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Show Page 111 The Expositor, but as soon as the first issue came out, the city council voted to "abate" the newspaper as a public nuisance. The subsequent destruction of the press and the relatively easy handling in the Nauvoo courts of charges brought by the outraged William Law raised the ire of the journals and thus the citizenry of Illinois. Public petitions were brought to Governor Thomas Ford to have the Mormons "exterminated" and Joseph Smith tried for treason. Smith responded by putting the Nauvoo Legion on alert and the city under martial law; he also called 21 the members of the Twelve to return to Nauvoo in all urgency. Orson Pratt, with the others of the traveling apostles, was quite unaware of the fatal storm gathering at home. To show his good faith, Joseph eventually compromised with the Governor by disarming the Legion and promising to appear for trial at Carthage, the seat of Hancock County. On June 27, the jail in which Joseph Smith was held fell to a rampaging crowd of vigilantes, apparently with the collusion of the prison guards. Joseph Smith was shot to death, along with his brother Hyrum, in a dramatic exchange of gunfire, which ended when Joseph leaped from a 22 second-story window with the words, "0 Lord, my God..." News of the Prophet's death was slow in spreading. The Mormons of Nauvoo were too profoundly shocked to retaliate; their neighbors dug in fearfully, nevertheless. The result was what no one expected - peace and quiet for a season. Nauvoo went about its business in deep melancholy, the bodies of the prophets were laid in unmarked graves to discourage curiosity, and the Twelve Apostles began to filter home, one by one, as they heard the tidings. Many of them, including Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young, who were sitting in the Boston railroad station that afternoon, later testified to a black depression that overcame them, a sorrowful feeling that could not be explained. Parley, sailing up the |
