Mountain Meadows Massacre
One of the wagons was loaded with the guns, and ammunition, the other with two wounded men, and some of the small children, thoes that were young enough, "to tell no tails". They were taken out and started up the road,the women were next to line they were to follow, behind the first wagon. The men unarmed were next, they were to follow behind the women single file, 4 feet apart from each other, the idea was to have the Mormon militia, in a line single file, up the road waiting. As the emigrants approached the Mormon militia the order was given by Higby, ...."Do Your Duty".... then each of the militia was to do there ...."Priesthood Duty".....which they did, instantly killing each and every one of the men. the Indians was further up the road and they were instructed to kill all the women and children that were old enough to remember. It was done at the same time as the men were shot to death. The women and the children who were on foot ran forward some two hundred yards, screaming ....Help Us... they were quickly over taken by the Indians among whom were some, Mormons disguised as Indians. The women fell on their knees, and with clasped hands pleading in vain for mercy; clutching the garments of there murders, as they grasped them by the hair, children pleated for life, meeting with the steady gaze of innocent childhood the demoniac grin of the savages, who brandished over them with uplifted knives,and tomahawks. There skulls were battered in, there throats cut, from ear to ear,and while some still alive, there scalp was torn from there heads. Some of the little ones met with a more merciful death, one an infant in arms, being shot through the head by the same bullet that pierced its mothers heart. Of the women none were spared, and of the children only thoes, who were thought to be no more than 7 years old.
Two of Lee's men, Samual McMurdy and Samual Knight had the duty of killing the two wounded men in the wagon. Carrying out there orders, with loaded rifles, they approached the wagons, where the wounded men lay, calling out..."O LORD MY GOD"....he exclaimed,... "Receive there spirits,".. raised there rifles, then shot through the brain of a wounded man, who was laying with his head on a sick comrade's breast, killing both men. There was one little girl who was laying on top of her mother, still alive, with one arm clutching around her mothers neck, crying and her other arm shot mostly off. Most of the children witnessed the murders of there fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.
There were two girls one sixteen and, one eighteen, they ran and hid in the oak brush. The Indian chief found the two girls and brought them to John D. Lee and said, that they are to pretty to kill. There names were Rachel, and Ruth Dunlap. It was reported that the girls pled for mercy and told Lee, that they would work for him, and love him all his life, and serve his needs as to whatever he wanted them to do, but the girls were both..... Sexually Abused ....and afterwards there throats cut from ear to ear .... There was personal testimony at the 2nd trial of John D Lee from Jacob Hamblins 15 year old Indian boy, whom Hamblin had adopted, testified that he sat on the hill above where the girls were hiding, and wittinessed the sexual abuse and murder of the Dunlap girls, by John D.Lee.
A survivor, by the name of Charley Fancher the son of the wagon leader was near the meadows a few years later, and in his childish way said...(some of the Indians, after the slaughter, went to the little creek, and that after washing there faces they were white men.)
Dead bodies were striped naked, men, women, and children, mutilated and scalped, the bodies were taken to a gully and stacked one upon another, and left to the wolves and the elements.