Amanda Barnes Smith: Inspiration and Healing at Haun's Mill (1838)

Amanda Barnes Smith (1809–1886) is one of the most beloved figures of early Latter-day Saint history. On October 30, 1838, a Missouri mob attacked the Latter-day Saint settlement at Haun's Mill, killing seventeen men and boys — among them Amanda's husband, Warson Smith, and her ten-year-old son Sardius. Her seven-year-old son Alma was shot through the hip: “Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out.” Left with no surgeon and no remedy, Amanda retired to a corn field and poured out her soul to God, testifying that the Lord, by revelation, showed her what to do — directed, as she said, as by a voice speaking to her. She made a lye from the ashes of the smoldering fire and cleansed the wound with cloths saturated in it; she then filled the wound with a slippery-elm poultice, and poured in balsam from her husband's trunk to soothe the pain. She kept Alma lying face-down for five weeks, telling him: “Now you lay like that, and don't move, and the Lord will make you another hip.” After five weeks the boy was entirely recovered — a flexible gristle having grown in place of the missing joint and socket, which remains to this day a marvel to physicians. Alma walked again, later served as a missionary, and lived a full, active life. Her experience is a faith-promoting witness that the Lord hears the prayers of a mother in the worst extremity, and that His inspiration can guide even the healing of a wounded body when no human help remains.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

The entire hip joint of my wounded boy had been shot away. Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out from the muzzle of the gun. We laid little Alma on a bed in our tent and I examined the wound. It was a ghastly sight. I knew not what to do. Oh my Heavenly Father, I cried, what shall I do? Thou seest my poor wounded boy and knowest my inexperience. Oh, Heavenly Father, direct me what to do! And then I was directed as by a voice speaking to me. I was directed to take those ashes and make a lye and put a cloth saturated with it right into the wound. Having done as directed I again prayed to the Lord and was again instructed as distinctly as though a physician had been standing by speaking to me. Near by was a slippery-elm tree. From this I was told to make a slippery-elm poultice and fill the wound with it. I stole down to a corn field, and crawled into a stalk of corn. It was as the temple of the Lord to me at that moment. I prayed aloud and most fervently. When I emerged from the corn a voice spoke to me. It was a voice as plain as I ever hear one. It was no silent, strong impression of the spirit, but a voice, repeating a verse of the Saint’s hymn: That soul who on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I cannot, I will not, desert to its foes. I went to my boy and dressed his hip; the wound was filled with the slippery-elm; and I said to him, Now you lay like that, and don't move, and the Lord will make you another hip. So the poor child lay on his face for five weeks, never once moving from that position. And the Lord made him another hip. The entire bone was replaced. It is a flexible gristle, which has grown in place of the missing joint and socket, and it remains to this day a marvel to physicians.