History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

660 THE LAST DAYS OF BEIGHAM YOUNG.
governor's authority, does not appear. The result,
however, was most unfortunate; for the soldiery,
among whom discipline appears to have been somewhat
lax at this period, now supposed themselves
masters of the situation. At midnight on the 23d of
September a party of forty or fifty men from Camp
Rawlins entered the town of Provo, armed with
needle-guns, bayonets, and revolvers, and crazed with
whiskey. Surrounding the residence of Alderman
W. Miller, they fired several shots into his bedroom
window, smashed in his doors, and dragged him
from his chamber. Thence passing up Centre street,
they tore down the sign and stove in the doors of the
cooperative store, and then proceeded to the house of
Councillor A. F. McDonald, which they completely
demolished, scattering its contents on the sidewalk.
After some further outrages, as parading defenceless
citizens through the streets, beating them with rifles
and pricking them with bayonets, yelling, meanwhile,
as they passed along the thoroughfares, "Come out,
you God damned Mormons and Mountain Meadows
massacreers," they returned to camp. 10
The only provocation for this disturbance appears
to have been the fact that Miller refused to grant the
soldiers, at their own terms, the use of a hall in which
to hold a social gathering, and that the bishops had
counselled the people of their wards, and especially
the young women, not to hold intercourse with them.
An effort was made to bring the offenders to justice,
but, as during the administration of Governor
dimming, there was no harmony between the chief
magistrate and the commander of the forces. After
waiting several days for action to be taken by the
military, Shaffer despatched to General De Trobriand,
at Camp Douglas, a letter, in which he stated that if
the soldiery could not be restrained, it were better for
10 A despatch from A. 0. Smoot, mayor of Provo, giving an account of the
outrage, together with the depositions of the injured parties, will be found in
the Dcseret News, Sept. °8, 1870.