175 years ago today - Jun 25, 1844

... 3:00 P.M. Joseph asks several military officers if they think he looks like a desperate character. They answer that they cannot see into his heart. He replies, "Very true, gentlemen, you cannot see what is in my heart, and you are therefore unable to judge me. . . . I can see what is in your hearts, and will tell you what I see. I can see that you thirst for blood, and nothing but my blood will satisfy you. It is not for crime of any description that I and my brethren are thus continually persecuted. . . . You and the people thirst for blood, I prophesy, in the name of the Lord, that you shall witness scenes of blood and sorrow to your entire satisfaction. Your souls shall be perfectly satiated with blood, and many of you who are now present shall have an opportunity to face the cannon's mouth from sources you think not of. . . . They shall seek for peace, and shall not be able to find it. Gentlemen, you will find what I have told you to be true."...

5:00 P.M. Bail is set at $500 each ($7,500 total). The Saints claim that the judge is trying to set bail at a higher amount than they can afford, but the amount is paid, and the defendants are freed.

8:00 P.M. Constable Bettisworth arrives with a mittimus, a warrant committing Joseph and Hyrum to jail on a charge of treason (a different charge from the one for which they had paid bail). Joseph's lawyers, Reid and Woods, argue that such an order without a preliminary investigation or a possibility of paying bail is illegal. Woods requests that he be given time to appeal the order to Gov. Ford. Bettisworth says he will wait five minutes.

9:00 P.M. Woods returns from Gov. Ford, saying that Ford has told him that an executive cannot interfere in a civil judicial process; therefore he will not intervene. Robert F. Smith, who issued the illegal mittimus, is also a captain of the Carthage Greys ... Captain Dunn and 20 men escort Joseph and Hyrum together with Willard Richards, John Taylor, John P. Greene, StephenMarkham, and four others to jail.

[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]

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