In the mid-twentieth century, Haight’s granddaughter Caroline Parry Woolley wrote that Young himself rebaptized Haight in St. George on the night of March 3 [1874]. Contemporary minutes show this was impossible, as Young left St. George on March 2. Arthur’s 1877 account says Haight’s baptism was performed in Toquerville on March 3 by instruction of Young, not by Young, which is possible. (Richard E. Turley Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023], 456 n. 28)
[Amasa] Lyman also condemned the “consecrateing of Gentile property.” Though he said scriptures proclaimed that the righteous would inherit the property of the wicked, “thus would be done when God placed the world into the hands of the Saints; and not by a Mormon stealing. . . . The Wicked was sometime swept off to make room for the righteous, but yet blood did not built up the kingdom; but the progress of ‘the pure in heart’; we had to cultivate virtue and love for each; God wishes to save not to distroy his workmanship; he would fight our battles; we had to avenge the blood of the Prophets by casting the Devil from our fire sides and subdue every ill feeling.” (Manti Ward General Minutes, July 13, 1859, CHL) (Richard E. Turley Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023], 212)
Bishop’s and Lee’s claims that Lee was a scapegoat offered up so no other Mormons would be prosecuted became a myth passed down for generations. In reality, Lee’s conviction was only the first that Howard sought. Even before Judge Boreman set Lee’s execution date, Howard set his sights on capturing and prosecuting other massacre participants, specifically Isaac Haight, John Higbee, and William Stewart. Haight and Higbee “were ‘high up’ in authority and were leaders and instigators of the bloody tragedy,” Howard wrote Taft, while Stewart “killed the first Emigrant”—William Aden—outside the besieged emigrant corral. (Sumner Howard to Alphonso Taft, Oct. 4, 1876)
But catching the suspects proved daunting. Haight moved from place to place, often living under assumed names. ([Isaac C. Haight] to [Eliza Ann Price] Haight, Dec. 2, 1877) Local people kept suspects “Posted in regard to all movements of our officers and cannot be taken by them,” Howard explained. He asked Taft for “one or more first class Detectives who can be sent among them to work up the case and devise means to arrest them.” Despite what he averred in Lee’s trial, Howard aimed to obtain convictions as high up in the Mormon hierarchy as possible. Haight and Higbee were “nearer the ‘seat of power’ than Lee ever was,” and their capture would enable prosecutors to “gradually work our say to the core of rottenness,” he assured Taft. (Howard to Taft, Oct. 4, 1867) (Richard E. Turley Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023], 360)
Hope also lingered that Lee might finally implicate Brigham Young. For many Americans, it had become almost an article of faith that Young had a hand in everything that occurred in Utah. (“John D. Lee,” SLT, Feb. 21, 1877) Though not deeply embittered toward the church president, Lee still denied that he ordered the massacre. The change he might say more was almost certainly a reason for taking the condemned man to the scene of the crime. (See “John D. Lee Sentenced”; “John D. Lee,” SLT, Feb. 14, 1877; J. D. Lee to Joseph H. Lee, Oct. 26, 1867; John D. Lee to Emma B. Lee, Oct. 26, 1876; John D. Lee to Sarah C. W. Lee, Nov. 1, 1876; John D. Lee to Sara Jane Lee Dalton, Nov. 16, 1876)
The location did nearly break Lee, though not with the result his captors sought. He begged Marshall Nelson to end the awful suspense and “shoot him then and there.” When Nelson refused, something Lee said to a deputy made the camp fear he planned to flee and force sentinels to shoot him. Lieutenant Patterson ordered that the prisoner be taken alive if he tried. (“The Lee Execution,” NYH, Mar. 25, 1877)
Lee spent the light night of his life there in the Meadows, placed in a wagon alone with Reverend Stokes in what was likely another attempt to get him to tie Young to the massacre. Instead, Lee merely argued “with the minister about religion, defending his Mormon faith with a torrent of scripture. (“The Lee Execution”; “M. M. M.,” SLDH, Mar. 25, 1877) When the discussion ended, he slept heavily. (“Retribution!,” SDRU, Mar. 24, 1877; “Shooting of Lee!”) (Ibid., 372)