252 and entered into conjunction with the main body of the army. The messenger informed us that he himself with a few others fled into the thickets, which preserved them from massacre, and on the following morning returned and collected the dead bodies of the people and cast them into a well. There were upwards of twenty (?) who were dead or mortally wounded. One of the name of Yocum has lately had his leg amputated in consequence of wounds he then received. He had a ball shot through his head, which entered near his eye and came out the back part of his head, and another ball passed through one of his arms.'
"Extracts from a statement of Nathan K. Knight.
"'. . . We traveled through the lower part of Missouri without any difficulty, the people treating us kindly and advising us to leave the main road, as mobs were collecting on it. We traveled on byroads and came out at Compton's Ferry, on one fork of Grand River, where we camped. Next day we traveled across a prairie of thirty miles without inhabitants, and arrived at Whitney's mill, on Shoal Creek, Livingston County, Missouri. We crossed over the mill pond next morning in a flat boat and started across to Caldwell County, a distance of fourteen miles. When we were about two miles out we met a party of sixty men, armed and mounted, led by Thomas Bryan, who compelled us to give up our arms and return to Whitney's mill, where we remained a week. . . . While they were drunk and asleep one afternoon we hitched up, recrossed the mill pond, told the women living there that we were going back out of the State, and took the back track for two miles, where we halted a few minutes and requested Elder Joseph Young to take the lead of the company, which now numbered eleven wagons and families. He objected, but appointed Bro. Levi Merrick to take charge. We started on, leaving the main road and taking a dividing ridge without any track and traveled on that afternoon and night and halted just before daybreak to bury a son of mine, sixteen years old, who had just died. . . . The next day Bro. Walker's son-in-law [of Caldwell County] piloted us to Haun's mill, where we arrived in the afternoon, found a
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