| 226 "Word that the militia of the State had been ordered to expel them from the country had reached the Mormons of the Haun's mill settlement, and following this intelligence came a report that a considerable number of men in Livingston County, together with some from Daviess, had organized in the forks of Grand River, near Spring Hill, in Livingston, and were preparing to attack them. Whereupon a company of about twenty-five men and boys, indifferently armed with shotguns and squirrel rifles, was organized at the mill, and David Evans was chosen captain. It was resolved to defend the place against the threatened assault. Some of the older men urged that no resistance should be made, but that all should retreat to Far West. The day after the skirmish on Crooked River (October 25), Haun himself went to Far West to take counsel of Joe Smith. 'Move here, by all means, if you wish to save your lives,' said the prophet. Haun replied that if the settlers should abandon their homes, the Gentiles would burn their houses and other buildings and destroy all of the property left behind. 'Better lose your property than your lives,' rejoined Smith. Haun represented that he and his neighbors were willing to defend themselves against what he called 'the mob,' and Smith finally gave them permission to remain. Others at the mill opposed a retreat, and when an old man named Myers reminded them how few they were, and how many the 'Gentiles' numbered, they declared that the Almighty would send his angels to their help when the day of battle should come. Some of the women, too, urged the men to stand firm, and offered to mold bullets and prepare patching for the rifles if necessary.
"North of the mill was a body of timber half a mile in width, skirting Shoal Creek; beyond was a stretch of prairie. For a day or two Capt. Evans kept a picket post in the northern border of the timber, but on the 28th he entered into a sort of truce with Capt. Nehemiah Comstock, commanding a company of Livingston 'Gentiles' from the settlements near Mooresville and Utica, and the post was withdrawn. By the terms of this truce, which was effected by a messenger who rode between Evans and Comstock, the
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