History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

536 THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.
It was a ghastly sight that met them at this Wyoming
of the west, amid the peaceful vales of Zion,
and one that caused even the assassins to sicken and
turn pale. The corpses had been entirely stripped by
the Indians, who had also carried off the clothing,
provisions, wagon-covers, and even the bedding of the
emigrants. In one group were the naked bodies of
six or seven women, in another those of ten young
children, some of them horribly mangled and most of
them scalped. The dead were now dragged to a ravine
near by and piled in heaps; a little earth was
scattered over them, but so little that it was washed
away by the first rains, leaving the remains to be devoured
by wolves and coyotes, the imprint of whose
teeth was afterward found on their bones. It was
not until nearly two years later that they were decently
interred by a detachment of troops, sent for
that purpose from Camp Floyd. On reaching Moun-
tain Meadows, the men found skulls and bones scattered
for the space of a mile around the ravine, whence
they had been dragged by wild beasts. Nearly all
the bodies had been gnawed by wolves, so that few
could be recognized, and their dismembered skeletons
were bleached by long exposure. Many of the skulls
were crushed in with the but-ends of muskets or cleft
with tomahawks ; others were shattered by fire-arms,
discharged close to the head. A few remnants of
apparel, torn from the backs of women and children
as they ran from the clutch of their pursuers, still
fluttered among the bushes, and near by were masses
of human hair, matted and trodden in the mould. 23
1859; Jan. 29, 1867; Nov. 2S, 1872; Nov. 24, 1874; Cal. Mercantile Journal,
1S60, pp. 183-4; Stockton Independent, June 11, 1879; San Jose Weekly Argus,
Dec. 5, 1S74; Santa Cruz Sentinel, May 12, 1877; San Buenaventura Signal,
June 23, 1877; Winnemucca Silver State, July 19, 1875; Antioch Ledger, Nov.
21, 1S75; Austin Reese River Reveille, July 12, 1864; Gold /Jill News, Sept. 21,
1872; Feb. 1, 1875; Sept. 12, 1S7C; Carson State Register, Sept. 26, 1872; Prescott
Miner, Dec. 12, 1874, Apr. 11, 1879; Idaho World,Oct. 1, 1S75; Portland
Weekly Standard, Apr. 6, 1877; Or. Argus, Dec. 12, 1857, July 16, 1858; Or.
Statesman, Nov. 3, 1857. For cuts of the massacre, see Beadle's Western
Wilds, 49S; Beadle's Life in Utah, facing p. 1S3; Sten house's Rocky Mountain
Saints, facing p. 424; Lee's Mormonism Unvailed, facing p. 240.
23 Rept of Assistant Surgeon Brewer, dated Mountain Meadows, May 6,