art thou fallen “The land of the free, the home of the brave,” “The asylum of the oppressed” oppressing thy noblest Sons, in a loathsome dungeon without any provocation, only that they have claimed to worship the God of their Fathers according to his own word and the dictates of their own consciences— Elder and his companions in tribulation were still held in bondage in their doleful prison in

<​7. assaulted​> Monday 7. returned to his farm on the to see if he could secure any of the property he had left in his flight to , and was there met by the mob and beat with a hoop pole about his limbs, body, and head, the man that used the pole about his person, was George W. O. Neal— with much difficulty he returned to , with his person [p. 877]