Before reaching Nauvoo, rumors of the intended assassination came to him in such numbers that he determined to send one of the companies with him back to Carthage, but they did not reach the city as an organized body. At Carthage, {31} preparations were being made on every hand for the assassination. The captain of the Carthage Grays left his company for fear of his life and, quoting again from Governor Ford's History of Illinois: "Communication was established between the conspirators and the company who were stationed some distance from the jail, and it was arranged that the eight men on guard should have their guns charged with blank cartridges, and fire at the assailants when they attempted to enter the jail." In the afternoon, and while Governor Ford was addressing the Saints in Nauvoo upon law and order, a mob of bloodthirsty men, with faces blackened and consciences stilled, charged the jail and assassinated the Prophet Joseph Smith and Patriarch Hyrum Smith, his brother. They were in an upper room of the jail accompanied by Apostles John Taylor and Willard Richards. Each fell wounded with four balls and Apostle Taylor was also four times wounded. The Prophet fell from the window and a ruffian placed his body against the well curbing, where four men at a distance of a few paces fired upon his prostrate body. The Christian world has hitherto regarded the growth of Mormonism with a kind of an air of indifference, but, unfortunately, they may yet awaken to feel its power. It is not at all improbable that within the course of a century some great orator may arise, some man gifted like the Apostle Paul, who will make the name of the martyr prophet ring even as does the name of Christ, and it is not impossible that Sharon, Palmira, Manchester, Kirtland, Far West, Adam-on-Diahmon, Ramus, Nauvoo, and the Carthage Jail may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age, like Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives and Mount Calvary to the Christian, and Mecca and Medina to the Turk. And in that event the author of this history feels degraded by the reflection that the humble Governor of an obscure State, who would otherwise be forgotten in a few years, stands a fair chance, like Pilate and Herod, by their official connection with the true religion, of being dragged down to posterity with an immortal name, hitched on to the memory of a miserable impostor. There may be those whose ambitions would lead them to desire an immortal name in history, even in those humbling terms. I am not of that number. (Governor Ford's History of Illinois.)