Joseph Smith and Orrin Porter Rockwell

Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell are presented as prophet and staunch bodyguard, bound by loyalty that could move from personal protection into the charged territory of religiously justified violence. The book does not establish that Joseph ordered Rockwell to attack Lilburn Boggs. Instead, it stresses the uncertainty around direct command while showing how prophetic prediction and a follower's sense of sacred duty could make the distinction between instruction and initiative difficult to draw.

Protection and the Boggs attempt

Joseph's relationship with Rockwell took shape against the continuing threat of arrest. After escaping jail, Joseph still faced criminal charges in Missouri and the possibility of extradition. In May 1841, a Missouri sheriff's posse arrested him outside Nauvoo and nearly took him across the state line before he obtained release through habeas corpus. That experience sharpened his anger toward Missouri's former governor, Lilburn Boggs, whom he publicly predicted would die violently within a year.

On May 6, 1842, an assailant shot Boggs through the window of his Independence home. Investigators traced the pistol to a local store. The storekeeper's account pointed toward a hired hand associated with Ward, an accomplished horseman from Nauvoo: Rockwell. He had arrived in Independence a couple of months earlier and left soon after the shooting. These details made him the likely would-be assassin, although the book presents that identification as a strong conclusion rather than a legally established finding.

The episode defines the relationship through proximity to Joseph's prophetic authority, but stops short of claiming that Joseph directed the attack. The book notes that faithful Mormons could regard helping a prophecy come to pass as a sacred duty; once Joseph had foretold Boggs's violent death, Rockwell needed no explicit instruction to act. This is the narrative's crucial qualification: the lack of a known order does not separate the attempt from Joseph's influence, but neither does the account prove that Joseph commissioned it. Rockwell evaded arrest, and neither he nor another Saint was brought to justice for the deed.

Bodyguard and escape companion

Rockwell's service was not confined to the Boggs affair. In June 1844, after the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor intensified hostility in Hancock County, Joseph mobilized the Nauvoo Legion and faced demands from Illinois governor Thomas Ford to surrender for prosecution. Joseph feared that transfer between non-Mormon authorities would expose him to an attack. Rather than surrender immediately, he and his brother Hyrum crossed the Mississippi River at night, rowed by Rockwell, and fled into Iowa with the intention of making for the Rocky Mountains.

The escape lasted only briefly. The next day, while the brothers waited for horses to continue west, Joseph received an urgent letter from Emma urging him to return. A messenger also told him that some Saints believed he had abandoned them. Joseph turned back to face prosecution, fearing the consequences. Rockwell's role in taking the brothers across the river places him at a decisive moment of flight, but the account does not say that he accompanied Joseph on the return crossing. The distinction matters: the evidence shows Rockwell as the means of escape, not as the person who decided whether Joseph would remain away.

Loyalty, violence, and reputation

The account of the Boggs shooting helped make Rockwell's devotion inseparable from a reputation for violence. It describes him as fearless and fiercely loyal to Joseph, and says he was becoming known for willingness to shed the blood of people who had wronged the church, an act understood by some as giving them an opportunity to atone. The names Destroying Angel and Mormon Samson condensed that reputation into a legend admired by some Mormons. In this portrayal, Rockwell's service could signify both protection of the prophet and the enforcement of a religious cause by violent means.

That reputation should not be mistaken for proof that every violent act was Joseph's decision. The book keeps the question of an order in the Boggs case open, while emphasizing the culture of prophetic expectation in which a follower might act without being told. The relationship therefore carries a tension between personal loyalty and institutional meaning: Rockwell appears as an individual agent, yet the interpretation of his actions is shaped by Joseph's prophecy and by the belief that faithful Saints could help fulfill it.

Joseph's death and Rockwell's final appearance

On June 28, 1844, twelve hours after Joseph was shot dead in Carthage Jail, Rockwell rode at full gallop toward Nauvoo. He shouted the news through the waking city. His arrival connects the private bond of bodyguard and prophet to the public crisis that followed Joseph's death. The Saints mourned and feared for the church's survival; Joseph had left no clear mechanism for choosing a successor, and rival claimants soon confronted the resulting leadership vacuum.

Rockwell's reported arrival is the relationship's final direct scene in this evidence. He had helped Joseph escape across the river when prosecution threatened, and he returned to Nauvoo carrying news that protection could no longer undo. The sequence gives the bond a stark arc: Rockwell first appears as a guardian capable of moving Joseph out of danger, then as the messenger announcing the prophet's death. His continuing legend as an enforcer cannot substitute for evidence about the private terms of their association, but the episodes show why the book treats him as more than a bodyguard: he stands where personal allegiance, prophetic power, and violence meet.