Description
Joseph, I Can’t Leave You!
June, 1844. Hancock County, Illinois, was in an uproar and on the verge of a civil war. So dangerous was the situation that Thomas Ford, the Governor, came to the county seat of Carthage to restore order.
Rumor and misinformation had so swayed the populace that it seemed that all the citizens were angry with and afraid of the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo. Their hatred boiled over into violence, threats, and mobs.
The Saints in Nauvoo prepared for what seemed an imminent attack. Rumors carried that a mob would storm the city from the prairies to the east, reinforced by 1500-2000 mobbers from Missouri.
Joseph Smith, the mayor, placed the city under martial law, closing it off and guarding every road in or out. No one came in or left without clearance.
And what did the mob want? They wanted Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Warrants had been issued for their arrest and twice they had stood before duly constituted courts in Nauvoo and been freed of the charges against them, but this action only inflamed the ire against them. Did these men think themselves above the law? Thomas C. Sharp had editorialized in his paper in Warsaw:
“War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens arise one and all!!! Can you stand by and suffer such infernal devils to rob men of their property and rights, without avenging them. We have no comment, every man will make his own. Let it be made with powder and ball!!!”
It seemed that everyone was against Joseph and the Saints. Even the governor had come and demanded that Joseph come to Carthage to be tried a third time for the same charges. Governor Ford himself refused Joseph’s pleas to come to Nauvoo and hear the Saint’s side of the story. Instead, he levied judgment on Joseph’s actions without listening to him. Ford rallied to his support the very men who were the most violent and threatening in the county. It seems in hindsight that Ford was either naively oblivious to the actual danger or complicit in the conspiracy. But either way, the highest authority in the state down to the lowliest mobocrat was against Joseph.
And how dangerous was it? Joseph had stated that “If he and Hyrum were ever taken again, they would be massacred, or he was not a prophet of God.”
At this critical moment, Joseph wrote letters to the apostles who were away from Nauvoo, requesting that they return. On June 20, 1844, Joseph wrote:
“I advised my brother Hyrum to take his family on the next steamboat and go to Cincinnati. Hyrum replied, ‘Joseph, I can’t leave you.’ Whereupon I said to the company present, ‘I wish I could get Hyrum out of the way, so that he may live to avenge my blood.’”
Hyrum would not leave and one week later, June 27, 1844, fell a martyr, offering his life freely.
Brigham Young said of Hyrum:
“Hyrum was as good a man as ever lived. … His integrity was of the highest order. … I used to think, and think now, that an angel dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son possessed no more integrity in their hearts than did Hyrum Smith.”
Today, we live in times when the mists of darkness are particularly heavy. I would pray that in these perilous times when so many of the very elect are being deceived and turning their backs upon Joseph, the Church, and ultimately, the Savior, that Hyrum’s words be caught up and carried as a watch cry—“Joseph, I can’t leave you.”
Sources:
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/museum/hyrum-smith-clothing?lang=eng
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/04/12ballard?lang=eng#p35
