Sir:--From late outrages committed by the _Mormons, civil war_ is inevitable. They have set the laws of the country at defiance, and are in open rebellion. We have about two thousand men under arms to keep them in check. The presence of the commander-in-chief is deemed absolutely necessary, and we most respectfully urge that your excellency be at the seat of _war_ as soon as possible. Your most obedient servants, David R. Atchison, M. G. 3rd Div. [3] Samuel D. Lucas, M. G. 4th Div. Footnotes: 1. It was a cunning piece of diabolism which prompted the mob of Daviess county to set fire to their own log cabins, destroy some of their own property and then charge the crime to the Saints. But it was not without a precedent in Missouri. Two years before that, something very similar occurred in Mercer county, just northeast of Daviess. In June of the year 1836, the Iowa Indians, then living near St. Josoph, made a friendly hunting excursion through the northern part of the state, and their line of travel led them through what was known as the "Heatherly settlement," in Mercer county. The Heatherlys, who were ruffians of the lowest type, took advantage of the excitement produced by the incursion of the Indians, and circulated a report that they were robbing and killing the whites. During the excitement these Heatherlys murdered a man by the name of Dunbar, and another man against whom they had a grudge, and then fled to the settlements along the Missouri river, representing that they were fleeing from the Indians for their lives. This produced great excitement in the settlements in the surrounding counties; the people not knowing at what hour the Indians might be upon them. The militia was called out for their protection; but it was soon ascertained that the alarm was a false one. The Heatherlys were arrested, tried for murder, and some of them sent to the penitentiary. This circumstance occurring only two years before the action of the mob about Millport, and in a county adjacent to Daviess county, doubtless suggested the course pursued by the mob in burning their own houses and fleeing to all parts of the state with the report that the "Mormons" had done it, and were murdering and plundering the old settlers. These false rumors spread by the mob, were strengthened in the public ear by such men as Adam Black, Judge King of Richmond, and other prominent men who were continually writing inflammatory communications to the governor.--For the Heatherly incident, see "History of Livingston County, Missouri," written and compiled by the National Historical Company (1886), chapter 3, pp. 710, 713.