March 9, 2025
Like most human atrocities, it didn't take much. My take on the Mountain Meadows Debacle is someone had a half-baked plan (probably John D. Lee and someone high up in the Mormon church at Cedar City) and encourage their Native American wards to attack their enemies, and their well-meaning-looks-good-on-paper plan gave way to a botched Paiute raid with comic, if not tragic, consequences all around. Or, put more accurately, everyone on the Mormon side of the fence skated except John D. Lee.
Note the bemused grin. The guy had sand. The authorities parked three wagons in a semi-circle, then hung blankets between the wagons to create a blind, from which the firing squad would stand in the center and shoot the guilty party. For his part, John D. Lee sat on a coffin of rough pine boards (built on the spot with wood hauled out to the site in a wagon). Lee sat on the coffin facing his executioners. They were reportedly armed with nonmilitary Springfield "needle guns." After a prayer by a Methodist minister (!) Marshal William Nelson put a blindfold on Lee. When the time came, eye-witnesses said Lee raised both hands above his head and reportedly said, "Center my heart, boys!" At exactly 11:00 A.M. Nelson gave the order, "Ready, aim, fire!" and a "line of flame shot out from the wagons." There was no moan or yell, John D. Lee simply fell quietly into his coffin, his feet still resting on the ground.
As Will Bagley puts it in his fine book, "Blood of The Prophets" at the end of this "extraordinary spectacle" a correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune admitted it was hard to determine if Lee was a martyr or simply a callused, obtuse old man, by writing, "I know not, but he died game."
"I have been treacherously betrayed and sacrificed in the most cowardly manner by those who should have been my friends."
—John D. Lee in his last message to his children
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