| 699 County should go in small parties, and unarmed, in which condition they were not subject to any arrest from any authority whatever.
"In obedience to these recommendations the militia of Caldwell County was called out; affidavit having been made to one of the judges of the county, setting forth the danger which it was believed the citizens were in from a large marauding party assembled under the command of one Cornelius Gillium, on a stream called Grindstone. When affidavit was made to this effect, the judge issued his order to the sheriff of the county, and the sheriff to the commanding officer, who was Col. G. M. Hinkle, and thus were the militia of the county of Caldwell put under military orders. . . ."
Elder Rigdon then gives the account of causes leading to the attack on Far West, the surrender, the travels, and trial of the prisoners, substantially as given by others, and concludes with following account of his own discharge from custody and escape to Illinois:-
"The trial at last ended, and Lyman Wight, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, Caleb Baldwin, Alexander McRae, and myself were sent to jail in the village of Liberty, Clay County, Missouri.
"We were kept there from three to four months, after which time we were brought out on habeas corpus before one of the county judges. During the hearing under the habeas corpus, I had for the first time an opportunity of hearing the evidence, as it was all written and read before the court.
"It appeared from the evidence that they attempted to prove us guilty of treason in consequence of the militia of Caldwell County being under arms at the time that General Lucas' army came to Far West. This calling out of the militia, was what they founded the charge of treason upon, an account of which I have given above. The charge of murder was founded on the fact that a man of their number, they said, had been killed in the Bogart battle.
"The other charges were founded on things which took place in Daviess. As I was not in Daviess County at that time, I cannot testify anything about them.
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