It has been described as one of the finest expressions of human compassions in American history. In 1839, the Mormons were a people in flight, having been ordered out of the state of Missouri by the edict of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. More than 7,000 refugees were forced to flee in the dead of winter—and where could they go? Who would take them in? They came to the only arms open to them. The citizens of Quincy, Illinois, opened their homes and hearts to a people in perilous straits—the Mormons. This is the seldom-told story of one of the greatest rescues in nineteenth-century American history.