Editing Mountain Meadows Massacre (section)

===Media coverage===
{{Main|Media coverage of the Mountain Meadows Massacre|Mountain Meadows Massacre and Mormon public relations}}
[[File:MMM-Harpersw8-13-1859.jpg|right|thumb|Unburied corpses left after the massacre depicted on the cover of ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'' magazine.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Harper's Weekly]]|location=New York City|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1859-08-13_3_137/mode/1up|via=[[Internet Archive]]|page=513|volume=3|issue=137|date=13 August 1859|title=The Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory}}</ref>]]

Initial published reports of the incident date back at least to October 1857 in the ''[[Los Angeles Star]]''.{{sfnp|Christian|1857}} A notable report on the incident was made in 1859 by Carleton, who had been tasked by the U.S. Army to investigate the incident and bury the still exposed corpses at Mountain Meadows.{{sfnp|Carleton|1902}} The first period of intense nationwide publicity about the massacre began around 1872 after investigators obtained Klingensmith's confession. In 1868 C. V. Waite published "An Authentic History Of Brigham Young" which described the events.{{sfnp|Waite|1868}} In 1872, [[Mark Twain]] commented on the massacre through the lens of contemporary American public opinion in an appendix to his semi-autobiographical travel book ''[[Roughing It]]''.{{sfnp|Twain|1872}} In 1873, the massacre was given a full chapter in [[T. B. H. Stenhouse]]'s Mormon history ''[[The Rocky Mountain Saints]]''.{{sfnp|Stenhouse|1873|pp=424–458}} The massacre itself also received international attention,<ref>{{cite news |title=The Massacre of the Hundred Emigrants by the Mormons |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84437055/ |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |newspaper=[[The Morning Chronicle]]|location=London, England |access-date=August 30, 2021 |date=December 4, 1857}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Treacherous Massacre by Mormons |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84441993/treacherous-massacre-by-mormons-mountai/ |via=[[Newspapers.com]]|newspaper=[[Liverpool Mercury]]|location=Liverpool, England |access-date=August 30, 2021 |date=April 27, 1860}}</ref> with various international and national newspapers also covering John D. Lee's 1874<ref>{{cite news |title=Mountain Meadow |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84444576/mountain-meadow-mountain-meadows-massac/ |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |newspaper=[[Winfield Courier]]|location=Winfield, Kansas |access-date=August 30, 2021 |date=December 3, 1874}}</ref> and 1877 trials as well as his execution in 1877.<ref>{{cite news |title=John D. Lee's Execution |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84442927/john-d-lees-execution-mountain-meadow/ |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |newspaper=[[Cincinnati Daily Star]] |access-date=August 30, 2021 |date=March 24, 1877}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=John D. Lee |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84443187/john-d-lee-execution-in-utah-23-mar-187/ |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |newspaper=Green-Mountain Freeman |access-date=August 30, 2021 |date=March 28, 1877}}</ref>

The massacre has been treated extensively by several historical works, beginning with Lee's own ''Confession'' in 1877, expressing his opinion that George A. Smith was sent to southern Utah by Brigham Young to direct the massacre.{{sfnp|Lee|1877|p=225}}

In 1910, the massacre was the subject of a short book by Josiah F. Gibbs, who also attributed responsibility for the massacre to Young and Smith.{{sfnp|Gibbs|1910|pp=7–9, 42}} The first detailed and comprehensive work using modern historical methods was ''[[The Mountain Meadows Massacre (book)|The Mountain Meadows Massacre]]'' in 1950 by [[Juanita Brooks]], a Mormon scholar who lived near the area in southern Utah. Brooks found no evidence of direct involvement by Brigham Young, but charged him with obstructing the investigation and provoking the attack through his rhetoric.

Initially, the LDS Church denied any involvement by Mormons, and into the 21st century was relatively silent on the issue. In 1872, it excommunicated some of the participants for their role in the massacre.{{sfnp|Bagley|2002|p=273}} Even after irrefutable evidence surfaced in 1999, the LDS Church didn't officially recognize its members' responsibility for the attack through at least 2002.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/03/06/flirting-with-disaster/2c7e0070-a20e-4500-9490-5fa4472ec386/|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|location=Washington D.C.|title=Flirting With Disaster|first=Donna|last=Rifkind|date=6 March 2002|quote=To this day, the Mormon Church has not officially admitted the extent of its members' responsibility for the massacre, even after construction workers at the site in 1999 unearthed evidence that more or less proved the case.|url-access=subscription}}</ref> 150 years after the tragedy in September 2007, the LDS Church published its first official statement of regret on the topic, and told the [[Associated Press]] via a church spokesperson that the statement should not be seen as an apology.<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 12, 2007 |title=Mormon Church Regrets 1857 Massacre |url=https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2007/09/11/mormon-church-regrets-1857-massacre/61717718007/ |first=Paul|last=Foy|agency=[[Associated Press]]|via=[[The Oklahoman]]|quote=Church leaders were adamant that the statement should not be construed as an apology. 'We don't use the word "apology". We used "profound regret"', church spokesman Mark Tuttle told The Associated Press.}}</ref><ref name=Apologizes>{{Cite news |last=Ravitz |first=Jessica |newspaper=[[The Salt Lake Tribune]] |title=LDS Church apologizes for Mountain Meadows Massacre |url=https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/lds/ci_6862682}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|title=LDS Church Expresses 'Regret' for Mountain Meadows Massacre|magazine=[[Sunstone (magazine)|Sunstone]]|page=74|url=https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/147-74-79.pdf|date=October 2007}}</ref>

In modern times, the murders have been called an act of [[Domestic terrorism in the United States|domestic terrorism]]<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bigler |first1=David L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHUCBQAAQBAJ |title=The Mormon Rebellion: America's First Civil War, 1857–1858 |last2=Bagley |first2=Will|author2-link=Will Bagley |date=2014-10-22 |publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]] |isbn=978-0-8061-8396-1 |pages=xi, 179, 299 |quote='Terrorism' is not a word to be taken lightly. But the evidence, coupled with long-forgotten Mormon doctrines, demonstrate that the purpose of the Mountain Meadows atrocity was to strike fear into the hearts of intruders ....|via=[[Google Books]]|url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="University of Arkansas Press">{{Cite book |last1=Hopper |first1=Shay E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QgrMDwAAQBAJ |title=An Arkansas History for Young People |last2=Baker |first2=T. Harri |last3=Browning |first3=Jane |date=2007-09-01 |publisher=[[University of Arkansas Press]] |isbn=978-1-55728-845-5 |edition=Fourth |pages=200|quote=Prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, the Mountain Meadows massacre was the largest act of domestic terrorism to ever occur on American soil.|via=[[Google Books]]|url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kennon |first=Caroline |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DH5mDwAAQBAJ |title=Battling Terrorism in the United States |date=2017-07-15 |publisher=[[Greenhaven Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-5345-6141-0 |pages=6, 12|via=[[Google Books]]|url-access=limited}}</ref> in many works of literature,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bigler |first=David L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b6clrgEACAAJ |title=Confessions of a Revisionist Historian: David L. Bigler on the Mormons and the West |date=2015 |publisher=[[University of Utah]] |isbn=978-0-692-37120-6 |location=Salt Lake City |page=133 |via=[[Google Books]]|url-access=limited|quote=September 11 will mark the anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack in U.S. history. ... I refer to September 11, 1857. ... It was the most horrific terrorist attack in our nation’s history, not as figured by body count, but in the way its victims were slain.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Esmail |first1=Ashraf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_tEpEAAAQBAJ |title=Terrorism Inside America's Borders |last2=Eargle |first2=Lisa A. |last3=Hamann |first3=Brandon |date=2021-05-03 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-0-7618-7074-6 |page=38 |chapter=Significant Historical Accounts of Domestic Terrorism: The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857)|via=[[Google Books]]|url-access=limited}}</ref> and is considered the largest act of domestic terrorism in United States history prior to the 1995 [[Oklahoma City bombing]].<ref name="University of Arkansas Press"/><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/03/06/flirting-with-disaster/2c7e0070-a20e-4500-9490-5fa4472ec386/|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|location=Washington D.C.|title=Flirting With Disaster|first=Donna|last=Rifkind|date=6 March 2002|quote=Apart from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, no single incident of civil terrorism—Americans killing Americans—has resulted in more deaths than the Mountain Meadows Massacre.|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Other descriptors include "the darkest deed of the nineteenth century" and "a crime that has no parallel in American history for atrocity".{{sfnp|Bagley|2002|p=xiii}} LDS historian [[Richard E. Turley Jr.|Richard Turley]] called it "the worst event in Latter-day Saint history",<ref>{{Cite news|publisher=[[NPR]]|url=https://www.npr.org/2008/09/11/94509868/mormon-historians-shed-light-on-sept-11-1857|title=Mormon Historians Shed Light On Sept. 11, 1857|last=Berkes|first=Howard|date=September 11, 2008}}</ref> and historian of the American West [[Will Bagley]] stated it was "the most brutal act of religious terrorism in America history" before the 2001 [[September 11 attacks]].<ref>{{Cite magazine|date=2007-08-03 |title=Wild West: Rescue of the Mountain Meadows Orphans |url=https://www.historynet.com/wild-west-rescue-of-the-mountain-meadows-orphans/|magazine=Wild West|publisher=[[World History Group]]}}</ref>