Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Use of sources/Whistling and Whittling Brigades

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A FAIR Analysis of: One Nation Under Gods A work by author: Richard Abanes Use of sources, Whistling and Whittling Brigades

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Whistling and Whittling Brigades

The Quotes

One Nation under Gods, page 214 (hardback and paperback)

• "Those persons fortunate enough to not be either murdered or severely beaten were usually "whittled" out of town by Brigham's 'Whistling and Whittling Brigade,'" which was a "violent gang of Mormons" who were "in good standing with the church."

The References

Endnote 49-51, page 552 (hardback); page 550 (paperback)

• William B. Pace, William B. Pace Autobiography. Quoted in Dean Moody, "Nauvoo's Whistling and Whittling Brigade," BYU Studies (Summer 1975), vol. 15, 487. BYU Studies article PDF
•  Citation error: should be "Thurmon Dean Moody."
• Jehiel Savage statement in minutes of the high council of James Strang's followers at Voree, Wisconsin, April 6, 1846.
• Hosea Stout, under April 27, 1845, in Brooks, vol. 1, 36.

The Problem

ONUG fails to provide us with several of the necessary facts.^[1]

In January 1845, the Nauvoo charter was repealed. This left Nauvoo without a city government, and without a legal militia or police force. This was done despite the warnings of members of the state legislature that law and order would break down.

Wandle Mace's diary reads:

. . .They tried every means they could devise to bring trouble upon Nauvoo, frequently a party would land from a steamboat and come into the city, commit their deviltry, and return to the boat and leave again, well knowing we had no law to protect us since the city charter was taken away.

This, then, was the quandary in which the LDS leaders found themselves:

Facing this uneasy state of affairs, the ecclesiastical leaders felt compelled to find some means of maintaining discipline in the city streets. Not wanting to resort to extra-legal activities and being aware that their priesthood authority did not apply to any but their own people, they sought an alternative solution. If some plan were not found, they would either have to live with the consequences or resort to their own mob rule--where power prevailed but trouble ensued. (Moody, p. 481)

The twofold goal of the groups was to (1) care for the poor, and (2) keep the streets of Nauvoo safe, especially at night. The bishops and deacons assigned to this type of activity evolved into what became known as the "whistling and whittling brigades."

As one author described the tactics decided upon:

The City of Joseph's elders ingeniously met the increasing flood of Gentile undesirables by organizing the boy population into a "Whistling and Whittling Brigade." Suspicious strangers immediately would be surrounded by groups of boys, armed with long-bladed jack-knives and sticks. Whichever way the suspect moved, the boys followed; whistling and whittling as they went. Not a question would they ask, not a question would they answer. They were too small to strike individually; too many to battle collectively. When they descended on a hapless stranger, they hugged his presence like vermin, until in exasperation he was glad to take hasty leave from the abode of the Saints.^[2]

Summary conclusion

The "whittling and whistling brigades" were a novel, non-violent means of community protection on the nineteenth-century American frontier in the absence of any civil government. In a situation where dispossession, extermination, and civil war were very real risks, the brigades seem to have worked surprisingly well, with few casualties. They were inadequate, of course, to deal with real armed aggression, and mob action forced the Saints to evacuate their lands and homes the following spring.

Similar issues are also ignored by the author elsewhere (see here.)

Endnotes

1. [note]  Readers are strongly encouraged to read the BYU Studies article in its entirety. Except where noted, information comes from Thurmon Dean Moody, "Nauvoo's Whistling and Whittling Brigade," Brigham Young University Studies 15 no. 4 (Summer 1975), 480–490.. BYU Studies article PDF]
2. [note]  Paul Dayton Bailey, For This My Glory (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1943), 155; cited in Moody, 484.

Further reading

A FAIR Analysis of Critical Works

• American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows— (Index of claims)
• An Insider's View of Mormon Origins — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
• Ashamed of Joseph: Mormon Foundations Crumble
• Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism/Inside Today's Mormonism — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Behind the Mask of Mormonism
• Specific works/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
• Specific works/By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus
• Counterfeit Gospel of Mormonism
• Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 1
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 2
• Decker's Complete Handbook on Mormonism
• Early Mormonism and the Magic World View — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Specific works/Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Mormonism
• Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History
• From Captain Kidd's Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism
• In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith — (Index of Claims)
• Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon
• Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record
• Is the Mormon My Brother?
• Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
• Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon (2nd edition)—(Index of claims)
• Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined
• The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) — (Index of claims)
• Leaving the Saints
• Letters to a Mormon Elder
• Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church — (Index of claims)
• Mormon America: The Power and the Promise — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Mirage: Seeing Through the Illusion of Mainstream Mormonism
• Mormonism 101—Index of claims
• Mormonism (Kurt Van Gorden)
• Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? — (Index of claims)
• The Mysteries of Godliness—A History of Mormon Temple Worship
• Nauvoo Polygamy — (Index of claims—Use of sources—Prejudicial language—Presentism—Mind reading—Censorship—Romance—Assumptions—Magick)
• New Approaches to the Book of Mormon
• New Mormon Challenge
• No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith — (Index of claims)
• One Nation Under Gods — (Index of claims—Use of Sources—Prejudicial language—Absurd claims—Presentism—Mind reading—Rewording—Omissions—Sarcasm)
• The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844
• Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example — (Index of claims)
• Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess
• The Changing World of Mormonism — (Index of claims)
• Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
• Under the Banner of Heaven — (Index of claims)
• Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture