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At the Meadows, Lee had wanted the gathered Indians “to attack the emigrant party before daylight when they would be in the most profound slumber, and to massacre them before they could awake and arm themselves,” Shirts remembered. Not wanting to appear at the main assault, Lee crept up on a herdsman sleeping on a knoll above the cattle. When he pulled the trigger of his caplock pistol to kill the man, it failed to fire. Startled, the herdsman leaped up and raced down the rocky knoll for the camp, with Lee in close pursuit. As the man stooped to dive into a tent, Lee shot him dead.13 The shot and barking dogs woke the emigrants, who fired on their attackers.
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Richard E. Turley (Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath)