Item Detail
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29492
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0
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4
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English
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Terror on the Trail : The Massacre at Mountain Meadows
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Confessions of a Revisionist Historian : David L. Bigler on the Mormons and the West
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Salt Lake City, UT
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University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund
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133-145
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This heinous crime cannot be separated from the Utah War, as it arose in part from Young's plan to establish God's kingdom with the help of the Lamanites, in part from war fever, and in part from religious fanaticism. This massacre, as well as other murders in 1857-1878, refute the idea that the Utah War was bloodless. Sadly, this violence continues to distract from the real accomplishments and good character of the majority of the nineteenth-century Mormon people. In David's words, it is "a black hole that swallows up and distorts much that is praiseworthy in early Utah history." [From the Appreciation]