In early September, 1857, a train arrived at Mountain Meadows in southwestern Utah, where beginning early on the morning of September 7 its camp was attacked by Mormon militiamen and some Paiute Indians whom the Mormons had recruited. During a five-day siege, attackers killed at least 10 emigrant men who fought to defend their families and friends, and the emigrants held off their assailants until September 11, when the militiamen entered the encampment under a white flag of truce. With the emigrants nearly out of ammunition and almost unable to continue the fight, the militiamen deceived them into surrendering their weapons and property with a promise of protection, then separated them into three groups and escorted them from the camp, saying they would be taken to a nearby settlement. After moving over a mile, on a prearranged signal, militiamen killed the unarmed emigrant men, older boys, and some of the wounded, while Mormons, some disguised as Indians, and Paiutes emerged from hiding and within minutes massacred most of the remaining emigrants, including women who were trying to protect their children and flee. The dead were stripped of their bloody clothing and left without decent burial, and about 130 men, women, and children lay dead at the meadows. In May of 1859, U.S. Army soldiers searched the meadows, gathered scattered bones and other remains, and buried them. After efforts by Arkansas State Senator William C. Mitchell, Arkansas senators Sebastian and Johnson, and Congressman Alfred B. Greenwood, and with help from Captain James Lynch and others, seventeen surviving children were found in Utah by the spring of 1859 and placed in the custody of Dr. Jacob Forney, superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah Territory. Fifteen were escorted from Salt Lake City to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, by the U.S. military with civilian support staff, then taken in ox-drawn wagons by Mitchell and other Arkansas relatives to Carrollton, where they were delivered to relatives and friends; in January of 1860, two older survivors who had been kept in Utah as possible witnesses were also brought to Carrollton and turned over to Mitchell for placement. Nine survivors spent part of their youth in what is now Boone County and five in what is now Carroll County, and two children of emigrant fathers who were killed but had not gone west grew up with family members in Boone and Marion counties. Seventeen years after the massacre, a grand jury indicted nine Mormon men for crimes related to the siege and massacre, but only John D. Lee was brought to trial, convicted, and executed by firing squad at Mountain Meadows on March 23, 1877.