The Case for Christian Nationalism

7. The Christian Prince | V. The Christian Prince (Part 3)

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The Case for Christian Nationalism

A scout reported to Mormon leadership in Far West that Captain Bogart and his men had crossed the river and were threatening to attack the town. Bogart was known by the Mormons as someone who “was as lawless, if not more so, and as mobocratic as the worst of the mob.” His men were among those who had sided with the vigilantes in Carroll County, requiring General Parks to withdraw; Parks reportedly later tried to have him discharged from the militia. The Mormons sent a spy party, but Bogart’s men captured three of them; according to those who escaped, the Missourians had threatened to kill the prisoners in the morning.¹

Fifty volunteers were authorized by a Caldwell County judge to act as state militia and placed under the command of Captain David W. Patten, a Danite and “apostle”, known as “Captain Fearnot”. The party rode to Crooked River, in an attempt to free the spies. At 3:00 AM, they dismounted and marched towards Bogart’s location; when they were within a mile, one of Bogart’s sentries ordered them to halt. Thinking he heard a gun shot, the sentry fired on the Mormons, hitting Patrick O’Banion, and then retreated with his fellow sentry back to the camp. Bogart’s men, hearing the commotion, scrambled from their tents and formed a battle line; at daybreak, the Mormons attacked.²

Initially, the battle was not going well for the Mormons, because they had attacked from an open field while the Missourians had taken cover behind trees; in a desperate attempt to recover the situation, Patten ordered a charge. The Mormons, shouting “God and Liberty,” drew their swords and ran directly into Bogart’s line. His men panicked and tried to escape across the river, many appealing, “We are bretheren,” to no avail. One Mormon participant later remarked that “many a mobber was there baptised with out faith or repentance under the messingers of lead sent by the bretheren.” Another claimed he had seen an angel’s hand holding back the arm of a Missourian as the Mormons slashed him with their swords. Message of the defeat quickly made its way throughout Missouri; initial reports stated that the entire company had been massacred, but the actual number was ten dead. Nine Mormons laid wounded and Patrick O’Banion died of his wound the next night.³ On October 27, Governor Boggs received news of Crooked River and issued an order to General John B. Clark, which contained the following:

I have received… information of the most appalling character, which entirely changes the face of things, and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this state. Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operation with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace - their outrages are beyond all description. (emphasis mine)⁴

The Mormon settlement of Haun’s Mill, at the eastern edge of Caldwell County, normally housed ten to fifteen families, but another twenty emigrant Mormon families had arrived after the disturbances had started, and were living out of their wagons. Though state militia under General Parks was near the settlement, a temporary treaty had been signed; Mormons had set up a guard, but were not expecting an attack. They were going about their daily tasks when two hundred soldiers emerged from the woods, one hundred yards away. Without a word spoken, the Missouri troops raised their guns and indiscriminately fired on men, women, and children. It is possible they had received Boggs’s recent “extermination order” and took it literally.⁵

Fifteen men and three boys ran to the blacksmith shop, which was a predetermined defensive position; while the boys hid under the bellows the men fired upon the troops, providing cover for other settlers to escape. The men were unable to hold off the advance and most were killed, one by one. Eventually the order to flee was given, but most were shot while retreating. A sixty-two year old Mormon, Thomas McBride, surrendered to the Missourians, but Jacob Rogers, a ferry operator from Daviess, took the defenseless old man’s loaded weapon and shot him in the chest. Inside the blacksmith shop, ten year old Sardius Smith remained under the bellows while his father lay mortally wounded near him. Though the boy begged for his life, William Reynolds of Livingston County shot him point-blank in the head, blowing the top of his skull clean off. Reynolds reportedly later said, “Nits will make lice, and if he had lived he would have become a Mormon.”⁶

(To be continued…)

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The Case for Christian Nationalism

1. Stephen C. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 1. paperback print., [Nachdr.] (Columbia, Mo: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1996), 132, 138.

2. Ibid., 138-140.

3. Ibid., 140-143.

4. Ibid., 151-152.

5. Ibid., 162-165.

6. Ibid., 166-167.