| 762 from attempting any open or secret measures of vengeance against the citizens of the county who had taken a part against them or their leaders. To ease their terrors on this head I proposed to them that I would myself proceed to the city, accompanied by a small force, make the proposed search, and deliver an address to the Mormons, and tell them plainly what degree of excitement and hatred prevailed against them in the minds of the whole people; and that if any open or secret violence should be committed on the persons or property of those who had taken part against them, that no one would doubt but that it had been perpetrated by them; and that it would be the sure and certain means of the destruction of their city and the extermination of their people.
"I ordered two companies under the command of Captain R. F. Smith, of the Carthage Greys, to guard the jail. In selecting these companies, and particularly the company of the Carthage Greys, for this service, I have been subjected to some censure. It has been said that this company had already been guilty of mutiny and had been ordered to be arrested, whilst in the encampment at Carthage; and that they and their officers were the deadly enemies of the prisoners. Indeed it would have been difficult to find friends of the prisoners, under my command, unless I had called in the Mormons as a guard; and this, I was satisfied, would have led to the immediate war and the sure death of the prisoners.
"It is true that this company had behaved badly towards the Brigadier-General in command, on the occasion when the prisoners were shown along the line of the McDonough militia. This company had been ordered as a guard. They were under the belief that the prisoners who were arrested for a capital offense were shown to the troops in a kind of triumph, and that they had been called on as a triumphal escort to grace the procession. They also entertained a very bad feeling towards the Brigadier-General who commanded their service on the occasion. The truth is, however, that this company was never ordered to be arrested; that the Smiths were not shown to the McDonough troops as a mark of honor and triumph, but were shown to them at the urgent request of the troops themselves, to gratify their curiosity
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