History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

TESTIMONY AT THE TRIAL. 567
to pacify the Indians as far as possible, and to allow
this and all other companies of emigrants to pass
through the territory unmolested. George A. Smith,
who had been suspected of complicity, through attending
a council at which Dame, Haight, and others
had arranged their plans, denied that he was ever an
accessary thereto. He also deposed that he had met
the emigrants at Corn Creek, some eighty miles north
of Cedar, on the 25th of August, while on his way
to Salt Lake City, and that when he first heard of the
massacre he was in the neighborhood of Fort Bridger.
The first witness examined was Daniel H. Wells,
who merely stated that Lee was a man of influence
among the Indians, and understood their language
sufficiently to converse with them. James Haslem
testified that between five and six o'clock on Monday,
September 7, 1857, he was ordered by Isaac C.
Haight to start for Salt Lake City and with all speed
deliver a letter or message to Brigham Young. He
arrived at 11a. m. on the following Thursday, and
four hours later was on his way back with the answer.
As he set forth, Brigham said to him: "Go
with all speed, spare no horse-flesh. The emigrants
must not be meddled with, if it takes all Iron
county to prevent it. They must go free and unmo-
lested." 51
Samuel McMurdy testified that he saw Lee shoot
one of the women, and two or three of the sick and
wounded who were in the wagons. Jacob Hamblin
alleged that soon after the massacre he met Lee
within a few miles of Fillmore, when the latter stated
that two young girls, 62 who had been hiding in the
underbrush at Mountain Meadows, were brought
into his presence by a Utah chief. The Indian asked
what should be done with them. "They must be
shot," answered Lee; "they are too old to be spared."
61 Ibid. Haslem's testimony, together with other evidence tending to ex-
culpate the dignitaries of the church, is omitted in the account of the trial
given in Lee's Mormonism Unvailed.
62 From 13 to 15 years of age.