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Show 102 charge. The Saints declared in the Deseret News of April 14 that "Governor Young and the 'Mormons' have ever counseled the Indians to remain strictly neutral."12 This claim cannot be justified by the facts, however. Letters from Nauvoo Legion headquarters to district military commanders in August contained orders to "instruct the Indians that our enemies are also their enemies and that it will come upon them. ..that they must be our friends and stick to us, for if our enemies kill us off, they will surely be cut off by the same parties."^ Hamblin, too, was trying to gain the allegiance of the Majaves to aid in the defense of the Colorado country. It was not the declared policy of the government to use the Indians for fighting purposes. On November 24 J. W. Denver, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, wrote a letter to J. L. Collins, the superintendent at Santa Fe, New Msxico, explaining the government's Indian policy in relation to hostilities with the Mormons. "The object of the Government," wrote the commissioner, "is to keep them as quiet as possible, but if that cannot be done, then to control them in such a manner as to direct their attacks against those savages who may take arms against our people." Denver also added, "...spare no pains to prevent them from attacking the whites."1^ This did not rule out the the possibility that the troops advancing on Salt Lake may have employed them anyway, and there is, in fact, reason to believe this was the case. In addition to Ficklin1s suspicious dealings in the Salmon River country, it was reported by Colonel Nathaniel V. Jones of the Legion that the army had offered the Indians at Ben Simons*s camp on Bear River $150 for every Mormon they would bring in and $1,000 for Lot Smith.1^ Whether true or false, these reports were the basis for Mormon concensus of opinion. The importantance lies in the fact that they were believed to be true, and effected the decision-making process of the Mormons. Blood had been spilled-Mormon blood-and this was further |