Historian’s Claim:
“As reports of mobs burning Mormon homes in other counties mounted, the Saints decided to fight back. Armed fighting lasted two weeks. In mid-October, Mormons raided and burned homes and stores in Gallatin and Millport.”
Citation in Support of those Claims:
1. Church History Topic: Hawn’s Mill Massacre
2. Church History Topic: Extermination Order
Hawn’s Mill Sub-source: Alexander L. Baugh, A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri (Provo, Utah: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History and BYU Studies, 2000), 127; “Historical Introduction to Part 3: 4 November 1838 to 16 April 1839,” in Mark Ashurst-McGee, David W. Grua, Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Brenden W. Rensink, and Alexander L. Baugh, eds., Documents, Volume 6: February 1838–August 1839. Vol. 6 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, and Matthew C. Godfrey (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 265–269.
Exterminaton Order Sub-source: Alexander L. Baugh, “The Mormons Must Be Treated as Enemies,” in Susan Easton Black and Andrew C. Skinner, eds., Joseph: Exploring the Life and Ministry of the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 291–92.
Unreliable:
The practice of topics, citing back to other topics, as support for the sweeping claims reminds me of the Anti-Mormon practice of one Anti-Mormon quoting another and another who quotes another etc. as if the more the cites the more the credibility. One needs to be leery of historians who refer to their own works or other works they have had a hand in editing, as sole support for the present claims.
Also, the introductions offered in the Joseph Smith Papers are merely the opinions of the editors and not sources. I have found some of them to contradict what church leaders have stated, for example with regard to the Danites.
Since some of the sub sources in the Historic Topics cited back to were not available for free, and for reasons already explained I will not purchase works from historians who in my mind exhibit an extreme bias, I will have to leave the point at this. From past research it is most likely that the works cited repeat the same testimony and witnesses of anti-Mormons and mobocrats, and the false testimonies of apostates like John Corrill or Thomas Marsh.
Even if the sources are legitimate, since the Historian’s Claim contradicts the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith with regard to those events, they still ought not to be the basis for stating as fact what is at most opinion with regard to the alleged Mormon raids on Gallatin and Millport.
Reliable:
The Prophet Joseph Smith gives the following account of those events:
First, under the date of October 15, 1838. “The mob seeing that they could not succeed by force, now resorted to stratagem, and after moving their property out of their houses, which were nothing but log cabins, they fired them and then reported to the authorities of the State that the “Mormons” were burning and destroying all before them” (History of the Church Volume 3: 163-164)
Second, as a description of how readily others will swear falsely, the prophet recorded under the date October 24, 1838,. “Thomas B. Marsh, formerly of the Twelve, having apostatized, repaired to Richmond and made affidavit before Henry Jacob, justice of the peace, to all the vilest slanders, aspersions, lies and calumnies toward myself and the Church that his wicked heart could invent.” (Ibid Pages 166-167)
It is both telling and disturbing that historians with a seeming pro mob bias, take as fact upon which they base their sweeping conclusions, actions that were alleged by desperate, lying and hateful mobocrats and apostates whose witnesses the Lord referred to as swearing falsely (D&C 121: 16-18) No mention is made in the History Topics of the Prophet's version of what happened that October. When the Prophet of God is ignored in favor of the testimony of traitors, it indicates unreliability in the nature of both their claims and supporting sources.