Haun’s Mill Massacre 1938: Everything Under The Banner Of Heaven Leaves Out

Under the Banner of Heaven episode 3 depicts the real-life Haun's Mill massacre of 1938, though several key details of the slaughter are omitted.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Under the Banner of Heaven episode 3.

FX on Hulu’s Under the Banner of Heaven flashes back to the real-life Haun’s Mill Massacre of 1938, but the series leaves out many important details of the true story. Based on the true story of Brenda Lafferty’s 1984 murder, Under the Banner of Heaven features many connections to the real-life instances of Mormon violence that set a horrifying precedent for the actions in the crime series. As such, conversations between Andrew Garfield’s Detective Jeb Pyre and the Lafferty brothers often include flashbacks to such events in Mormon history, with many depicting massacres either done to or on behalf of the Latter-day Saints.

Just as Under the Banner of Heaven episodes 1 and 2 included the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, episode 3 flashes back to the brutal Haun’s Mill Massacre of 1838. However, while Under the Banner of Heaven‘s Mountain Meadows was a much more deadly massacre of settlers by a Mormon militia, Haun’s Mill was a massacre of Latter-day Saints on behalf of a Missouri militia under the Mormon Extermination Order. The real-life event was truly as brutal as Under the Banner of Heaven episode 3 depicts, but the short recollection of the Haun’s Mill massacre doesn’t include all of the important historic details.

Under the Banner of Heaven episode 3 made sure to include that the Haun’s Mill massacre saw a Missouri militia murder a Mormon settlement working in a field, with the Latter-day Saints gathering into a building where the guns of the militiamen slaughtered them all with no chance of escape. The series also depicts the most brutal aspect, which saw three boys, aged 7, 9, and 10, all executed after they had hidden from the initial slaughter. However, this does not reflect the full story. In the events of Haun’s Mill massacre that Under the Banner of Heaven‘s true story leaves out, 17 of the Mormons on the field died, with one man surviving by playing dead, where he heard all of the conversations had by the Missouri militiamen. The man, William Champlin, survived a few days after the slaughter before being captured and subsequently released. This shows that, for all its realism, Under the Banner of Heaven does occasionally deviate from established historical fact.

One significant detail that Under the Banner of Heaven episode 3 leaves out from the true Haun’s Mill massacre is that Mormonism founder Joseph Smith had sent messages to the farm beforehand, urging those living there to leave the area and head west. However, Jacob Hawn never relayed the word to the other Mormons, as he had apparently been told by Smith that if they could maintain the mill, they could do as they please and stay. As such, the remaining Latter-day Saints at the mill weren’t aware that Smith had counseled them to move Far West amidst the extermination order in Missouri, with Smith later writing that had Hawn followed his order, these lives would have been saved. As Under the Banner of Heaven’s Jeb Pyre explains, Joseph Smith didn’t take up arms against the Missouri militia after this event, with the majority of remaining Mormons soon leaving the area.

The series also leaves out the context of the real-life Haun’s Mill massacre as part of the ongoing 1938 Missouri Mormon War, which saw multiple battles and massacres of the Mormon people by Missouri militiamen. The first of which, The Battle of Crooked River, was fought between Mormons and non-Mormons and led to the initial Mormon Extermination Order, with the second fatal event being the Haun’s Mill massacre. However, the massacre that Under the Banner of Heaven‘s Jeb Pyre recalls is more notable for being the bloodiest of the two, as the first fight only saw three deaths compared to the second’s 17. Following the Haun’s Mill Massacre, Joseph Smith surrendered to the Missouri militia, which aligns with Under the Banner of Heaven’s statement that the leader was thereafter focused on preserving Mormon lives.