Mormons in Utah territory, already angered by…

Mormons in Utah territory, already angered by the U.S. government's decision to send in troops, are further incensed in 1857 when a band of Arkansas emigrants, passing through Utah on their way to California, establishes camp forty miles (sixty-four kilometers) from Cedar City.

A party of Paiutes and some Mormon settlers led by John Doyle Lee attack the unsuspecting travelers on September 7 or 8.

The attackers, promising safe conduct, persuade the emigrants to lay down their arms.

Then, as the band of one hundred and thirty-seven proceeds southward toward Cedar City, they are ambushed, and all except the young children are massacred by September 11. (Details of the atrocity leak out eventually, but Lee's trial in Beaver in 1875 will result in a hung jury. Retried the following year, he will be convicted of first-degree murder and on March 23, 1877, will be shot at the site of the massacre.)