During years of research for their 2008 book Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy, authors Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard and their colleagues uncovered a great deal of information about the 1857 massacre, leading to a clearer understanding of how this tragedy happened. Among the materials they found were two major collections known but largely unavailable to previous researchers.

In this volume, images of the original documents are accompanied by typed transcriptions, which reproduce original spelling, punctuation, strikethroughs, and inserted words or characters.

Introductory text explains how each document collection came to be, how the Church came to possess these materials, and where they were archived.

Brief biographical sketches introduce the individuals who provided the information that appears in the document collections.