History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

224
EXPULSION FROM NAUVOO.
count of sickness, failure to dispose of their property,
or other adverse fortune; whereat the men of Illinois
began to bluster and threaten annihilation. Warren,
who had disbanded his troops on the 1st, received an
order from the governor on the following day to muster
them into service again. This he did; for he
would, if possible, see the treaty between the Mormons
and the governor faithfully carried out, and
while urging the saints to haste, he endeavored to
stand between them and the mob which now threatened
their lives and the destruction of their property.
15
Major Warren appears to have performed his duty
firmly and well, and to have done all that lay in his
power to protect the Mormons. In a letter to the
Quincy Whig, dated May 20th, he writes: "The Mormons
are leaving the city with all possible despatch.
During the week four hundred teams have crossed at
three points, or about 1,350 souls. The demonstrations
made by the Mormon people are unequivocal.
They are leaving the state, and preparing to leave,
with every means God and nature have placed in
their hands." It was but the lower class of people
that clamored for the immediate expulsion of the
remnant of the saints—the ignorant, the bigoted, the
brutal, the vicious, the lawless, and profligate, those
who hated their religion and coveted their lands.
18 'Thus while with one hand he pushed the saints from their possessions
across the river to save their lives, with the other he kept at bay the savage
fiends who thirsted for blood, and who would fain have washed their hands
in the blood of innocence, and feasted their eyes on the smoking ruins of their
martyred victims.' Id., 24-5. From Nauvoo, May 11, 1S46, Warren writes:
'To the Mormons I would say, Go on with your preparations, and leave as
fast as you can. Leave the fighting to be done by my detachment. If we are
overpowered, then recross the river and defend yourselves and property. The
neighboring counties, under the circumstances, cannot and will not lend their
aid to an unprovoked and unnecessary attack upon the Mormons at this time;
. and without such aid the few desperadoes in the county can do but little mischief,
and can be made amenable to the law for that little. The force under
my command is numerically small; but backed as I am by the moral force of
the law, and possessing as I do the confidence of nine tenths of the respectable
portion of the old citizens, my force is able to meet successfully any
mob which can be assembled in the county, and if any such force does assemble,
they or I will leave the field in double-quick time.'