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Date: December 07, 2018 12:54AM
One must also consider BY's instructions issued 7 months prior that resulted in the Santa Clara Ambush
https://www.docdroid.net/tpmOmZN/pursue-retake-punish.pdf#page=11"Following the same route five days later, the California-bound mail carried letters from Brigham Young dated February 6, 1857, and addressed to
Lewis Brunson at Fillmore,William H. Dame at Parowan, and Isaac C.
Haight at Cedar City.These letters, the retained copy of which appears over
Brigham Young’s name, echoed the ominous language of the earlier
instructions:
"Be on the look out now, & have a few trusty men ready in case of need to pursue,
retake & punish.We do not suppose there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonments,
or tale bearers for witnesses. ... Make no noise of this matter, & keep this letter
safe.We write for your eye alone, & to men that can be trusted.”23
While more explicit in one respect (“pursue, retake & punish”), these
letters were silent in another critical detail: Unlike the earlier letters, they
did not state that a penalty was to be imposed only after the theft of stock." [page 74]
"The Santa Clara ambush was not what Brigham Young intended, in that
it was not two backsliding felons who were attacked in the dark. But the
ambush was the result of events he set in motion. He directed subordinates
to take extra-legal action under specified conditions, knowing that innocents
might suffer with the guilty because no “tale bearers” were to be
spared. If he did not intend Dame and Haight to read his instructions as
they have been interpreted here, that reading is justified by the indirect phrasing of his letters. If residents of southern Utah went beyond the mark
in implementing his instructions, no effective chastisement occurred. All of
the men to whom letters were sent retained their church, civil, and military
positions as though nothing untoward had happened." [pages 84-85]
By the time of MMM, Briggy had already expressed his feelings to the folks in southern Utah.