Willard Richards' Miraculous Escape from Carthage Jail
Published September 2, 2026 at 5:47 AM
During the mob attack at Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844, Willard Richards survived the gunfire that killed Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith and wounded John Taylor. Richards was in the line of fire, used a cane to knock down gun muzzles thrust into the room, and moved to the window to observe the mob. Accounts describe him as the only person in the room neither killed nor wounded: one says he was shot at four times and knocked back from a window by an unknown power, another reports a bullet struck his watch and shattered its crystal, and accounts also describe a bullet grazing the tip of his left ear. Joseph Smith had earlier prophesied that bullets would fly around Richards like hail, his friends would fall on either side, and no hole would be made in his garment. Richards later helped John Taylor, moving him to the inner dungeon and covering him with a mattress. Accounts portray Richards's survival as the fulfillment of the prophecy and an act of divine preservation.
In Their Own Words
“Joseph attempted as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward exclaiming, “ O Lord my God! ” As his feet went out of the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man. — Willard Richards, “Two Minutes in Jail,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 24 July 1844”
Sources & References
The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 17 no. 8 (August 1906). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/12943 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high) Appendix 3: Willard Richards, Journal Excerpt (additional periodical research; citation details truncated in supplied record) The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 20 no. 4 (April 1909). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/15605 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high) Lawrence R. Flake, "Willard Richards," in [citation details truncated in supplied record] The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 14 no. 6 (June 1903). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/12328 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high) LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, Deseret Book; Willard Richards, “Two Minutes in Jail” [remaining citation details truncated in supplied record]
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