The 1838 Mormon War (or Missouri Mormon War) was a period of civil unrest in northern Missouri during the summer and fall of 1838, beginning with local vigilante clashes, and concluding with the state-mandated expulsion or extermination of Mormons (Latter Day Saints) from the state.
Tensions originated in 1831 when, driven by revelations to "gather," Mormons established a settlement in Jackson County, Missouri, while maintaining their main headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio. Local mobs violently expelled them from Jackson County two years later. Seeking a permanent compromise, the Missouri legislature created Caldwell County in 1836, intending to confine Mormon settlement. However, the 1837 collapse of the Ohio headquarters triggered a wave of migration to the region, reigniting local anxieties over Mormon political and economic expansion.
A brawl erupted on August 6 when a crowd blocked Mormons from voting in Gallatin. In September, anti-Mormon vigilantes besieged the Mormon town of De Witt. Governor Lilburn Boggs refused to intervene, declaring the quarrel was "between the Mormons and the mob." Following the fall of De Witt, the vigilantes marched into Daviess County to continue their campaign. Left to their own defense, Mormons mobilized their state-commissioned militia and the Danite network to launch retaliatory raids. Following the Battle of Crooked River, Boggs declared the Mormons in open rebellion and issued Missouri Executive Order 44, mandating their expulsion or extermination.
Days later, a rogue militia massacred 17 unarmed Mormons at Hawn's Mill. Mormons surrendered at Far West on November 1. Although a court-martial sentenced Mormon founder Joseph Smith and others to execution by firing squad for treason, Brigadier General Alexander Doniphan defied the command, denouncing it as "cold-blooded murder." Smith was instead imprisoned in Liberty Jail until guards allowed his escape in April 1839, joining 10,000 displaced Mormons seeking refuge in Illinois.
Background
Jackson County, 1831-1833
In spring of 1830, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Christ, a restorationist church. While Smith settled in Kirtland, Ohio, he sent some of his close associates to western Missouri to proselytize among Native Americans. After encountering some moderate success, Mormons began making permanent settlements in Jackson County, Missouri in 1831.
In August 1831, Smith announced that Independence, Missouri and the surrounding area would become the "centerplace" of his planned "City of Zion", a gathering place within Mormon millennial theology. Mormon leadership in Missouri was instructed to make extensive land purchases in the area to be distributed to incoming members.
Under the auspice of Mormon leaders in Kirtland, settlers trickled to the county during the following months. By 1833, Mormons numbered over a thousand, representing about a third and as much as half of the county's population. The Mormon settlers' religious, cultural, and political differences, economic cohesion, their perceived affinity for neighboring Native American tribes, and their divine claims to the land of "Zion" contributed to growing animosity.
Most Latter Day Saint settlers were originally from New England and the Ohio Valley and, unlike their southern neighbors, generally opposed slavery. In July 1833, a local meeting was held by non-Mormon residents in Independence after an article titled "Free People of Color" was published in the Mormon newspaper, The Evening and Morning Star. The article's mention of the potential arrival of free black converts was particularly controversial.
Attendees contended that the Mormons threatened civil society, and that local laws were insufficient to address the perceived dangers. They resolved to remove the Mormons, "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." The group then agreed to destroy the newspaper's printing press and demanded that Mormon leaders pledge to halt their activities and leave the county.
When the Mormons refused, they then targeted and ransacked the Mormon storehouse in Independence. Mormon settlements in the outskirts of the city were increasingly harassed and raided throughout the summer and fall of 1833. By November 1833, vigilantes had forcefully expelled the Mormons from Jackson County.
The expulsion from Jackson County informed the patterns of conflict between the Mormons and other Missouri residents over the course of the Mormon war. The expelled Mormons sought refuge in the neighboring counties, especially in Clay County.
Lilburn Boggs, who would later be the Governor of Missouri during the 1838 war, was Lieutenant Governor and a Jackson County resident at the time. Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would later describe Boggs's role in the early upheavals:
In 1833 Boggs passively saw community leaders and officials sign demands for Mormon withdrawal, and next force a gunbarrel contract to abandon the county before spring planting...anti-Mormon goals were reached in a few simple stages. Executive paralysis permitted terrorism, which forced Mormons to self-defense, which was immediately labeled as an "insurrection", and was put down by the activated militia of the county. Once Mormons were disarmed, mounted squads visited Mormon settlements with threats and enough beatings and destruction of homes to force flight.
Caldwell Compromise, 1836–1838
Despite appeals and legal efforts, the non-Mormons in Jackson refused to allow the Mormons to return. Reimbursement for confiscated and damaged property was denied. Mormons refused to sell their lands in the county, hoping that the government would eventually help them reclaim them. In 1834, Mormons attempted to effect a return to Jackson County with a quasi-military expedition known as Zion's Camp, but this effort also failed when the governor did not provide the expected support. Recognizing the need for a more permanent solution, Alexander William Doniphan of the Missouri legislature proposed the creation of a new county specifically for Mormon settlement.
In 1836, the Missouri legislature passed a law establishing Caldwell County, with Far West as its seat. Mormons had already begun buying land in the proposed county, including areas that were carved off to become parts of Ray and Daviess Counties. The Mormons chose a site in the town of Far West to build a temple, which was never finished due to the war. This arrangement brought about a period of relative peace. According to an article in the Elders' Journal, a Latter Day Saint newspaper published in Far West: "the Saints here are at perfect peace with all the surrounding inhabitants, and persecution is not so much as once named among them..." John Corrill, one of the Mormon leaders, remembered:
Friendship began to be restored between (the Mormons) and their neighbors, the old prejudices were fast dying away, and they were doing well, until the summer of 1838
In 1837, problems centered on the Kirtland Safety Society bank at the church's headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio led to schism. The church relocated in January 1838 from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, which became its new headquarters. Hundreds of Mormon settlers from Kirtland and elsewhere poured into Missouri. They established new colonies outside of Caldwell County, including Adam-ondi-Ahman in Daviess County and De Witt in Carroll County.
In the eyes of many non-Mormon citizens (including Alexander Doniphan), these settlements outside of Caldwell County were a violation of the compromise. The Mormons felt that the compromise only excluded major settlements in Clay and Ray counties, as they already had substantial population centers, but not the recently colonized Daviess and Carroll. The earlier settlers felt politically and economically threatened by the expanding Mormon communities outside of Caldwell County.
Salt Sermon and Danites
With the Kirtland-based presidency now in control of the Missouri church, a leadership struggle emerged between the Kirtland arrivals and the previously established Missouri church leadership. Many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church, including Oliver Cowdery (one of the Three Witnesses and the church's original "second elder"), David Whitmer (another of the Three Witnesses and Stake President of the Missouri Church), John Whitmer, and William W. Phelps, were excommunicated on allegations of misusing church property and finance amid tense relations between them and Smith.
These "dissenters", as they came to be called, owned a significant amount of land in Caldwell County, much of which they purchased when acting as agents of the church. Ownership became unclear and the dissenters threatened the church with lawsuits. The presidency responded by urging the dissenters to leave the county using strong words the dissenters interpreted as threats. In his famous Salt Sermon, Sidney Rigdon announced that the dissenters were as salt that had lost its savor and that it was the duty of the faithful to cast the dissenters out to be trodden beneath the feet of men.
At the same time, Sampson Avard led a group of Mormons to organize a vigilante body known as the Danites. They were named for the Israelite tribe of Dan which is described in Genesis 49:17 thus: "Dan will be a snake by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse's heels so that its rider tumbles backward." The group's purposes included obeying the church presidency "right or wrong" and expelling the dissenters from Caldwell County. Two days after Rigdon's Salt Sermon, 80 prominent Mormons, including Hyrum Smith, signed the so-called Danite Manifesto, which warned the dissenters to "depart or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." On June 19, the dissenters and their families fled to neighboring counties where their complaints fanned anti-Mormon sentiment.
On July 4, Rigdon gave an oration characterized by Mormon historian Brigham Henry Roberts as a "'Declaration of Independence' from all mobs and persecutions". The text of this speech was endorsed by Joseph Smith, who appeared at the event and participated in the raising of a liberty pole. In the speech, Rigdon declared that the Latter Day Saints would no longer be driven from their homes by persecution from without or dissension from within: "and at mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them until the last drop of their blood is spilled; or else they will have to exterminate us, for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed".
Initial clashes
Election Day Battle at Gallatin
Newly-formed Daviess County, Missouri, held its first elections on August 6, 1838. William Peniston, a candidate for the state legislature, referred to the Mormons as "horse-thieves and robbers" and warned them not to vote in the election. Reminding Daviess County residents of the growing electoral power of that community, Peniston claimed in a speech made in Gallatin that if the Missourians "suffer such men as these [Mormons] to vote, you will soon lose your suffrage." Around 200 non-Mormons gathered in Gallatin on election day to prevent them from voting.
When about thirty Mormons approached the polling place, a Missourian named Dick Weldon declared that in Clay County the Mormons had been allowed to vote "no more than the negroes". One of the Mormons present, Samuel Brown, claimed that the statement was false and then declared his intention to vote. This triggered a brawl between the bystanders.
At the start of the brawl, Mormon John Butler let out a call, "Oh yes, you Danites, here is a job for us!" which rallied the Mormons and allowed them to drive off their opponents. The crowd dispersed and the Mormons returned to their homes. This skirmish is often cited as the first episode of serious violence of the Mormon War. Rumor among both parties held that the conflict resulted in casualties. However, when Joseph Smith rode with volunteers to Daviess County to assess the situation, he discovered there was no truth to this.
Non-Mormons began to organize themselves into vigilance committees. When a rumor reached the Mormons that Judge Adam Black was gathering a mob near Millport, Joseph Smith sent Danite leaders Sampson Avrard, Cornelius Lott and Lyman Wight to his home. They surrounded it with one hundred armed men, including Smith's cousin George A. Smith. They asked if this was true, demanding that he sign a document disavowing any connection to the vigilance committees. He refused but, after meeting with Smith, he wrote and signed a document stating that he "is not attached to any mob, nor will attach himself to any such people, and so long as they [the Mormons] will not molest me, I will not molest them." The Mormons also visited Sheriff William Morgan and several other leading Daviess County citizens, forcing some of them to sign statements disavowing any ties to the vigilance committees as well.
At a meeting at Lyman Wight's home between leading Mormons and non-Mormons, both sides agreed not to protect any law-breakers and to surrender all offenders to the authorities. With peace restored, Smith's group returned to Caldwell County. Black later swore an affidavit before the justice of the peace in Daviess county attesting to the treatment and threats he received from George Smith the other church members. On September 7, Smith and Lyman Wight appeared before Judge Austin A. King to answer the charges. Three Danite leaders testified convincingly in their defence. George Robinson asserted that evidence of wrongdoing was insufficient. However Judge King ordered Smith and Wight to stand trial in order to pacify the mob.