| 760 my ears, of destroying the city and murdering or expelling the inhabitants.
"I had no objection to ease the terrors of the people by such a display of force; and was most anxious also to search for the alleged apparatus for making counterfeit money; and in fact to inquire into all the charges against that people, if I could have been assured of my command against mutiny and insubordination. But I gradually learned to my entire satisfaction that there was a plan to get the troops into Nauvoo, and then to begin the war, probably by some of our own party, or some of the seceding Mormons, taking advantage of the night, to fire on our own force, and then laying it on the Mormons. I was satisfied that there were those amongst us fully capable of such an act; hoping that in the alarm, bustle, and confusion of a militia camp, the truth could not be discovered, and that it might lead to the desired collision.
"I had many objections to be made the dupe of any such or similar artifice. I was openly and boldly opposed to any attack on the city, unless it should become necessary, to arrest prisoners legally charged and demanded. Indeed if anyone will reflect upon the number of women, inoffensive young persons, and innocent children, which must be contained in such a city, of twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants, it would seem to me his heart would relent and rebel against such violent resolutions. Nothing but the most blinded and obdurate fury could incite a person, even if he had the power, to the willingness of driving such persons, bare and houseless, onto the prairies, to starve, suffer, and even steal, as they must have done for subsistence. No one who has children of his own, could think of it for a moment.
"Besides this, if we had been ever so much disposed to commit such an act of wickedness, we evidently had not the power to do it. I was well assured that the Mormons, at a short notice, could muster as many as two or three thousand well-armed men. We had not more than seventeen hundred; with three pieces of cannon and about twelve hundred stand of small arms. We had provisions for two days only; and would be compelled to disband at the end of that time. To
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