What was called at that time, in Illinois, "the last Mormon war" opened with a fusillade of correspondence between Carlin and Major Parker. Parker issued a proclamation, calling on all good citizens to return to their homes, and Carlin declared that he would obey no authority which tried to prevent him from doing his duty, telling the major that it would "take something more than words" to disperse his posse. While Parker was issuing a series of proclamations, the so-called posse was, on August 25, placed under the command of Colonel J. B. Chittenden of Adams County, who was superseded three days later by Colonel Singleton. Colonel Singleton was successful in arranging with Major Parker terms of peace, which provided among other things that all the Mormons should be out of the state in sixty days, except heads of families who remained to close their business; but the colonel's officers rejected this agreement, and the colonel thereupon left the camp. Carlin at once appointed Colonel Brockman to the chief command. He was a Campbellite preacher who, according to Ford, had been a public defaulter and had been "silenced" by his church. After rejecting another offer of compromise made by the Mormons, Brockman, on September 11, with about seven hundred men who called themselves a posse, advanced against Nauvoo, with some small field pieces. Governor Ford had authorized Major Flood, commanding the militia of Adams County, to raise a force to preserve order in Hancock; but the major, knowing that such action would only incense the force of the Antis, disregarded the governor's request. At this juncture Major Parker was relieved of the command at Nauvoo and succeeded by Major B. Clifford, Jr., of the 33rd regiment of Illinois Volunteers. On the morning of September 12, Brockman sent into Nauvoo a demand for its surrender, with the pledge that there would be no destruction of property or life "unless absolutely necessary in self-defence." Major Clifford rejected this proposition, advised Brockman to disperse his force, and named Mayor Wood of Quincy and J. P. Eddy, a St. Louis merchant then in Nauvoo, as recipients of any further propositions from the Antis. The forces at this time were drawn up against one another, the Mormons behind a breastwork which they had erected during the night, and the Antis on a piece of high ground nearer the city than their camp. Brayman says that an estimate which placed the Mormon force at five hundred or six hundred was a great exaggeration, and that the only artillery they had was six pieces which they fashioned for themselves, by breaking some steamboat shafts to the proper length and boring them out so that they would receive a six-pound shot.