Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon
Krakauer, 2003, Excerpts
The Missouri hostilities continued to plague Joseph and his
followers long after they had been driven from that state. Sheriffs from
Missouri came to Illinois on at least two occasions bearing writs for Joseph’s
arrest. In May 1841 a sheriff’s posse managed to surprise the prophet outside
Nauvoo, arrested him, and had almost hauled him across the border into Missouri
before Joseph managed to finagle his release with a writ of habeas corpus. It was
a very close scrape, and the harassment provoked Joseph’s ire. During a public
speech soon after his 1841 arrest, he vented his anger by prophesying that
retired governor of Missouri Lilburn Boggs – the Saints’ despised nemesis –
would “die by violent hands within one year.”
On the evening of May 6, 1842, Boggs was reading a newspaper
in the study of his Independence home when a gunman lurking outside shot him
four times through a window. Two balls hit Boggs in the neck; the other pierced
his skull and lodged in the left lobe of his brain. Somehow he recovered from
these severe brain injuries. The would-be-killer Rockwell was Mormon. Although
Joseph may not have ordered Rockwell to shoot Boggs, it was commonly understood
by the faithful that it was a Saints’ sacred duty to assist in the fulfilling
of prophecies when the opportunity arose.
Except for the fact that Porter Rockwell was arrested getting off a steamboat having come from the East and was not even in the state when the attempted murder occurred. The fact is, General Doniphan, who was ordered to kill Joseph Smith, without a trial, by the cowardly tyrant Boggs but refused, defended Porter Rockwell in court and Rockwell was exonerated of all charges. Additionally, Boggs was running for the Missouri Senate at the time against some similarly dangerous men (some of whom had been threatened by Boggs during the Honey Wars...which is another illustration of Gov. Boggs pentiant for murderous tyranny). Not to mention the fact that Boggs moved his family onto the land owned by the LDS church members driven off unconstitutionally. No impropriety there!
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact is, if Rockwell had tried to kill Governor Boggs, he would have been dead. Porter Rockwell was regarded as one of the best marksman in the Territories at the time. Rockwell would not have used the weapon used in the attempt on Bogg's life and would not have lost his weapon in the rainy night as the attempted assasin had done. Rockwell would likely have owned up to killing Boggs if he had done so as he had in several other duels or attempts on his or others lives were he acted in self defense or the defense of others.
True history is better than defamitory myths and lies.
Peter. Smith made a prophecy that Boggs would die a violent death! That did not happen. He is a false prophet.
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