War hysteria preceding the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Scholars have asserted that Smith's tour, speeches, and personal actions contributed to the fear and tension in these communities, and influenced the decision to attack and destroy the Baker–Fancher emigrant train near Mountain Meadows, Utah.

In Salt Lake, there was an unsubstantiated rumor that the widow of the revered Mormon martyr Parley P. Pratt recognized one of the party as being present at her husband's murder.

The religion had undergone a period of intense persecution in the American midwest, and faithful Mormons made solemn oaths to pray for vengeance upon those who killed the "prophets" including founder Joseph Smith and most recently apostle Parley P. Pratt, who was murdered in April 1857 in Arkansas.

[4] By July 1857, Young's replacement, Alfred Cumming, was appointed, and a fourth of the entire U.S. army, some 2,500 dragoons, were already on the march[citation needed].

[8] In preparation for a seven-year siege predicted by Brigham Young, Mormon leaders began accelerating an existing program for stockpiling grain.

[11] Defiant against the United States, Brigham Young warned "mobocrats", particularly past Mormon persecutors and the "priests, editors, and politicians who have howled so long about us", to stay away from the territory, or "we will attend to their cases".

[24] The Baker–Fancher train encountered residents along the way who were obeying Young's recent order to stockpile supplies in expectations of all-out war with approaching U.S.

[26] On August 3, 1857, Mormon apostle George A. Smith[27] left Salt Lake City to visit the southern Utah communities.

[30] During the tour, Smith gave military speeches[31] and counseled Mormons that they prepare to "touch fire to their homes, and hide themselves in the mountains, and to defend their country to the very last extremity.

Scholars have asserted that Smith's tour, speeches, and personal actions contributed to the fear and tension in these communities, and influenced the decision to attack and destroy the Baker–Fancher emigrant train near Mountain Meadows, Utah.

[31] Smith later said he was uncomfortable, perhaps "on account of my extreme timidity", because some of the militia members were eager that "their enemies might come and give them a chance to fight and take vengeance for the cruelties that had been inflicted upon us in the States", such as the Haun's Mill massacre.

[31] On his return to Salt Lake City, Smith was accompanied by a party including Jacob Hamblin of Santa Clara, a newly appointed Mormon missionary to the Natives in the region who also ran a federally funded Indian farm near Mountain Meadows.

[39] When the Baker–Fancher party inquired about places to stop for water and grazing, Jacob Hamblin directed them to Mountain Meadows,[40] near his home and, the Indian farm, a regular stopover on the Old Spanish Trail.

[41] Silas S. Smith, the cousin of George A., testified that the Baker–Fancher party suspiciously asked whether the Native Americans would eat a dead ox.

[45] The Mormons considered the emigrants of an alien status because of Young's orders forbidding travel through Utah without a required pass – which the Baker–Fancher party did not have.

)[48] Meanwhile, the Mormons that the Baker–Fancher train encountered along the way were obeying Young's order to stockpile supplies in expectations of all-out war with approaching U.S. troops and declined to trade with the Fanchers.

For example, according to John D. Lee, "They swore and boasted openly... that Buchanan's whole army was coming right behind them, and would kill every God Damn Mormon in Utah....

They had two bulls which they called one "Heber" and the other "Brigham", and whipped 'em through every town, yelling and singing... and blaspheming oaths that would have made your hair stand on end.

"[50] While Jacob Hamblin was in Salt Lake City he heard that the Fanchers had "behaved badly [...and had] robbed hen-roosts, and been guilty of other irregularities, and had used abusive language to those who had remonstrated with them.

"[55] Brigham Young, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Utah Territory, built strong diplomatic ties with the area's Native American tribes.

",[61] On August 30, 1857, Huntington gave a group of northern tribes "all the beef cattle & horses that was on the road to Cal[i]fornia, the North rout[e]".

On September 1, 1857, frontiersman James Gemmell was in Young's office with Hamblin, who had accompanied the group of tribal leaders (including Ammon, Kanosh, Tutsegabit, and Youngwuds), and George A. Smith on his return to Salt Lake, all of whom had camped near the Baker–Fancher party.

"[62] Modern scholars generally agree that Brigham Young was authorizing Native American leaders to steal emigrant cattle.