74 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN GUNNISON AND COMRADES. 
tain Gunnison told me before leaving, relieved him from any apprehension he might otherwise 
have felt regarding this band, and was the reason for his haying asked for so small an escort to 
accompany him, which he as well as his guide, an experienced citizen of the Territory, deemed 
sufficient. 
The usual precaution of a camp guard had been taken, each of the party (including the 
commander) in turn having performed that duty during the night. At the break of day all arose 
and at once engaged in the usual duties of a camp preparatory to an early start, to reach that 
day the most distant point of exploration fur the present season. The sun had not yet risen, 
most of the party being at breakfast, when the surrounding quietness and silence of this vast 
plain was broken by the discharge of a volley of rifles and a shower of arrows through that 
devoted camp, mingled with the savage yells of a large band of Pah-Utah Indians almost in the 
midst of the camp; for, under cover of the thick bushes, they had approached undiscovered to 
within twenty-five yards of the camp-fires. The surprise was complete. At the first discharge, 
the call to “ seize your arms” had little effect. All was confusion. Captain Gunnison, stepping 
from his tent, called to his savage murderers that he was their friend; but this had no effect. 
They rushed into camp, and oidy those escaped who succeeded in mounting ou horseback, and 
even then they were pursued for many miles. The horse of one fell near camp, tumbling his rider 
under a bush, where he lay for six or seven hours, while the Indians were passing him on every 
side, until finally he could no longer hear them near him or in the camp, when he left, and 
was met soon afterwards by Capt. Morris’ party, which reached the fatal spot just before night. 
Two Indians were seen a mile or two from camp by Lieutenant Baker and Mr. Potter, brother 
of the guide, but they were not able to come up with them before night enabled them to 
escape. The bodies of the slain were not all found at dark, and hope still lingered as a bright 
fire was built to assure any survivor of safety. But the long weary night, rendered hideous by 
the howling of wolves, wore away, as this little band of armed men, barely larger than that 
which had already been sacrificed, lay near the fatal spot, and day dawned only to discover the 
mutilated remains of their recent comrades, none of them being scalped—a barbarity which some 
of the tribes on this part of the continent seldom indulge. Borne of their arms were, however, 
cut off at the elbows, and their entrails cut open; and, the wolves having had access to them 
during the day and to those exposed during the night, their bodies were in such a condition that 
it was not deemed possible to bring them away—not even that of Captain Gunnison, who had 
fallen pierced with fifteen arrows. 
The statement which has from time to time appeared (or been copied) in various newspapers 
of the country since the occurrence of these sad events, charging the Mormons or Mormon author¬ 
ities with instigating the Indians to, if not actually aiding them in, the murder of Captain Gun¬ 
nison and his associates, is, I believe, not only entirely false, but there is no accidental circum¬ 
stance connected with it affording the slightest foundation for such a charge. 
