The Will Bagley fan page

[_Blixa]

I agree with everyone on this thread.

Just don't forget George A. Smith.

[_Joe Geisner]

I agree with everyone on this thread.

Just don't forget George A. Smith.

As usual Blixa, spot on. We can never forget the man who took the orders south.

[_Fence Sitter]

Cougars own the Utes.

I agree with everyone on this thread.

[_Joe Geisner]

Will Bagley's book, Innocent Blood: Essential Narrative of the Mountain Meadows Massacre was fascinating to read. Within this book, he writes about the research he did into the records of the victims and their families. He puts faces and stories behind their journey out west and I was struck with how many wives and children were alone in this wagon train...heading out to join their husbands and fathers who had gone ahead of them to California.

Madison,

I completely agree with you asking these questions. And there are so many more. Why would a wagon train such as this provoke the Mormon settler or Indians? With Van Vliet in SLC as Young's guest, why did Young not inform him of Haslam's message? Why did he not send a new rider with a message, one that did not need rest? The list could go on and on!

Mormon Rebellion's chapter on MMM is one of the most brilliant pieces on Western American history. This chapter is one of the reasons why the Western Writers Association gave it a spur award.

Will is one of the best western historians currently writing. Authors and historians like Daniel Walker Howe, Hampton Sides and Thomas Powers are his friends and quote him in their books!

[_Cicero]

Will Bagley's book, Innocent Blood: Essential Narrative of the Mountain Meadows Massacre was fascinating to read. Within this book, he writes about the research he did into the records of the victims and their families. He puts faces and stories behind their journey out west and I was struck with how many wives and children were alone in this wagon train...heading out to join their husbands and fathers who had gone ahead of them to California.

Madison,

I completely agree with you asking these questions. And there are so many more. Why would a wagon train such as this provoke the Mormon settler or Indians? With Van Vliet in Salt Lake City as Young's guest, why did Young not inform him of Haslam's message? Why did he not send a new rider with a message, one that did not need rest? The list could go on and on!

Mormon Rebellion's chapter on MMM is one of the most brilliant pieces on Western American history. This chapter is one of the reasons why the Western Writers Association gave it a spur award.

Will is one of the best western historians currently writing. Authors and historians like Daniel Walker Howe, Hampton Sides and Thomas Powers are his friends and quote him in their books!

To be honest, I think there is plenty to criticize Brigham Young for in the historical record without even needing to try to tie him directly to the MMM with circumstantial evidence.

I still personally favor Juanita Books's book, but that's just me.

[_Blixa]

Cougars own the Utes.

I agree with everyone on this thread.

That was low. Even for a ....

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.............cougar......

[_Blixa]

Madison,

I completely agree with you asking these questions. And there are so many more. Why would a wagon train such as this provoke the Mormon settler or Indians? With Van Vliet in Salt Lake City as Young's guest, why did Young not inform him of Haslam's message? Why did he not send a new rider with a message, one that did not need rest? The list could go on and on!

Mormon Rebellion's chapter on MMM is one of the most brilliant pieces on Western American history. This chapter is one of the reasons why the Western Writers Association gave it a spur award.

Will is one of the best western historians currently writing. Authors and historians like Daniel Walker Howe, Hampton Sides and Thomas Powers are his friends and quote him in their books!

To be honest, I think there is plenty to criticize Brigham Young for in the historical record without even needing to try to tie him directly to the MMM with circumstantial evidence.

I still personally favor Juanita Books's book, but that's just me.

I have a real place in my heart for that book, too, because I read it at such at early age. I think I must have been 11? 12? My Dad had a late night tv talk show and had her as a guest, and brought home the book. It was sitting there in the place he emptied out his pockets every night. You know the kind of spot that a kid loves to go through? Coins, billfold, business cards, scraps of paper, key chain, maybe some gum to snag?

She did some amazing work with what she had access to. But, there are also fascinating bits she never had the chance to see. I recommend Shannon Novak's House of Mourning. Especially interesting for the way it vindicates some of Lee's testimony in his Confessions.

[_Joe Geisner]

Will was interviewed by Spanish Trails in 2005 and the interview was published in Winter of 2006. I feel this interview is important enough to be shared broadly and give people a chance to hear Will's thoughts on Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I hope you enjoy.

It begins on page 18 and ends on page 27

http://www.oldspanishtrail.org/assets/d ... -12006.pdf

Also check out the other two excellent articles on MMM

[_Mary]

Bill also told me that once he saw the Young letters to Aaron Johnson and the leaders south he also knew that Young was capable of ordering the cold blooded murder of innocent people.

That would also back up what Fanny Stenhouse had to say in her book.

I loved reading her recollections. She is great when she speaks from her own experience.
Her husband was accosted in the Street, she believed by some of Brigham's henchmen. She felt sure that had she
not been there, her husband would have been killed for apostasy.