There were many factors that led to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom: polygamy, his running for President, the newly formed “Reform Church” operating in Nauvoo that was leading to a fracturing of social life, his public disdain for Missouri, and his leadership of the Nauvoo Legion (meaning that Joseph, as Mayor of Nauvoo, Leader of the Nauvoo Militia, and Leader of the Church was in charge of Nauvoo from a religious, political, and military perspective at the same time – that amount of power in a single person was troubling). However, the one factor that looms over them all is his decision, ratified by the Nauvoo City Council, to close the tabloidish paper: the Nauvoo Expositor (Note: Richard E. Bennett, BYU professor of Church history and doctrine disagrees; I like his post – a good focus on the scriptures. I need to do that more!).
On June 7, 1844, the one and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor was printed. As opposed to the general modern LDS explanations of the paper, the Nauvoo Expositor was not a paper full of lies, per se (I can, if anyone wants, go into the details of the paper, its claims, and the few outright fabrications that it does contain). It was a tabloid—a paper of yellow journalism. The editors’ stated purpose was not to destroy the Church or even for Joseph Smith’s death: they wanted a return to the Church of a few years ago before new doctrines (like polygamy) began to be preached privately and publicly, to put down the new “worldly” culture of dancing, parties, and “excesses” that had developed in Nauvoo, and they also wanted to break apart the immense power that Joseph held as both Mayor, Legion Commander, and Prophet by revoking the powerful Nauvoo Charter. The information it “exposed” was mostly accurate (apart from a claim by the wildly excessive Elias Higbee that Joseph was guilty of Murder!!!1!!11! and a few other equally outrageous claims), but the delivery and manner of the paper was scandalous and loud (it also contained some pretty poor poetry, which some people might consider to be a crime worthy of destruction, I suppose). The Nauvoo city council debated all through Friday, Saturday, and Monday and finally a decision was made that, allowable with the power granted by the Nauvoo Charter, the city was legally justified in forcibly closing the paper as a public nuisance. Joseph was possibly upset at sacred things being revealed, but I’d argue that he was probably more worried about what their public exposure would mean for the surrounding countryside which had grown increasingly anti-Mormon in recent months. The existence of the paper certainly threatened him personally, but its claims were likely to lead to violence upon Nauvoo.
The paper was closed while the owners were away and they returned to find that not only had their paper been closed, but the printing press had been broken and bent, the printed pages were burned, and the type had been dumped in the street while some of the editors had watched. Upset at the destruction of their property and what they saw as an infringement of the Federal Bill of Rights, they quickly called up Joseph Smith on the charge of instigating riot. A few days later, after being convinced by some of the frightened residents of Nauvoo to give themselves up to the mercy of the Illinois courts, Joseph and Hyrum rode to Carthage where they were incarcerated in the local jail awaiting a trial on Saturday, June 29.
As for whether or not Joseph knew he would be killed at Carthage the question is unanswerable. He was certainly frightened about his safety. Some of him closest friends and confidants later related that he said phrases that indicated his coming death. Perhaps the most famous of these was recorded by John Taylor who reported Joseph saying, upon leaving Nauvoo, “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME—HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.” (D&C 135:4, emphasis in original). However, some of Joseph’s actions and words while in prison seem to indicate a hopeful optimism. He wrote a letter to Emma (one of many from the jail) in which he said, “There was a little mutiny among the ‘Carthage Greys’; but I think the Gov. has & will succeed in enforcing the laws” (June 25, 1884). Joseph’s last letter was actually to an attorney, O.H. Browning of Quincy, Illinois (an acquaintance to the young Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln). Joseph asked him to come up to Carthage to represent him and Hyrum on Saturday the 29th (two days after the martyrdom); Joseph was certain that, with a good legal counsel, he and Hyrum could more than adequately show their innocence to the charge of treason. The mobs in Carthage accosted the letter carrier, thinking the letter to contain instructions to the Nauvoo Legion, but finally the letter came through. I have been unable to find if Mr. Browning ever gave any sort of response. [Edit: I have found his response---he arrived in Carthage and was the defense attorney for the anti-Mormon mob. Apparently he had represented Joseph before and this time represented his killers.]
Possibly because of this letter, it is sometimes claimed that Joseph wrote a letter to Jon Dunham, captain of the Nauvoo Legion, to come to Carthage to free him by force of arms. The story has floated around for a long time and the evidence seemingly appeared in the early 1980s when the letter Joseph wrote to Durham was found. However, the letter was later revealed to be one of the masterful forgeries by Mark Hoffman. To this day there is no evidence that Joseph ever gave orders to the militia apart from securing Nauvoo against possible mob action during Joseph’s absence.
As the hot afternoon of the 27th wore on, the men in the room sat around in a melancholic state. “A Poor Wayfaring man of Grief” was sung twice (the tune at this time was not the turn we currently have in our hymnbook, but was a lighter, happier tune; this account of Hyrum asking it to be sung again directly led to the 1985 hymnbook’s claim of “Favorite Song of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, a claim with little evidence). The jailer’s family offered the men some wine, which those gathered gratefully accepted. John Taylor later spoke of this: “Sometime after dinner we sent for some wine. It has been reported by some that this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing,; our spirits were generally dull and heavy, and it was sent for to revive us…. I believe we all drank of the wine, and gave some to one or two of the prison guards. We all of us felt unusually dull and languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits.” (History of the Church, Vol. 7, page 101) I don’t want to mention this for the shock value (The Church at this period in history did not follow the Word of Wisdom as we do today; a living and changing Church remember!) but simply to try and paint in the picture of the mood in the room that afternoon.
(This next part is violent…) The attack upon the jail occurred soon thereafter around 5 pm; the jailer was absent and the guards were friends of the gathering mob. The attack began suddenly. In the confusion, Hyrum was struck in the face by a bullet through the door and went down. He was able to exclaim “I’m a dead man!” before another bullet was fired from the doorway that grazed his chest and struck his head though his throat. John Taylor ran to the window to assess the situation outside. From there he was struck in the leg and arm; he fell onto the windowsill, breaking his watch (later many would say that the watch had miraculously stopped a bullet, but analysis of the watch indicates that probably a spring in the watch burst out when Elder Taylor fell on the windowsill; either way, the watch stopped showing the time of the attack at 5:16 pm).
After firing a gun (smuggled to him earlier by some visiting friends) into the crowd in the hallway, Joseph ran to the window and started to appeal to any fellow Masons in the crowd by stating the Masonic distress call, “O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow’s son?” However, he was struck before he could finish and fell out of the window after crying “O Lord, my God!” Many of the Apostles would speak out strongly against the Masons in the crowd who knew Joseph was pleading for their aid but continued to aid in the assassination. This call for distress is supposed to be answered with safety and quarter from any fellow Mason except where it would endanger their own life, as well (I hope I’m not saying too much; I’m not a Mason and I don’t know if this is supposed to be secret. I can edit this down if need be). John Taylor wrote a few weeks later in the Times and Seasons that he felt that fellow Masons should rise up for justice:
“Every good man will do it when he remembers, that these two innocent men were confined in jail for a supposed crime, deprived of any weapons to defend themselves: had the pledged faith of the State of Illinois, by Gov. Ford, for their protection, and were then shot to death, while, with uplifted hands they gave such signs of distress as would have commanded the interposition and benevolence of Savages or Pagans. They were both Masons in good standing. Ye brethren of ‘the mystic tie’ what think ye! Where is our good master Joseph and Hyrum? Is there a pagan, heathen, or savage nation on the globe that would not be moved on this great occasion, as the trees of the forest by a mighty wind? Joseph’s last exclamation was ‘O Lord my God’…
Me-thinks I see a ‘union of all honest men’, aside from religion, stand forth to magnify the law, who will never rest till justice and judgement have made the offenders, abettors and accesories, whether apostates, officers, or mere men, atone for the innocent blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith” (Times and Seasons, vol. 5 no. 13 [July 15, 1844], p. 584-585).
I know this point is still contentious as we are arguing about what a person was intending to do right before they died, but the best interpreters of Joseph’s actions are probably those who were closest to him at the time, and many of his friends and brethren felt that Joseph was not simply offering a prayer but was pleading for assistance. Personally, I don’t think this makes Joseph any less of a martyr as some will argue.
Joseph probably died as he hit the ground outside. A later fanciful account would talk of a firing squad that ended his life as he was pulling himself up to a sitting position at the base of the wall, but other aspects of that account make it highly suspect: supposedly after the squad was finished a man rushed up with a knife to mutilate the Prophet. This man was then struck by a blinding light, seen by all the mob, that froze them all in place. The light disappeared and the mob was freed and everyone fled from the scene.
A usually unknown aspect of the Carthage attack was that Samuel Smith, brother to Joseph and Hyrum, was racing on horseback from Nauvoo to Carthage to help Joseph and get advice for the city. In approaching Carthage he was spotted by the mob and was chased away. (It is possible that he was assumed to be a scout for the Nauvoo Legion by many in the mob, leading the mob to quickly disperse with cries of “The Mormons are coming!”) Returning to the jail much later, Samuel helped with the recovery of the injured and the slain who had been moved to the nearby home of a Mr. Hamilton. Samuel made it safely back to Nauvoo and later attended the viewing of his brothers. A few weeks afterward he complained of an ache in his side that he had received after racing from the mob and went to his bed to lay down. He died a few days later; his mother attributes his death to shock from the mob, the chase, and seeing his brothers dead. Samuel is often called the Third Martyr and was listed as such in a later issue of the Times and Seasons. Samuel was expected by some to be called as the Patriarch of the Church soon in Hyrum’s place and many members of the Church had heard Joseph publicly state that either Hyrum or Samuel would lead the Church after Joseph’s death. The death of all three Smith brothers paved the way for the confusing and depressing summer of the “Succession Crisis” of 1844.