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The Second Missouri Mormon War: An Attempt on Zion
Expansion 2 of 6

[PART 1]

For the various Anti-Mormon militias in and around the Heavenly Dominion of Nauvoo- it was now or never. Rumors of an emerging military industry frightened the assortment of states and settlements in Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri. The chiefest of which was a large state in southern and central Missouri, in the Ozarks. The state was known as the "Ozark's Covenant", headquartered safely behind the mountain ranges in the fertile lands around Springfield. Their eastern capital, and the base for their anti-Dominion operations would be in Cape Girardeau. They were allied with smaller militias in remnants of the state.

This is relevant because an earlier infiltrator into the Dominion, a certain Jack Oswald, had entered into the city of Nauvoo under the guise of an immigrant and historian, and had gathered extensive evidence and documentation of the practice of polygamy being brought back to the region. Furthermore, he gathered materials from the census that seemed to back up what a majority of people believed to be a deliberate demographic shift with settlements as more and more Mormons pour in from all over the country, alongside equally detested missionary work bringing in record numbers of converts to the church borne of another great awakening.

The nail in the coffin would be the re-organization of provinces, seen as an egregious transition into direct theocracy (ironic given the Ozark's Covenant's nature, but exclusionism and so forth) and a violation of every agreement made with the locals that agreed to cede to the Heavenly Dominion. Most of these claims were exaggerations, as the Dominion has kept every agreement it has made thusfar, and the restructuring of the government into a theodemocratic nature had little to do with certain communities like the Amish, who made it evident that they only wanted to ostensibly participate in the system, but otherwise be left to their own rulership. The real threat came when the incumbent mayors' terms ended, and they had to run against settlers, oftentimes settlers that had been designated bishops or stake presidents, muddling the lines between church and state.

To re-iterate: polygamy, a demographic change driving evangelicals, catholics, and skeptic others out which leaves the Mormons to inherit the local governments- as well as fiery theological disagreements born of another "great awakening".

Oswald had already sent his papers back and it had kindled a firestorm. All that was left was for him to take direct action. The Nauvoo Stake was, at this point, homogenous beyond a 99.95 percent surety. Only a literal handful of nonbelievers remained, a fraction of whom were dissenters like Oswald is. Still, even ten or so people gathered in a secret cabin and laid out their plan: they would make an attempt on the Prophet's life- as well as his counselors.

Their theory was that if they took out the leader and his immediate lieutenants, the system would collapse and Mormondom would once again splinter off into hundreds of schisms and would never again be a threat, easy to drive out back to Utah.

The first attempt was on the Prophet, Lyman Hardy. Not trusting the others to directly intervene out of fear that they would make a mistake- he would grab a revolver and stuff it in his coat pocket. He would find Hardy's house, and waited behind a massive oak with a simple plan- empty the cylinder into him as he left the house. In the dawn's dim light, he waited with bated breath, and the door opened. Not wanting to shoot one of the wives or children by mistake, he waited until he was sure it was a man's figure. A broad-shouldered man in a suit passed the threshold, and Oswald popped out from behind the tree and fired four of the six shots into him.

Jack Oswald had killed the groundskeeper, and he had not the time or the ammunition to enter the house to find Lyman. He could hear the commotion from the neighboring houses, and he sprinted down the road. He fired one shot into the next door neighbor, who had a Winchester in his arms. He was sixty-three year old Harvey Barlow, and thankfully was only hit in the shoulder. Jack didn't make it to the end of the road before he was cornered by several other neighbors who had their weapons pointed at him, demanding surrender. Not content with being imprisoned at the hands of polygamist "scum", Jack pressed the barrel quickly to the inside of his mouth, and fired into his own brain.

Simultaneously, the second attempt was made on the first counselor to the Prophet, Abraham A. Eyle. Three of the men knew that he seldom left his own home save it were for ecclesiastical affairs. So, minutes before the attempt on Lyman was made, they broke into the home to the terror of his first wife Samantha and their children. Abraham had not in fact been at home, tending instead to his second wife at the local clinic. The men tied Samantha and the children up, began to ransack the home, and faced with no other options, abandoned it once they heard the commotion from several streets over.

The third attempt, on second counselor Nolan C. Clark, was successful. It had happened the night before the first two plans were enacted. It was an opportune moment, as he often liked to go fishing alone to calm his nerves. All it took was a sniper, and he was sent into the Mississippi, to be tangled up in the brambles of the shoreline all the way down near Warsaw to be discovered three days later.

The group, learning of Oswald's suicide and knowing the Nauvoo Legion would close in on them, chose to scatter and permanently leave the Dominion- never to return again in the name of self-preservation. The peaceful community of Nauvoo and the Dominion as a whole was shocked to the core of the organized nature of this assault, and the funeral services of Nolan C. Clarke were held quickly under the cover of moonlight for the fear of another attempt on the Presidency's lives.

Rulon M. Donald, seniormost member of the Twelve, is called as second counselor.

The grief doesn't stop there, as by automobile and at the behest of a private courier service, a manila file is delivered straight to the Nauvoo Visitors Center- the headquarters of the Church east of the Mississippi. It demands the Dominion abolish itself and the residents therein leave, and declares a state of war between various groups and the Dominion. The ultimatum essentially read: "We declare war on the Dominion, and if by the time we reach Nauvoo it is not abandoned, the fate of everyone therein is sealed."

Representatives of the following groups signed this document:

The Ozark's Covenant
The Archdiocese of Des Moines
The Kingdom of Greater Chicago
The Republic of Peoria (Chicago Tributary)
Elements of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas.
Smaller local-level militias, from slavers to self-governing settlements.

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Nothing had happened on the front just yet, but that did not bode well for the Nauvoo Legion, who began to issue rapid calls to totally militarize what available soldiers it had, calling up 31,000 troops to defensive positions immediately, with an additional 9,000 able to be called to service once road-building campaigns are completed. The rest of the numbers are paramilitary and armed civilians who answer the call and bring forth their own weapons.

The Nauvoo Legion began to rapidly strategize, positioning 7,000 men along the Mississippi alone to defend their southernmost provinces, with an additional 13,000 to be allocated to provinces in Northern Missouri. Southern Iowa is allocated another 6,000 men, and the remainder are given to defend Nauvoo and Northern Illinois. It is also worth noting that each province has at least one-thousand paramilitary, if not more, willing to respond. Key assets to defend are St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Kansas City, as well as coal mines in Alton and Osceola. All of the Dominion's land vehicles, and half of it's heavy weaponry are dedicated to the Missouri front while the majority of the remainder of the heavy weaponry are given to the Iowa front and garrisons in Illinois.

The Legion's heaviest cannons, rather primitive pieces, begin to be erected at fortified points along the Mississippi, acting as anti-ship batteries guarded by machine guns.

Meanwhile, at St. Joseph, a secret group of 50 men begin to intensively study early aircraft blueprints, flight manuals, and more. It is hoped that after six to twelve months, they will be the Legion's first pilots. Now, all the Dominion had time to do was wait, they'd get a proper feel for what they were up against then.