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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 12 Page: 218 (~1838)

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218 The author of the "History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties," Missouri, writes:-

"General Doniphan states to the writer hereof that at this time he also received an order and a letter from Governor Boggs. The order, General Doniphan says, commanded him to obey the orders of Gen. John B. Clark, when he should arrive and assume command, as he had been ordered to do, and the letter was very denunciatory of the Mormons, and declared, among other things, that 'they must all be driven from the State or exterminated.'

"It is asserted that General Atchison's orders or directions from the Governor were to the same purport as Doniphan's letter from the Governor, and that thereupon General Atchison withdrew from the military force, declaring that he would be no party to the enforcement of such inhuman commands. On the other hand, it is asserted that the Governor's orders to Atchison relieved him from command, directing him to turn over his command to General Lucas. At any rate, General Atchison left the militia at Log Creek on receipt of the Governor's orders and returned to his home at Liberty, and General Lucas was left in sole command."-P. 138.

This information, coming from General Doniphan, is without doubt correct.

The saints were now at the mercy of a mob under command of an officer who had himself been one of the leaders of the mob in Jackson County and who was sustained by an Executive who had aided the mob in robbing them. Nothing was left but to complete the work of destruction.

As the news reached Far West that the Governor had ordered them expelled or exterminated, all hopes of peace fled. If when they thought of their pleasant homes and fruitful farms, made beautiful through sacrifice and toil-if when they thought of wives and children soon to be laid low by the assassin's hand or driven out destitute in the face of the winter's storm, they felt resentful and desperate, can we be surprised? If when they felt that all appeals to the courts and to the Executive had failed to give them relief,

(page 218)

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