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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 6 Page: 135 (~1846)

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135 "In the course of the fall of 1844, the anti-Mormon leaders sent printed invitations to all the militia captains in Hancock, and to the captains of militia in all the neighboring counties in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, to be present with their companies at a great wolf hunt in Hancock; and it was privately announced that the wolves to be hunted were the Mormons and Jack Mormons. Preparations were made for assembling several thousand men, with provisions for six days; and the anti-Mormon newspapers, in aid of the movement, commenced anew the most awful accounts of thefts and robberies and meditated outrages by the Mormons. The whig press in every part of the United States came to their assistance. The democratic newspapers and leading democrats who had received the benefit of the Mormon votes to their party, quailed under the tempest, leaving no organ for the correction of public opinion, either at home or abroad, except the discredited Mormon newspaper at Nauvoo. But very few of my prominent democratic friends would dare to come up to the assistance of their governor, and but few of them dared openly to vindicate his motives in endeavoring to keep the peace. They were willing and anxious for Mormon votes at elections, but they were unwilling to risk their popularity with the people, by taking a part in their favor, even when law and justice and the constitution were all on their side. Such being the odious character of the Mormons, the hatred of the common people against them, and such being the pusillanimity of leading men, in fearing to encounter it.

"In this state of the case I applied to Brigadier General J. J. Hardin, of the State militia, and to Colonels Baker and Merriman, all whigs, but all of them men of military ambition, and they, together with Colonel William Weatherford, a democrat, with my own exertions, succeeded in raising about five hundred volunteers; and thus did these whigs, that which my own political friends, with two or three exceptions, were slow to do, from a sense of duty and gratitude.

"With this little force under the command of General Hardin, I arrived in Hancock County on the 25th of October.

(page 135)

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