American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 » (First Edition)

Sally Denton has been an award-winning investigative reporter in both print and television, having written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. She is the author of The Bluegrass Conspiracy: An Inside Story of Power, Greed, Drugs, and Murder, and, with Roger Morris, The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947—2000. She lives in the Southwest with her three sons.

Controversy has raged over identity of the organizers and participants of the "Mountain Meadows Massacre" ever since a California-bound wagon train was beset in Utah Territory in 1857 by local Mormons and Paiute Indians (as the story is conventionally told—Paiutes contest this version and are now supported by physical evidence), killing all but seven of the 140 emigrants over the course of four days. The only person ever held criminally responsible for the crime, John D. Lee, was executed 20 years later, condemning the Mormon Church Leaders as the real instigators of the crime. Investigative reporter Denton revisits those events, exploring the development and aftermath of the episode, concluding that Brigham Young and other church leaders were indeed responsible. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Publishers Weekly

Like September 11, 2001, another September 11, in 1857, reverberates in American history as a date when the dangers of violent religious extremism became obvious, for it was then that a party of Mormons (and possibly Paiute Indians) attacked a pioneer party passing through southern Utah, killing all but the youngest children. Denton, an investigative journalist (The Bluegrass Conspiracy, etc.), is not the first interpreter to take on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but she adds a new twist. Whereas historians Juanita Brooks and Will Bagley emphasized the Mormons' religious motivations, Denton latches onto a more base explanation: greed. The Baker-Fancher party, she writes, was rich, with hundreds of livestock and a ready supply of cash, and their wealth proved irresistible to the Mormon attackers. At times, she overreaches her sources, asserting as fact what is not attested to in the historical record, e.g., that Brigham Young struck a deal with a prosecuting attorney to fix the conviction of John D. Lee, the only attacker convicted of murder. She also wrongly claims that Brigham Young became fatally ill six months to the day after Lee's execution (it was five months later) in order to make Young's death fit a prophetic legend. Although not as nuanced a historian as Brooks or Bagley, Denton is a marvelous writer who keeps this work of popular history as fresh and engaging as any novel. (June) Forecast: Denton's interpretation will hardly be the last in the ongoing debate about Mountain Meadows. Prodded in part by critical investigations like hers and Bagley's, three LDS historians will jointly offer their own interpretation, which Oxford will publish next year. 40,000 first printing, six-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.