As a result of this conflict, Missouri Governor Dunklin was persuaded that the Mormons, in league with the Indians, had ambushed Independence and he allowed the state militia to be used by the mob leaders. Duplicitously, Lt. Governor Lilburn Boggs, accompanied by the Missouri militia, proposed that if the Saints would turn over their guns, they would be allowed to live in peace. However, after surrendering their guns, the mob turned on them with renewed violence until the men were being hunted and women and children were driven through November ice and snow on foot, some barefoot, across the Missouri river into Clay County. The Missouri mobs were not satisfied with the pace and began to beat unarmed fleeing Saints. Lyman Wight, a contemporary of Rockwell, lamented the trail of blood from the feet of the women and children. This was to be the first trial of Rockwell’s forbearance and loyalty to his faith.
Rockwell with his wife and infant daughter fled to Clay County, Missouri with the twelve hundred now homeless Saints still hoping that their rights could be restored in Jackson County. Those hopes were dashed when Governor Dunklin reneged on his promise to restore the Saints to their Jackson County lands, suggesting that the case should go through the very courts run by their persecutors. After only three years in Clay County, the community of Saints was similarly violently expelled. Rockwell, with his wife and now three year old daughter Emily, fled again in 1836 to settlements in Caldwell County.
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