This book provides extremely important historical data and clues about the Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. While many today consider it outdated, it is still nonetheless a very valuable compilation of a myriad of sources and facts surrounding the Martyrdom.

With this framework, a serious student can begin to piece together the reasons and plots behind Joseph Smith's death. Perhaps the only thing which N.B. Lundwall could have touched on better was the high-level involvement of the US government and Masonry which factored into the Martyrdom.

The day before Joseph died, a Masonic conference was held in the Hamilton Hotel near the jail where they were staying, wherein Masonic delegates from every state in the Union attended, except two. This fact was confirmed by Joseph's bodyguard, Stephen Markham ("Junius and Joseph," p. 265).

Furthermore, Porter Rockwell confirmed Thomas Ford's involvement and foreknowledge of the plot. He walked in on their conversation just as they finished, to retrieve his hat. Ford essentially stated: "The deed is done by now," dropping his hand as Rockwell walked in, this being about the time the Martyrdom took place. (DHC 6:588).

Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor, Zina D.H. Young, and other early LDS leaders confirmed the Masonic presence in the mob at Carthage. They knew Joseph was trying to deliver a Masonic distress signal when he was shot in the window.

Some resources which cover this aspect of the Martyrdom:

- Junius and Joseph: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/42/
- Respectable Assassins: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/dl_files/49/65/49657e0387a6b974c2fb2c74f9a32b214d42bba3.pdf (this author isn't a big fan of "Fate of the Persecutors" because she feels it doesn't sufficiently highlight the fact that many men in the mob were high-ranking government officials—i.e., Freemasons)
- Alexander Neibaur's biography discusses the Masonic mobs ransacking Nauvoo after the Martyrdom: https://archive.org/details/utahgenealogical05gene/page/n73
- Why was Joseph Smith a Mason?: http://www.vcaa.com/epistles/sss/ss-masons.htm
- Were Joseph Smith's final words a cry for help or mercy from Freemasons in the mob at the Carthage jail?: https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Were_Joseph_Smith%27s_final_words,_%22O_Lord,_my_God!%22_a_cry_for_help_or_mercy_from_Freemasons_in_the_mob_at_the_Carthage_jail%3F

Nevertheless, in addition to all this data, "Fate of the Persecutors" fills a very important role in understanding the major players and characters behind the conspiracy leading up to the Martyrdom—especially within the Church itself. N.B. Lundwall did us all a great service in compiling this data. May it ever stand as a witness to that innocent blood which was spilled on the floor of the Carthage jail, which was savagely and cunningly spilled in a manner all too similar to that of our Dear Savior, even Jesus Christ.

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Also, please ignore the insane, vitriolic filth below from Maxwell Silverhammer. He is possessed by a deep hatred in his heart for the Prophet Joseph Smith, evidently not heeding the Savior's warnings and commandments in in 1 John 4:20, Ephesians 4:31, and Matthew 6:15. He's obsessed with spamming anti-Mormon propaganda in his reviews on anything remotely Mormon-related across archive.org.

As a boy he was ignorant, superstitious, a dreamer of dreams. Pretending to have discovered a new Bible by direction of an angel — which Bible we now know was written as a romance by Solomon Spaulding and emended by Sidney Rigdon — he founded a new religion. He was compelled to flee from Kirtland, Ohio, "between two days" for his connection as cashier with a fraudulent bank. He was driven from Missouri because of his arrogant and tyrannical ways. He was finally killed in Illinois for taking another man's wife and suppressing freedom of speech. He was simply an illiterate, pretentious, ambitious, licentious fellow, clever and jolly, with a certain animal magnetism, but coarse, self-willed, ruling his followers, most of them quite ignorant, through his pretended revelations from the Lord, overbearing, despotic in the extreme, with whom no one could get along except by absolute submission to him. He had trouble everywhere he went and with almost everyone with whom he came in contact. And this is the man the Mormons now worship as their prophet — putting him on an equality with Mohammed among the Mohammedans or Christ among Christians ! God save the mark !

I may remark in passing that a singular fatality attended nearly all of the principal actors in the earliest scenes of the drama of Mormonism. The six who were in the organization of the church and who claimed to have been witnesses of the golden plates were Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Samuel H. Smith and David Whitmer. Of these Oliver Cowdery, the scribe who wrote most of the Book of Mormon at the dictation of Smith, was charged with being "connected with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye," and with "cheating and defrauding the saints," and he was ex-communicated and "turned over to the bufferings of the devil." He afterward died a miserable drunkard. David Whitmer was also ex-communicated as a rebel. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed by a mob on account of their immoral- ity, their despotism and their "treason" against the State. Martin Harris, the first scribe of the Book of Mormons, and a witness to the plates, but not one of the constituent members of the church, was afterward catalogued by the Mormons with "negroes who wear white skins, and he and his associates are so far beneath contempt that a notice of them would be far too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make." He also was consigned to the infernal regions. A document drafted by Sidney Rigdon, and subscribed by eighty-four Mormons, addressed to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, W. W. Phelps and Lyman E. Johnson, exhibits these witnesses and apostles and their associates to have been unmitigated scamps.
Mr. Stenhouse says :

"The Lord could not well have chosen a more despicable set of thieves and liars than they were — taking the testimony of their brethren as evidence. Mormonism did little for them in the way of reformation and grace. They must have been 'a hard lot' before they accepted the new revelation."
Sidney Rigdon was, after the death of Joseph Smith, charged with the determination to "rule or ruin the church." And in the language of the reporter, "Elder Young arose and delivered Sidney Rigdon over to the bufferings of Satan in the name of the Lord ; and all the people said, Amen." Parley P. Pratt, another very prom- inent Mormon and the author of some of their principal works, was killed by an enraged husband for running off with his wife.
And these are the men who were the founders of Mormonism !

At that time Mormonism was practically dead. The Mormons themselves were fast becoming disgusted with the tyrannical rule and licentious practices of Joseph Smith. They were beginning to see the hollowness in the Mormon system, and were falling away from it. But the saying that "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" was again exemplified. The killing of Smith put him in the list of martyrs, according to Mormon notions, and had the effect of galvanizing Mormonism again into life.

I have dwelt somewhat at length upon the early history of Mormonism, partly because the beginnings of any movement are of the greatest interest, and largely to show the character of Joseph Smith, its founder and prophet. The rest of the history can be more briefly told. After the death of Smith, on June 27, 1844, the church split up into many factions. It is said that twenty-one sects sprang into existence. Among these were the "Adamsites," "Brewsterites," "Brighamites," “Cutlerites," "Doveites," "Emmettites," "Forsgreenites," "Glad- denites," "Godbeites," "Hedrickites," "Hendrickites," "Josephites," "Morrisites," "Rigdonites," "Bill Smith- ites," "Strangites," "Whitmerites," "Wightites," "Wil- liamites," etc.

Some of these are now extinct, but others are still in existence. The Josephites have as their head Joseph Smith, the eldest son of the "prophet." This faction was organized in 1860 under the name of the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." It now numbers about 45,000, with headquarters at Lamoni, Iowa. The Josephites violently dissent from the Brighamites on some important points, especially as regards temple building, the character of God and polygamy. But it is with the latter sect that we have especially to do. These are by far the most numerous and most influential of any of the Mormon sects, and are known to all the world pre-eminently as Mormons.

Upon the death of Smith, Sidney Rigdon naturally felt that the right of succession belonged to him. He had taken offense at Smith for seeking the hand of his daughter Nancy as a polygamous wife and was living in Pittsburg, Ohio. He hastened to Nauvoo, assumed the leadership, pretended to have visions and revelations, as Smith had done. But Brigham Young was by the accident of seniority at the head of the quorum of twelve apostles, and he had ambitions of his own. So he had Rigdon arrested on the charge of determining to "rule or ruin the church." He was tried, condemned, "cut off from the church and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan.”

Having thus disposed of his rival, Brigham Young then proceeded to "rule" the church— and he ruled it with a rod of iron. Implicit, unquestioning obedience was thenceforth the distinctive feature of Mormonism. Joseph Smith once said that if Brother Brigham ever got control of the church he would lead it to hell. This was about the only prediction of Smith that ever came true.

The friction between the Mormons and the people of Illinois still continuing and constantly increasing in bitterness, it was determined by the High Council at Nauvoo on January 20, 1846, that the Mormons should leave a country where they had suffered so much "persecution" and go away out West, beyond the confines of the United States, where they would not be bothered by the troublesome laws, and the still more troublesome military power, of this government, but where they might be free to worship Joseph Smith according to the dictates of Brigham Young, and to make everybody else do the same.

Before they left indictments were found in the United States Circuit Court against a number of leading Mormons for counterfeiting the coin of the republic. The marshal was eager for their arrest, but the Governor thought it best to let them go, as that would be the easiest way to get rid of them. So on February 5, 1846, they began to move westward. By the middle of May about 16,000 had gone. There were no railroads out West in those days. The journey was long and tedious. The weather was bad, and some of the "saints" suffered considerably.