Illinois governor Thomas Ford. In his letter, JS invited Ford to come to Nauvoo to investigate the difficulties between the Mormons and the non-Mormons in the area. “In regard to the destruction of the [Nauvoo Expositor] press,” JS wrote, “the truth only needs to be presented before your Excellency to satisfy you of the Justice of the proceedings.” JS told Ford that he would comply with any investigation but that at the time he found traveling to Carthage “altogether unsafe for [him] or any of the city council . . . on account of the vast excitement which has been got up by false report and libellous publications.” JS also offered corrections to several rumors then in circulation and assured Ford that no one had been taken prisoner or held hostage in Nauvoo. Accompanying the letter were copies of the affidavits that JS had not been able to send the previous day. (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to Thomas Ford, Carthage, IL, 22 June 1844, JS Collection, CHL; JS, Journal, 21 June 1844.)  

When JS placed Nauvoo under martial law on 18 June, he ordered the officers of the Nauvoo Legion, the police, and others to “strictly see that no persons or property pass in or out of the city without due orders.” (JS, Journal, 18 June 1844; JS, Proclamation, 18 June 1844, JS Collection, CHL.)  

Richards had been appointed the previous day to go to Carthage with documents for Thomas Ford. (JS, Journal, 21 June 1844.)  

In his affidavit, made before Phelps, Robinson testified that in Carthage on 18 and 19 June he heard several armed men say they were gathering together to destroy property belonging to JS, his followers, and the city council “with the exception of one.” Robinson reported that the men said they would “destroy the town and exterminate the Latter day Saints.” (Edward Robinson, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844, JS Office Papers, CHL.)  

This letter may be the same letter referenced at the beginning of this journal entry or a separate, unknown letter. Because the events in this entry are not recorded in chronological order, this letter may also refer to the one JS wrote to Thomas Ford much later in the day, near midnight. The letter written at midnight responded to a lengthy letter JS had received from Ford that evening, which Ford had evidently written without having seen JS’s first letter of this day. (See Editorial Note following 22 June 1844 entry.)  

This person is identified as James Woods in “Statement of Facts,” Times and Seasons, 1 July 1844, 5:563–564.  

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

Apparently the office of the acting major general, Jonathan Dunham. In his affidavit, made before Justice of the Peace Aaron Johnson, Olive testified that on 21 June he had seen a group of some fifteen attempt—and fail—to take the Mormon guard at the Mound (about two miles from Appanoose, Illinois) to Carthage. That same evening, Olive was told that the militia had been ordered to “be in readiness” to apprehend JS. (James Olive, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844, JS Office Papers, CHL.)  

In his affidavit, sworn before Justice of the Peace Aaron Johnson, Johnstun testified that one day earlier he had heard that Illinois governor Thomas Ford had ordered the militia “from the different Counties in the State” to gather, march out onto the prairie, and under a flag of truce demand the surrender of JS. “If the people of Nauvoo refused to give him up,” Johnstun testified, the militia “should exterminate the whole of them.” (George G. Johnstun, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844, JS Office Papers, CHL.)  

Gideon Gibbs and Luman Calkins also swore affidavits on this day. Gibbs testified before William W. Phelps, clerk of the mayor’s court, that while on the La Harpe road the previous afternoon, he met “a party of about 8 or 10 men, rather in a war like attitude,” one of whom told Gibbs he had “fired at two men near the big Mound” and “thought he killed them both.” In his affidavit, sworn before George W. Harris, Calkins testified that about seven weeks earlier, William Nesbit told him of a conspiracy of about five hundred people in Nauvoo—including William and Wilson Law, Robert D. and Charles Foster, Chauncey L. and Francis M. Higbee, and Charles Ivins—and another seven thousand in Missouri to kill JS and Hyrum Smith “and all that believed on them” by 1 July. According to Calkins, Nesbit himself said “he would rush thro’ a thousand people to wash his hands in Joseph’s blood, and especially in Hyum’s if he was to be immediately cut into a thousand pieces.” Calkins testified that in another conversation with Nesbit five weeks after the first, Nesbit “confirmed the whole” of what he had said earlier and reiterated his threats against Hyrum Smith. (Gideon Gibbs, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844; Luman H. Calkins, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844, JS Office Papers, CHL.)  

JS ordered Dunham to “proceed without delay, with the assistence of the Nauvoo Legion,” to prepare for an attack on the eastern border of Nauvoo. (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to Jonathan Dunham, Nauvoo, IL, 22 June 1844, copy, JS Collection, CHL.)