otection. On the evening of June 27 a mob attacked the jail, overpowered the guard, and fired upon the prisoners with rifles through a window and door. Hyrum Smith was instantly shot dead. Joseph returned the fire with a revolver till his charges were exhausted, and then attempted to escape through the window, but was shot as he leaped through it and fell to the ground dead. The death of the prophet caused much temporary confusion among the saints. Sidney Rigdon aspired to succeed him as head of the church; but Brigham Young was chosen first president, and Rigdon, being contumacious, was cut off from the communion of the faithful, cursed, and solemnly delivered to the devil “to be buffeted in the flesh for a thousand years.” In 1845 the charter of Nauvoo was repealed by the legislature of Illinois, and the Mormons made preparations to remove to the Rocky mountains. Early in the following year they gathered in considerable numbers at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Those who remained in Nauvoo became again involved in trouble with the surrounding people, and in September, 1846, the city was cannonaded for three days, and its inhabitants were driven out at the point of the bayonet. In the following year pioneers crossed the plains from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake valley, Utah, where Brigham Young arrived July 24, 1847. In May, 1848, the main body of the saints set out for Utah, and arrived at the Great Salt lake in the autumn. Salt Lake City was founded (see Salt Lake City), and large tracts of land were brought under cultivation. An “emigration fund” was established, and large numbers of converts were brought by a well organized system from Europe, chiefly from the working classes of Great Britain, and especially from Wales. A considerable number came also from Sweden and Norway, and a smaller number from Germany, Switzerland, and France. In March, 1849, a convention was held at Salt Lake City and a state organized under the name of Deseret, understood by the Mormons to signify “the land of the honey bee.” A legislature was elected and a constitution framed and sent to Washington; but congress refused to recognize the new state, and in September, 1850, organized the country occupied by the Mormons into the territory of Utah, of which Brigham Young was appointed governor by President Fillmore. In the following year the federal judges were forced by threats of violence from Brigham Young to quit Utah, and the laws of the United States were openly defied and subverted. This led to the removal of Brigham Young, and the appointment of Col. Steptoe of the United States army as governor. Col. Steptoe arrived in Utah in August, 1854, with a battalion of soldiers; but such was the state of affairs in the territory that he did not deem it prudent to assume the office of governor, and after wintering in Salt Lake City he formally resigned his post and removed with his troops to California. In a sermon preached in the tabernacle at Salt Lake City on the Sunday after Col. Steptoe's departure, Brigham Young said: “I am and will be governor, and no power can hinder it, until the Lord Almighty says: ‘Brigham, you need not be governor any longer.’ ” Most of the civil officers who were commissioned about the same time with Col. Steptoe arrived in Utah a few months after he had departed. They were harassed and terrified like their predecessors. In February, 1856, a mob of armed Mormons, instigated by sermons from the heads of the church, broke into the court room of the United States district judge, and at the point of the bowie knife compelled Judge Drummond to adjourn his court sine die. Soon afterward all the United States officers, with the exception of the Indian agent, were forced to flee from the territory. These and similar outrages at length determined President Buchanan to supersede Brigham Young in the office of governor, and to send to Utah a military force to protect the federal officers and to compel obedience to the laws. The Mormons attempted to justify their treatment of the United States officials, by alleging that some of them were