[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri, second edition; i-vi, 7–60 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Shepard and Stearns, 1840. The copy used herein is held at CHL.
A manuscript draft of this pamphlet, simply titled “To the Publick” was presented to a conference of church members at , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve the manuscript and authorized its publication on behalf of the church. The pamphlet, when published, carried the endorsement of JS, , and as “Presidents of said Church.”
and collaborated on the publication of the text, which was available in print by May 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, was acknowledged as author in an 1840 Times and Seasons newspaper article, and when the pamphlet was advertised in that church periodical in 1841. JS and held some expectation that funds from the sale of An Appeal would eventually help defray costs of their late-1839 trip to .
By July 1840, and had been authorized to produce a second, revised edition to be published by Shepard & Stearns in . Page related some of the circumstances surrounding its publication and circulation in a letter sent to JS, “. . . at [Ohio] we parted for a few days . . . Elder Hyde went to Cincinnati where in my absince he published a second Edition of the ‘Apeal to the American people’ (2000 copies)[.] when I arrived the work was about completed[.] after disposing of as many of them as posible and suplying the market about cincinnati and the adjacient country he left me with some fourteen or fifteen hundred on hand, to dispose of” (John E. Page, Philadelphia, PA, to JS et al., Nauvoo, IL, 1 Sept. 1841, JS Collection, CHL). Funds from this printing were to be for the express purpose of subsidizing Hyde and Page’s imminent mission to in Palestine.
The second edition was essentially a lightly edited reprint of the first, with a four-page “Publisher’s Preface” added. In the preface, and noted the purpose of the publication, explained the severe hardships imposed by the persecutions upon Page’s own family, provided a detailed account of a vision experienced by Hyde, and expressed enthusiasm about the prospects of the mission. The preface also contained a copy of an official letter of appointment and commendation for Hyde and Page from an April 1840 church conference at , Illinois, signed by JS, and a letter of reference from , governor of .
Although many of the events reported in both editions of ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology of events is often inaccurate. However, Rigdon’s account does contain the texts of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document from a historical perspective is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some important material not readily found elsewhere.
arrive. After his arrival, and giving the instruction he did, he went and ordered his troops home, instead of sending them to .
Immediately after his departure, of , arrived, and reported that he had sent on a number of troops to from , for the express purpose of stopping the operations of the mob—“part of them,” he said, “were to be relied on, and part of them were not.” All the officers said that and his company, which in all their expeditions had formed a part of their army, were not to be depended on, for he was as lawless, if not more so, and as mobocratic as the worst of the mob.
, on his arrival, expressed some disappointment at not finding there as he expected, and also at his having ordered his troops home. It commenced snowing and storming vehemently; after which, also sent his troops home, and they returned; but himself went on to . The mob, by this time, felt themselves sufficiently strong, and declaring themselves four hundred in number, and knowing that the troops had returned; they felt all-sufficient to commence their operations; and accordingly, the very night of ’ arrival in the mob commenced their operations. The first attack was made on the house of a man by the name of Smith, who had gone on business to . His wife was there alone with two little children, neither of them able to walk, and withal, Mrs. Smith a very delicate woman. They drove her out of her house; there was a very heavy snow on the ground—it was about the last of October or the first of November. She took her two children in her arms, and walked three miles through the snow, and waded , to . During the night, they burnt out seven families, and took all their goods and carried them off. They swore vengeance against the Mormons, as they called them, that they should leave , or they would sacrifice them all, and that they would make no terms of peace, but at the cannon’s mouth.
The next morning after this driving out and burning, Mr. , who was an officer in the milita, asked , what they should do, he now saw the designs and purposes of the mob; and he wanted to know how to proceed.
Here just let us remark, that the saints had borne the abuse of the people of , without cause or provocation on their part, except their religion, from the summer of 1831, until this time, which was the first of November, 1838, during which time, their crops had been destroyed, their goods and chattels plundered, their houses burned, and they, driven off their farms, in the face of the government, and appeal after appeal, made to the authorities for redress; but none could be had, and they had never, in one instance retaliated, but submitted to be thus robbed and plundered; and now they were not disposed to move, until the authorities of the country said so: and seeing , was there, they appealed to him. replied, with an oath, “go and give them a complete dressing, for you will never have any peace with them, until you do it; and I will stand between you and all difficulty.”
Having the orders of their , a man by the name of [p. 32]