| 360 man to rob an innocent people of their arms by stratagem and leave more than one thousand defenseless men, women, and children to be driven from their homes, among strangers in a strange land of, to appearances, barbarians, to seek a shelter from the stormy blast of winter's cold embrace, is so glaringly exposed in the sequel that all earth and hell cannot deny that a baser knave, a greater traitor, and a more wholesale butcher or murderer of mankind never went untried, unpunished, and unhung; as hanging is the popular method of execution among the Gentiles, in all countries professing Christianity, instead of blood for blood according to the law of heaven.
"The conduct of Colonels Lucas and Pitcher, had long proven them to be open and avowed enemies. Both of these men had their names attached to the mob circular as early as July last, the object of which was to drive the saints from Jackson County. With assurances from the Lieutenant Governor and others that the object was to disarm the combatants on both sides, and that peace would be the result, the brethren surrendered their arms to the number of fifty or upwards; and the men present, who were accused of being in the battle the evening before, gave themselves up for trial. After detaining them one day and a night on a pretended trial for murder, in which time they were threatened, brickbatted, etc., Colonel Pitcher, after receiving a watch of one of the prisoners to satisfy costs, etc., took them into a cornfield and said to them, 'Clear.'
"After the surrender of their arms, which were used only in self-defense, the neighboring tribes of Indians in time of war let loose upon the women and children could not have appeared more hideous and terrific than did the companies of ruffians who went in various directions well armed, on foot and on horseback, bursting into houses without fear, knowing the arms were secured, frightening distracted women with what they would do to their husbands if they could catch them, warning women and children to flee immediately or they would tear their houses down over their heads and massacre them before night. At the head of one of these companies appeared the Reverend Isaac McCoy, with a gun
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