Description
“Constant Terror” The Story of Amanda Benton Smith
The entire county was on the verge of civil war. Two of the foremost leaders of the enemy had been captured and locked in the jail. Rumors that the enemy force, the largest in the state, would soon attack and slaughter the citizens created a palpable terror. Among them was Amanda Benton Smith. She described how in the midst of this tribulation, she “had been living in almost constant terror…for years and never knew from day to day and hardly from one hour to another, what dreadful catastrophe would happen.”
Then word reached Amanda that an armed force had collected on the prairie near their town. Word spread that it was the enemy, come to deliver their leaders and lay waste to the town. Amanda believed they “would destroy the town and everything in it.” She went on to describe how “[her] neighbors began to make preparations to leave their homes with their families and the part of the town where [she] lived was soon entirely deserted but [her].”
Before long, Amanda heard gunshots. She was so filled with fear that for a moment she “was powerless to move.” Then word reached her that the two men in prison had been gunned down by a mob. She gathered her children and went to find her husband, who had been tasked with guarding the city against the terrible enemy. She said he was “full of trouble and worry over the terrible ending of the prisoners and did not have many comforting words for his wife and children.” He then told her to leave town and go to the house of a friend out in the country.
Amanda then went on to describe the horrible ordeal of fleeing the town in the middle of the night. She spoke of taking flight without taking time to feed her six young children, of carrying her baby and then all of her children across a cold stream in the darkness. And then of walking until exhaustion to reach safety, her children were so tired that she had to drive them along.
She finally reached a deserted house and took shelter. She was not alone for long as “refugees from town kept coming in till the house was full, and all brought word of what terrible revenge the [enemy] was going to take on the…people for the killing.”
It is telling that Amanda said, the people “were frightened and believed all the stories they heard and surely there never was a more exciting time.”
She is correct! It is precisely because of false stories published and believed that there was conflict in the first place. For you see, the enemy that Amanda Benton Smith so feared and fled from were Latter-day Saints living in Nauvoo, Illinois. Amanda was from Carthage, Illinois where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were gunned down by a mob not far from her home on June 27, 1844. She had lived in terror for years of a people who never meant her a moment’s harm. She fled in near panic fearing revenge that never came.
My heart goes out to Amanda. Her first-hand account reveals the deadly influence of hate-inspired lies and falsehoods. I believe she speaks for many innocent ones living in those times who were deliberately kept from the truth because they knew not where to find it.
Perhaps it is good to be reminded again to be careful who and what we are told to hate and shun, or to love and embrace.
Source: Alex D. Smith https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-day-joseph-smith-was-killed-a-carthage-womans-perspective/
