Two days before President George A. Smith delivered a discourse in Salt Lake City on May 24, 1874, General A. W. Doniphan came to visit Salt Lake City. President Smith reminded the saints of the role General Doniphan played thirty-six years before in helping the saints, and in stopping the “execution” of Joseph and some of the brethren who had been betrayed and tried by a “court-martial.” General Doniphan declared that the execution of that sentence would be cold blooded murder. President Smith told this interesting story about the wife of the man who was to put Joseph and his brethren to death:
“In consequence of the influence exerted by General Doniphan, General Lucas hesitated to execute the sentence of his court-martial, and he delivered Joseph Smith and his associates into the charge of General Moses Wilson, who was instructed to take them to Jackson County and there put them to death. I heard General Wilson, some years after, speaking of this circumstance. He was telling some gentlemen about having Joseph Smith a prisoner in chains in his possession, and said he— ‘He was a very remarkable man. I carried him into my house, a prisoner in chains and in less than two hours my wife loved him better than she did me.’ At any rate Mrs. Wilson became deeply interested in preserving the life of Joseph Smith and the other prisoners, and this interest on her part, which probably arose from a spirit of humanity, did not end with that circumstance, for, a number of years afterwards, after the family had moved to Texas, General Wilson became interested in raising a mob to do violence to some of the Latter-day Saint Elders who were going to preach in the neighborhood, and this coming to the ears of Mrs. Wilson, although then an aged lady, she mounted her horse and rode thirty miles to give the Elders the information. Year before last when I was in California, attending the State Fair, I met with a son of Mr. Wilson: he was president of an agricultural society, and was attending the fair, and I named this circumstance to him. He told me that his mother deeply deprecated the difficulties with the Mormons, and did all she could to prevent them.”
George Albert Smith, “Journal of Discourses,” Vol. 17, p. 90.