1856–1877 (with an afterlife to the present)
The 1857 killing of an Arkansas wagon company by a Utah militia
20 sources, ordered by evidentiary weight — primary and contemporary first, then documentary editions, then the argument. 14 of them are held as full text in the Mormon Corpus; the other 6 are reached only as quotations inside works that are held, and are marked.
Brigham Young to Isaac C. Haight, 10 September 1857
Brigham Young
Exactly what Young told Cedar City to do about the emigrant train, and on what date he told them.
Journal of Discourses, vols. 4–5 (1856–1857)
Brigham Young; Jedediah M. Grant; Heber C. Kimball; George A. Smith
The actual Reformation and blood-atonement rhetoric — Grant at JD 4:49–51, Young at JD 4:53–54 and 4:219–220 — and George A. Smith's own report of his southern tour at JD 5:36.
Report of Jacob Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, on the Mountain Meadows massacre
Jacob Forney
Contemporary federal findings on the number killed, the seventeen survivors, and that the children never lived among the Indians.
U.S. Army reports from Mountain Meadows, 1859 (Charles Brewer; Brevet Major James Henry Carleton)
Charles Brewer; James Henry Carleton
The physical evidence at the site in 1859 — where the bodies lay, in what condition — and the origin of the cairn and cross the army raised over them.
Deposition of Brigham Young, July 1875 (Lee trial)
Brigham Young
Young's own sworn account: that he received a communication from Haight or Lee about the Arkansas company, answered it, cannot produce the original, and gave no direction about the property.
Recollections of child survivors (Rebecca Dunlap Evins, 1897; Nancy Huff Cates; Martha Elizabeth Baker Terry, 1938)
The massacre as the survivors described it: the siege, the white flag, the separation of children, and the treatment they received afterward.
Mormonism Unveiled; or, the Life and Confession of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee
John D. Lee, ed. William W. Bishop
Lee's own narrative of the killing, of the order to lay it all to the Indians, and of his belief that he was sacrificed.
Nephi Johnson to Anthon H. Lund, 1910
Nephi Johnson
A participant's account that Haight told him Lee had proposed gathering the Indians to destroy the train, and that white men did most of the killing.
Lee trial record and official correspondence, 1875–1877 (Haslam testimony; Sumner Howard to Attorney General Alphonso Taft; contemporary press reports)
The timing of Haslam's ride as sworn to in court, and the sharply opposed official readings of what the second trial proved about church leadership.
The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris collections, ed. Richard E. Turley Jr. and Ronald W. Walker (BYU Studies 47:3)
Richard E. Turley Jr.; Ronald W. Walker
What surviving southern Utah settlers told a church historian in 1892, and why the three most-cited sources on the massacre all have to be handled with care.
Richard E. Turley Jr., 'The Mountain Meadows Massacre,' Ensign, September 2007
Richard E. Turley Jr.
The Church's own sesquicentennial narrative: local origin of the plan, the anthrax explanation for the dying cattle, the white flag, and Young's letter arriving two days late.
Statement read by Henry B. Eyring at Mountain Meadows, 11 September 2007
Henry B. Eyring, for the First Presidency
The precise wording the institution chose — 'profound regret,' not apology — and the separate expression of regret owed the Paiute people.
'Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints' (Gospel Topics essay)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church's current doctrinal-historical framing: a stake president ordered the attack, Young did not order the massacre, and blood-atonement preaching was largely rhetoric.
Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, vol. 2, ch. 18, 'Too Late, Too Late'
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church's current narrative telling, including the Haight–Dame exchange, Haslam's arrival, and the scene at the Hamblin ranch with the seventeen children.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Juanita Brooks
The founding modern account and its verdict: leaders did not order the massacre but created the conditions, and Young was an accessory after the fact.
Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy
Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., Glen M. Leonard
The Church-supported scholarly account that fixes primary responsibility on Isaac Haight and John D. Lee, reported here from its reviewers rather than from the book.
Robert H. Briggs, 'The First John D. Lee Trial,' Journal of Mormon History 39:1
Robert H. Briggs
That the 1875 trial functioned as a political trial in the Mormon–Liberal struggle over Utah, which shaped what evidence was and was not put in.
FAIR, 'Mountain Meadows Massacre/History' and related answer pages
FAIR (fairlatterdaysaints.org)
The best statement of the faithful case: local causation, the authenticity and timing of Young's letter, and the prosecutorial politics of the trials.
MormonThink, 'Mountain Meadows Massacre' and 'Peace & Violence — Response to LDS.org'
MormonThink
The critical reading of the aftermath — Forney's and Cumming's timidity, the fate of the plunder, the destroyed and missing documents, and the objection that Cedar City did not wait for the answer it had asked for.
Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Will Bagley
The strongest critical case that Brigham Young set the massacre in motion through George A. Smith and then organized the cover-up.
