Forney's party tried to get information as they trekked south, reaching Cedar City on April 16. "But no one professed to have any knowledge of the massacre, " Rogers recalled, "except that they had heard itwas done by the Indians." Jacob Hamblin sent IraHatch, a talented Indian interpreter who hadprobably killed at least one of the Arkansans himself,to guide the men to the scene of the massacre.

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"Words cannot describe the horrible picture which was here presented to us," James Lynch wrote a few months after the mid-April visit to the massacre site. What he and the others saw in this beautiful alpine valley would haunt them to their graves: "Human skeletons, disjointed bones, ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles." The men found three mounds, evidence of "the careless attempt that had been made to bury the unfortunate victims." In a ravine by the side of the road, "a large number of leg and arm bones, and also skulls, could be seen sticking above the surface, as if they had been buried there," Rogers reported. They spent several hours burying a few of the exposed remains. "When I first passed through the place," Rogers later wrote, "I could walk for near a mile on bones, and skulls laying grinning at you, and women and children's hair in bunches as big as a bushel." The bones of children were lying by those of grown persons, "as if parent and child had met death at the same instant and with the same stroke." Lynch could not forget seeing the remains of those innocent victims of"avarice, fanatacism and cruelty," adding, "I have witnessed many harrowing sights on the fields of battle, but never did my heart thrill with such horrible emotions."

The day after visiting Mountain Meadows, Forney and his escort reached the Mormon settlement at Santa Clara, where they found 13 of the surviving children in the custody of Hamblin, who was just beginning his legendary career as a frontiersman and Indian interpreter for explorers such as John Wesley Powell. In his recollections, Lynch claimed he and a few men might have been sent ahead in disguise to find the children and determine what kind of reception awaited Forney. Fifty years later, Lynch remembered that Hamblin claimed some of the children were being held captive by the Indians. "Produce them or we will kill you," Lynch recalled saying while pistols and rifles were pointed at Hamblin's head. "He surrendered." (It's a wonderful story, but none of the contemporary reports— including that by Lynch—tell it.) After Forney arrived, the men spent three days at Santa Clara while clothing was made forthe children.

Eyewitnesses gave contradictory reports about the circumstances of the rescued children."The children when we firstsaw them were in a mostwretched and deplorable condition," James Lynch charged,"with little or no clothing, coveredwith fillth and dirt, theypresented a sight heart-rendingand miserable in the extreme."U.S. Army Major James Carletonsaid their captors "keptthese little ones barely alive."In contrast, William Rogersreported that all the childrenhad sore eyes but were otherwisewell, and Jacob Forneybelieved the children were wellcared for. He found them"happy and contented, exceptthose who were sick" andinsisted the orphans were inbetter condition than most ofthe children in the settlementsin which they lived.

Forney rejected a number of obviously fraudulent claims to repay ransoms allegedly paid to save the children, since it was well known that the children "did not live among the Indians one hour." He received other claims for the children's support and indignantly reported he would not "condescend to become the medium of even transmitting such claims"; however, he later authorized $2,961.77 to pay for the cost of the children's care.

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