Joseph Smith's rebuke of the guard in the Richmond prison
Published October 5, 2026 at 2:56 AM
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Millennial Star Research
In the winter of 1838, following their arrest in Far West, Missouri, Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and other Church leaders were held as prisoners in Richmond, Ray County. They were placed in an unfinished courthouse under the authority of General Clark and the direct supervision of Colonel Sterling Price. The prisoners, including Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, Alexander McRae, Morris Phelps, Lyman Gibbs, Darwin Chase, and Norman Shearer, were chained together with a heavy trace chain attached to their ankles and forced to sleep on the hard, cold floor without furniture or basic comforts. During their confinement, they were subjected to constant surveillance by guards who, led by Colonel Price, spent hours recounting horrific tales of violence, robbery, murder, and the sexual assault of women and children they had committed against the Saints. Parley P. Pratt, who lay chained next to Joseph Smith, recalled that he became so filled with righteous indignation that he could barely restrain himself from speaking. Without warning, Joseph Smith rose to his feet in the middle of the night, standing in his chains, and rebuked the guards in a voice like a roaring lion. He commanded them to cease their blasphemies, declaring, 'Silence, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die this instant!' The guards, struck by the prophet's calm, majestic, and fearless demeanor, immediately dropped their weapons, fell to their knees, begged for his pardon, and remained silent for the rest of their watch.
In Their Own Words
“In one of those tedious nights we had lain as usual in our chains. Many of the guards had been boasting of their exploits in the war, and of the murders and robberies they had committed, and of the women they had ravished, and of the children they had murdered, and of the houses they had burned, and of the property they had stolen. They had been telling these things for hours, and had been laughing and joking about them, and had been drinking and swearing, and had been trying to provoke us to speak, but we had remained silent. On a sudden he arose to his feet, and spoke in a voice of thunder, or as the roaring lion, uttering, as near as I can recollect, the following words: 'SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!' He stood erect in terrible majesty, chained and without a weapon; calm, unruffled, and dignified as an angel, he looked upon the quailing guards, whose weapons were lowered or dropped to the ground; whose knees smote together, and who, shrinking into a corner, or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon, and remained quiet till a change of guards. I have seen the ministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes, and criminals arraigned before them, while life was suspended on a breath, in the Courts of England; I have witnessed a Congress in solemn session to give laws to nations; I have tried to conceive of kings, of royal courts, of thrones and crowns; but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri.”
— Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Chapter 26
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 17 July 1876 (Vol. 38, No. 29). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1876-07-17_38_29 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high) Additional sources (periodical research): Parley P. Pratt, Letter to the Editor, Deseret News, Nov. 12, 1853. https://jared.pratt-family.org/parley_histories/parley_missouri_letter_1853_nov.html; Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Chapter 26. https://mldb.byu.edu/ppprat26.htm Full first-person account: The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Chapter 26 https://mldb.byu.edu/ppprat26.htm
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