HISTORICAL NOTES:
The Iron County Militia is most remembered for its participation in the Mountain Meadow Massacre.
Occurring at the outset of the Utah War of 1857-1858, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was an appalling war-time atrocity. Regardless of whether we categorize it as war crime, religiously-motivated revenge, or mass killing arising from war hysteria and moral panic, it is, from any vantage point, a horrific and unjustified slaughter.
The fact that the wagon train was lured to its doom by deceptive promises of protection emphasizes the enormity of the crime while the fact that the large majority of the victims were women and children only increases our sense of outrage. Even the militiamen themselves came to see it as a catastrophe and some saw in hindsight how cowardly their cynical deception had been.
HISTORICAL NOTES: