Brother John Butler, who had been obliged to flee to the north to save his life, had left his family in my charge. He had a span of very poor horses and an old wagon. I loaded the wagon up with his wife and five children and what few goods I had left, which consisted of one trunk full of clothes besides what my wife and I wore. I managed to find one of my horses which the mob had taken and used in such a shocking manner that his back was skinned almost from his withers to his tail. This animal I hitched on ahead of Brother Butler's horses, and by those of us walking who were able to do so, we slowly made our way to Quincy, Illinois, in the depth of winter. On arriving there I went to work carrying the hod up a four-story building--really the first hard work I had ever done, to make another start in life, while my wife assisted by taking in sewing. In the month of July I removed to Montrose, opposite Commerce. In May of the following year I went on a mission to Tennessee, from which I returned the following October, and again the next year, I went to Charleston, South Carolina, being instructed to introduce the gospel there. I spent all the money I had in renting halls and publishing placards announcing my meetings, but although I had large audiences, and numbers of persons came to me, Nicodemus-like--by night, to inquire about the gospel, I failed to make one convert. I returned to Nauvoo from this mission in 1842. In the summer of 1843, I took a trip through southern Illinois and north-western Kentucky, in the interest of the Nauvoo House, and in May, 1844, I again went south to Tennessee to electioneer for Joseph Smith as candidate for the Presidency of the United States. On arriving at Dresden, Tenn., I rented the court-house to hold meeting in, and while in the act of preaching to a good-sized audience, a mob gathered outside and a shot was fired at me through the window. The bullet passed near my head and lodged in the ceiling, and immediately afterwards a few brickbats were also thrown through the window. Considerable excitement followed and the audience began to scatter, when a man by the name of Camp, somewhat noted as a fighting character, arose and called on the fleeing people to stop. He told them if they would only sit and listen to the preaching, he would go out and look after the persons who were creating the disturbance. About two-thirds of the audience again became seated and he went outside and procured a shot-gun, with which he patroled around the courthouse the remainder of the evening, and there was no further trouble. Another meeting was announced for the following day, but before it commenced a lawyer of the town laid his plans to break it up. I had not long been speaking when he, at the head of a mob of two hundred men, marched into the room and demanded that I should cease speaking, as they had come to attend to my case.