Ep 208 – A Fateful Crossing of the Mississippi
Naked Mormonism Podcast
Bryce Blankenagel
4.7 • 680 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2020
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, tensions are REALLY high between the Mormons and anti-Mormons in Nauvoo and Carthage respectively. We begin with John Taylor telling us about his meeting with Governor Thomas Ford about the Mormon side of the conflict. Because Ford was surrounded by enemies of the church as Taylor was telling the story, with affidavits included, the men scarcely let Taylor get a word out without calling what he said a “God damned lie”. Taylor returns to Nauvoo carrying Ford’s letter to Joseph Smith, which told Jo to surrender to arrest or the militia would be in Nauvoo before nightfall. Jo resolves to run away with his brother, Hyrum, and his closest advisor, Willard Richards, along with his hitman, Porter Rockwell. They cross the Mississippi under the cover of night and reach the home of a Mormon outside Nauvoo where they make camp for their journey to the “Great Basin” beyond the “Rocky Mountains”. The arresting posse of 30 men arrive in Nauvoo that morning to arrest Joseph and Hyrum, only to return to Carthage empty-handed, forcing Governor Ford’s hand to call the militia into Nauvoo to search for the fugitives.
History of Illinois by Governor Thomas Ford
https://archive.org/details/ahistoryillinoi00shiegoog/page/n354/mode/2up/search/messengers
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Music by Jason Comeau http://aloststateofmind.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I am Ryan McKnight. I'm Kara Santa Maria. I am Christopher Smith. Hi, I'm Andrew Torres. This is |
| 0:07.1 | Naked Mormonism. The Serial Mormon History podcast. All right, everybody, the novel expositor |
| 0:16.9 | had been destroyed. Lawsuits had been filed. The constable from Carthage had tried to arrest |
| 0:22.4 | Joseph Smith, and he refused to be carried to Carthage for that hearing, and instead held his own |
| 0:28.4 | sham trials in attempt to kind of assuage all of the allegations against him and his co-conspirators. |
| 0:34.4 | The state of Illinois was in turmoil as state militia leaders amassed their forces |
| 0:39.0 | for a siege of Navu. Navu itself was under martial law and the Legion was building breastworks |
| 0:44.4 | and digging trenches around vulnerable areas of the city in preparation for war. The anti-Mormons in |
| 0:51.1 | Carthage and Warsaw had passed resolutions calling on the citizens of Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa territory to commit a war of extermination against the Mormons if Joe couldn't be apprehended and brought to Carthage. |
| 1:04.1 | Governor Thomas Ford was camped out in Carthage where he'd set up his field headquarters from which to command the state militia |
| 1:11.9 | in the case of bloodshed. More than anything, Governor Ford wanted to resolve this issue |
| 1:18.1 | amicably between the Mormons and the anti-Mormans. But the Mormon leadership and the anti-Mormon |
| 1:23.2 | meetings and newspapers had escalated tensions for years, and that peaceful resolution seemed |
| 1:28.9 | like a fleeting possibility. |
| 1:31.0 | The only thing to keep all-out war from breaking out was to get Joseph and Hiram Smith in |
| 1:37.5 | the custody of the state. |
| 1:39.6 | Just them, not with 50 of their Danite buddies. |
| 1:43.1 | The letter that we read from Governor Ford last week |
| 1:45.4 | to Joseph Smith contains a crucial line in the concluding paragraphs. Quote, in case the person's |
| 1:52.1 | accused, Joseph and Hiram, should make no resistance to an arrest, it will be against order |
| 1:57.0 | to be accompanied by others, the Danites. If it should become necessary to have witnesses on the trial, I will see that such persons |
| 2:05.6 | as may thus be brought to this place from Navu either for trial or as witnesses for the |
... |
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