[2] Brigham D. Madsen, a fellow Utah historian, wrote: “While the word ‘definitive’ is often overused, this account of the killings merits that distinction.

[6] The New York Review of Books praised the work as “an exhaustive, meticulously documented, highly readable history that captures the events and atmosphere that gave rise to the massacre, as well as its long, tortuous aftermath.

Bagley has taken great care in negotiating the minefield presented by what remains of the historical record.”[8] The book has received strong criticism from Mormon groups.

[9] For example, FARMS alleges that Bagley misused a quote, written by Dimick B. Huntington, in which the Piedes Indians told Brigham Young they were "afraid to fight the Americans & so would raise grain" during the Utah War.

[9] Some Mormon historians feel that, since Will Bagley was hired by California businessman Frank James Singer to "rewrite the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre," this may have influenced his interpretation of the facts, a charge Bagley denies.