Mormon History
Mark Twain on the Massacre - 1861
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it." Page 85
At the end of our two days' sojourn, we left Great Salt Lake City
hearty and well fed and happy--physically superb but not so very much
wiser, as regards the "Mormon question," than we were when we arrived,
perhaps. We had a deal more "information" than we had before, of
course, but we did not know what portion of it was reliable and what
was not--for it all came from acquaintances of a day--strangers,
strictly speaking. We were told, for instance, that the dreadful
"Mountain Meadows Massacre" was the work of the Indians entirely, and
that the Gentiles had meanly tried to fasten it upon the Mormons; we
were told, likewise, that the Indians were to blame, partly, and partly
the Mormons; and we were told, likewise, and just as positively, that
the Mormons were almost if not wholly and completely responsible for
that most treacherous and pitiless butchery. We got the story in all
these different shapes, but it was not till several years afterward
that Mrs. Waite's book, "The Mormon Prophet," came out with Judge
Cradlebaugh's trial of the accused parties in it and revealed the truth
that the latter version was the correct one and that the Mormons were
the assassins. All our "information" had three sides to it, and
so I gave up the idea that I could settle the "Mormon question" in two
days. Still I have seen newspaper correspondents do it in one.