| 164 conduct of the Mormons at Nauvoo, there can be no justification for the inhuman and disgraceful conduct of their oppressors. Though not in sympathy with the policies of the fleeing host at the time, yet one can discern that if the "anti-Mormons" had been as desirous of peace and as honorable in their agreements as were the Mormons, much of suffering, sacrifice, and death might have been avoided.
Of these events Governor Ford writes:-
"During the winter of 1845-46 the Mormons made the most prodigious preparations for removal. All the houses in Nauvoo, and even the temple, were converted into workshops; and before spring, more than twelve thousand wagons were in readiness. The people from all parts of the country flocked to Nauvoo to purchase houses and farms, which were sold extremely low, lower than the prices at a sheriff's sale, for money, wagons, horses, oxen, cattle, and other articles of personal property, which might be needed by the Mormons in their exodus into the wilderness. By the middle of May it was estimated that sixteen thousand Mormons had crossed the Mississippi and taken up their line of march with their personal property, their wives and little ones, westward across the continent to Oregon or California; leaving behind them in Nauvoo a small remnant of a thousand souls, being those who were unable to sell their property, or who having no property to sell were unable to get away.
"The twelve apostles went first with about two thousand of their followers. Indictments had been found against nine of them in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Illinois, at its December term, 1845, for counterfeiting the current coin of the United States. The United States Marshal had applied to me for a militia force to arrest them; but in pursuance of the amnesty agreed on for old offenses, believing that the arrest of the accused would prevent the removal of the Mormons, and that if arrested there was not the least chance that any of them would ever be convicted, I declined the application unless regularly called upon by the President of the United States according to law. It was generally agreed that it would be impolitic to arrest the leaders and thus put an end to the preparations
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