The Bullets Whistled Pretty Close: Captain Joseph Matthews Under Fire on the Platte (May 1847)

Joseph Matthews was born about 1809, and was chosen for Brigham Young's Vanguard Company of 1847 as a captain of ten — he led the Fourteenth Ten, the ten in which Green Flake, the enslaved pioneer who drove the first wagon into the valley, was enrolled. Matthews was also one of the company's hunters and scouts, the men who rode ahead and aside of the column to keep it in meat and out of ambush.

On May 1, 1847, west of the Platte, the hunters John Brown, Luke Johnson, Amasa Lyman, and Jackson Redden each killed a buffalo calf — and Joseph Matthews killed a buffalo cow, the first buffalo Brigham Young said he had ever seen in that country. The camp that fed on it was eating the fruit of Matthews' marksmanship and nerve.

The next day came the sharper test. Horses had been stolen from the camp during the night, and a mounted party — Orrin Porter Rockwell, Howard Egan, Joseph Matthews, John Brown, Phineas Young, and Lorenzo Young — started about one o'clock to recover them. Tracking the thieves, they came upon a band of Indians; Thomas Brown noticed one of them extending a hand to shake while holding a bow and arrow strung for use behind his back, watching the horse's bridle bit, and rode up and sternly ordered him off. The Indians drew back, and as the party continued tracking the stolen horses toward a dense thicket where they believed the animals were concealed, the Indians fired six shots at them — shots which, as Brother Matthews said, "whistled pretty close around their heads," and which happily took no effect. The scouts found the place whence the horses had been taken and the trace of the rope drawn over the ground behind one of them, confirmed the animals were concealed in the thicket, and made their way back to the company. William Clayton's journal of the trek records the whole affair.

The man the company trusted to lead a ten, to ride for its stolen horses, and to hunt for its meat rode the whole trail to the valley in the summer of 1847, and ended his days, by the later recollection of his brethren, in Arizona — one of the company of whom Heber C. Kimball said the whole credit for blazing the trail belonged equally to all who began it.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in William Clayton, Journal of the 1847 Vanguard Company, May 2, 1847, published in The Journey West: Journal 5, BYU Religious Studies Center.):

About 1 o'clock, P.M., a party of men, viz: O. P. Rockwell, Howard Egan, Joseph Matthews, John Brown, Phineas Young, and Lorenzo Young, started to go back to hunt for the horses. They followed the trail of the horses and found where they had been taken by the Indians. They followed the trail until they came to a thicket of willows, where they supposed the horses were concealed. While they were following the trail, they came upon a party of Indians. Thomas Brown noticed one of them extending his hand to shake, while he had his bow and arrow strung behind his back, and was watching the horse's bridle bit. He rode up to him and sternly ordered him off. The Indians drew back. As the brethren were following the trail of the horses towards the thicket, the Indians fired six shots at them, which whistled pretty close around their heads, but did no damage. The brethren found the place where the horses had been taken, and the trace of the rope drawn over the ground behind one of them, which confirmed the fact that they were concealed in the thicket. They then returned to the camp.