Friend, advocate
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A 10-foot, heroic-size statue placed in 1918 on the west side of the Ray County Courthouse at Richmond, Mo., honors Alexander W. Doniphan for his attributes as a lawyer and orator and for his military gallantry, particularly in the 1846 United States war with Mexico.
But Doniphan is a hero to Latter-day Saints for other reasons: his bold legal and political advocacy for the Church and, especially, for facing down a superior in the state militia who had ordered him to perform the unlawful execution of the Prophet Joseph Smith and other Church leaders.
Standing at 6 feet 4 inches, he was a man of stature in character as well as physical appearance. In his roles as lawyer, state legislator and militia commander, he was a fearless and formidable friend to Latter-day Saints at a time when they desperately needed such highly placed friendship.
Doniphan's initial entry into Church history was in 1833, when Church leaders engaged him and his law partner, David R. Atchison, to seek relief and protection through the Missouri court system from oppression the saints suffered in Independence. The efforts proved unsuccessful, and the Mormons were driven from Jackson County into neighboring Clay County, where they found temporary and uneasy refuge.
Three years later, Doniphan as a member of the Missouri General Assembly again came to the aid of the beleaguered Church members by introducing a bill in the 1836 session calling for the creation of two new counties in Missouri: Daviess and Caldwell. The latter was intended for exclusive occupation by Church members.
Passage of the bill briefly calmed tensions between the saints and their adversaries. But as Mormon immigrants poured into the state and began to settle outside of Caldwell County, lingering hostilities festered into assaults and depredations. The so-called "Mormon War" resulted, with a string of atrocities against the saints culminating in their expulsion from the state under threat of extermination by order of Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs.
One of the more dramatic episodes in the "Mormon War" began with the betrayal of Joseph Smith and his brethren on Oct. 31, 1838, by Col. George M. Hinkle, who had been placed in command of Mormon militia forces. Hinkle delivered the Prophet and four other leaders into the hands of state militia Gen. Samuel D. Lucas; the Church leaders had thought they were going into Lucas' camp for a peace negotiation.
In a secret court-martial, Joseph and his companions were sentenced to be shot in the public square of the Mormon town, Far West. The written order to carry out the sentence was delivered to Doniphan, by then a brigadier general in the state militia. His courageous written refusal resounds 170 years later:
"It is cold-blooded murder. I will not obey your order. My brigade shall march for Liberty tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock; and if you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God."
Likely intimidated by Doniphan's defiance, Lucas backed down, and the illegal sentence (a military court-martial had no jurisdiction over civilians) was not carried out.
At a trial at Richmond beginning about two weeks later, Doniphan and law partner Amos Rees unsuccessfully defended the Church leaders, who were indicted on various charges. The five-month confinement of Joseph Smith and five companions in the squalid dungeon at Liberty followed. While being transferred the following April to another county, the prisoners were allowed by a sheriff to escape, and they fled Missouri, joining the body of the Church already seeking refuge in Illinois.
Alexander Doniphan's advocacy for an unpopular and beleaguered religious group apparently did not hamper his career. In the 1846-47 U.S. war with Mexico, he organized a mounted regiment of Missouri volunteers and led one of American history's most famous military expeditions as part of Gen. Stephen W. Kearney's force. (The Mormon Battalion, recruited from the saints being led west in 1846 by Brigham Young, also served under Kearney's command.)
Covering some 3,600 miles, Doniphan's troops distinguished themselves for valor in several military engagements.
In 1861, he was invited by President Abraham Lincoln to represent Missouri in a peace conference to explore ways of averting civil war and preserving the union. Later, with the outbreak of the Civil War, he was offered a generalship in the Union army but declined because soldiers he had led to Mexico were now fighting on the side of the Confederacy.
With three other prominent men, Doniphan raised funds for the establishment of William Jewell College in Liberty. And there, in 1854, he was appointed the first superintendent of schools; an elementary school in the city bears his name today.
In April 2002, the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation placed a marker at the site of his home in Liberty. In 1998, Highway 152 between Liberty and Leavenworth, Kan., was named after him.
The location of the statue in Richmond is momentous, because to its right is the location of Doniphan's final home, the Hudgins Hotel, and to its left were his law office and bank business, which he ran until his death at age 79 in 1887. His grave is in Liberty, beside the graves of his wife and two sons.
As it happens, important Church historic sites are in those two cities. Two of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon — Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer — are buried in Richmond, and Liberty is the location of the Church's visitors center preserving the Liberty Jail Historic Site.
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
