"The editors of this two-volume collection combed public and private manuscript collections across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the [Mountain Meadows Massacre's] aftermath. The documents they unearthed, transcribed and presented here, cover a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre in 1857 to the dismissal of the last indictment against a perpetrator in 1896. Volume 1 tells the first half of the story: the records of the investigations into the massacre and transcriptions of all nine indictments, eight of which never resulted in a trial conviction. Volume 2 details the legal proceedings against the one man indicted to go to trial, John D. Lee. Lee’s trials led to his confession and conviction, and ultimately to his execution on the massacre site in 1877, all documented in Volume 2."--