473. The Expulsion from Nauvoo, by Proctors, in Meridian Magazine. About the sufferings of pioneers.
The Expulsion from Nauvoo By Scot and Maurine Proctor · July 23, 2015 This is an excerpt from The Gathering: Mormon Pioneers on the Trail to Zion. Midnight Attacks and a Poisoned Spring By September, 1845, a scattered group of anti-Mormons of Lima and Green Plains, Illinois, met to devise a means of expelling Mormons from their neighborhood. As they met in one of their homes, one of their own number fired upon it. Then they announced through the neighborhood that the Mormons had fired on them—just the excuse they needed to begin a work of death and massacre. They began by burning the homes of the most vulnerable—those who lived in the outlying areas beyond the protection of Nauvoo. The burnings were almost a ritual. The mob would arrive at a house and pull the family out, women and little children being dragged sometimes from beds of sickness. Then the family watched helplessly as their cattle were scattered, their crops destroyed, and their h...