The attempted assassination of Lilburn Boggs took place on May 6, 1842, in Independence, Missouri, after Joseph Smith had publicly prophesied that the former governor would die violently within a year. Boggs survived the attack, but the suspected assailant, Porter Rockwell, escaped arrest. The episode brought together a prophet’s words, the violence of the Missouri conflict, and a community’s belief that prophecy could impose duties on its followers—even when no direct order had been given.

Background and Prophecy

Boggs remained an adversary of the Mormons after they were driven from Missouri. Although Joseph Smith had escaped from jail, criminal charges against him were still pending in the state, and he was considered a fugitive. A bounty had been placed on him. On at least two occasions, Missouri sheriffs traveled to Illinois with writs for his arrest.

In May 1841, a sheriff’s posse surprised Joseph outside Nauvoo and arrested him. The posse nearly carried him across the state border before he obtained his release through a writ of habeas corpus. The close call intensified his anger at the continuing threat of extradition. Soon afterward, in a public speech, he predicted that Boggs, whom the Saints despised as their nemesis, would “die by violent hands within one year.” The prophecy preceded the attack by about a year and gave the shooting an immediate religious and political context.

The Attack in Independence

On the evening of May 6, 1842, Boggs was reading a newspaper in the study of his home in Independence. A gunman outside fired through a window, striking him four times. His injuries were severe enough that those around him expected him to die, and newspapers across the country reported his death. The shooting was therefore understood not only as an assault on a former governor but also as a possible fulfillment of Joseph’s prediction.

The first tangible clue was the handgun found outside the study, discarded in a puddle. Investigators traced it to a local store, where it had recently been stolen. The storekeeper recalled a hired worker associated with Ward who had come to inspect the pistol shortly before it went missing. That worker was Porter Rockwell, a skilled horseman from Nauvoo who had arrived in Independence a couple of months before the shooting. After Boggs was attacked, Rockwell quietly left town.

Suspicion and Escape

The country’s newspapers often speculated that a Mormon had tried to fulfill Joseph’s prophecy. The account identifies Rockwell as almost certainly the would-be assassin, but the case remained circumstantial: the stolen pistol, his connection to its theft, his presence in Independence, and his departure after the shooting pointed toward him without resulting in an arrest. Rockwell eluded capture, and neither he nor any other Saint was ever brought to justice for the attack.

Rockwell’s reputation gave the suspicion particular force. He was fiercely devoted to Joseph and feared little; he was already becoming known for willingness to shed the blood of people believed to have wronged the church. Admirers would call him the “Destroying Angel” and the “Mormon Samson,” names that made him a figure of religious legend as well as a suspected gunman. The book nevertheless distinguishes suspicion from proof and leaves open whether Joseph had ordered the attack: he may not have done so. Its account instead emphasizes the belief among the faithful that Saints had a sacred duty to help bring a prophet’s predictions to pass when the opportunity arose. In that understanding, a prophecy could be treated as a summons without anyone having to issue an explicit command.

Survival and Significance

Reports of Boggs’s death proved premature. He recovered from his serious injuries, so the prophecy was not fulfilled as the newspapers initially claimed. Yet the shooting remained a striking convergence of prediction, violence, and suspicion: it appeared to validate Joseph’s words while also attaching a violent act to a follower whose actions may not have been formally directed by the prophet.

The episode unfolded while Nauvoo was expanding and new converts were arriving from places as distant as England and Scandinavia. Against that growth, the attack exposed the unresolved hostility carried over from Missouri and the perilous overlap between religious authority and political conflict. Its central ambiguity is consequential: Joseph had foretold Boggs’s violent death, Rockwell was widely suspected of trying to bring it about, and no Saint was prosecuted. The narrative presents that gap between prophecy, perceived religious duty, and demonstrable command as part of the story, rather than resolving it into proof of an order.