2012 Issue

65 which had already been sacrificed, lay near the fatal spot, and day dawned only to discover the mutilated remains of their recent comrades, none of them being scalped – a barbarity which some of the tribes on this part of the continent seldom indulge. Some of their arms were, however, cut off at the elbows, and their entrails cut open; and, the wolves having had access to them during the day and to those exposed during the night, their bodies were in such a condition that it was not deemed possible to bring them away — not even that of Captain Gunnison, who had fallen pierced with fifteen arrows. Judge W. W. Drummond’s Account Is this the whole story of Captain Gunnison’s death along the Sevier River? The widow of Gunnison certainly did not think the story ends here. In a letter penned to Judge W. W. Drummond dated April 14, 1857, Mrs. Gunnison states: You will please recognize in me the widow of Capt. Gunnison. I have just finished your letter of resignation to the Attorney general, and see confirmed by the impression I have always held myself, that the Mormons were the directors of my husband’s murder, notwithstanding I have, both from Brigham Young and Carrington, received the kindest letters of condolence. Pardon me, my dear sir, for thus intruding myself upon you; but if you can find the leisure, you will confer a lasting favor upon us by giving us the particulars of such information as you have gleaned. You can better imagine, than I can by words express, the feelings that thus influence me to impose this much upon your time. In a very graphic response back to Gunnison’s widow, and one that was published in the New York Times on May 1, 1857, Judge Drummond recounts his knowledge of the events that unfolded on October 26, 1853. An unknown author of the narrative of Gunnison’s death regarding Judge Drummond’s response states: The stoutest heart will recoil with horror from this recital of the most brutal outrage ever committed on Western territory, and every American will regret that a full measure of justice has not been dealt out to the fiendish perpetrators of this cold- blooded murder. Drummond’s letter back to the widow starts: The murder of Capt. John W. Gunnison, who was most foully and inhumanly murdered on the Sevier river, in Utah Territory, in A.D. 1853. This information I will cheerfully give you, not only as a sense of duty to you as the wife of a good man, who fell prematurely at his post doing duty, but as a matter of fact, which should go to the world as a portion of the history of that barbarous transaction. Further in the letter, Drummond goes on to recount a court case in his court at Fillmore City in 1855 regarding Levi Abrams, a Jew- ish Mormon. He was put on trial for murder of an Indian warrior, and during this trial, much was said by both “Indian and white witnesses” relative to the murder of Gunnison and his party. In this same court at Fillmore City, a favorite Indian warrior of Governor Young, by the name of Eneis was put on trial for the murder of CaptainGunnison and others, whichDrummond’s letter particularly alludes that: The whole affair was a deep and maturely laid plan to murder the whole party of engineers, or surveyors, and charge the murders upon the Indians. It was repeatedly proven in this trial that Eneis was in company with several white men on the day before the murder, and they were all on their way toward the engineers’ camp. It was also proven in this trial that only four shots were fired by the Indians and that all the rest were fired by the Mormons, and that, by order and direction of the Mormons, the Indians sprang out of the ambush, where they lay disguised during the night before the firing, which occurred about sunrise in the morning, and went across the river to scalp and otherwise maltreat the men in their agonies of death, but more particularly to save the Mormon who fell in the fight that was in Gunnison’s party, provided he was not fatally wounded. These white men, that instructed the Indians, were so accurately described in court by Indians Old Pareshont and Heap of Elk, that anyone acquainted with the Church in the Utah Territory knew who these white men were. Drummond goes on to name eight predominant Mormons in his letter to Mrs. Gunnison. Continuing further in his letter Drummond goes into gory detail: Painful and revolting as it is, the true history of that sad scene requires me to say that the evidence disclosed the fact that several Indian warriors crossed the Sevier river immediately after seeing that they had accomplished the work for which they were set apart, and proceeded to cut off the legs and JOHN WILLIAMS | continued on page 66