Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre

The mountain Meadows massacre set a new template for frontier slaughter. Porter Rockwell, who had been Joseph Smith's assassin in the attempted murder of Missouri governor Little Burn Boggs, became one of Brigham Young's main thugs. When war got around that traders were in Utah territory hoping to sell to the US army, Porter Rockwell captured them and led the group 100 miles south of Salt Lake City where he killed four out of the six merchants. Even with the massacre hanging over his people's heads, Brigham Young was still waging what war he could against the United States because the army had not quite stopped their advance just yet.