[DavidAdams]

Porter Rockwell was dubbed the "Destroying Angel," but he was definitely a bona fide law man. But you're right that there is some evidence that he was also kind of the frontier version of a James Bond type secret service or special forces operative with a license to kill. And his boss was Brigham Young, who was a bit drunk on power. Mountain Meadows is absolutely a disgrace and a scandal that should (and does) taint the reputations of Young and other Mormon leaders of the time, but it's more understandable once you consider the greater context of the Utah war. The Utahns were paranoid and on high alert. And Brigham Young in particular was concerned about being deposed and jailed, so he had an interest in keeping people whipped up.

[swatcoder]

It's an interesting aspect of studying history that you can watch time and peace turn a mass murder into a "disgrace" and "scandal" that "taints reputations" but is "understandable in context". Those may be fair and uncontroversial words with 150 years of remove, but would obviously not have gone over well nearer the time of massacre itself.