These confessions were written shortly before the execution of the author for the Mountain Meadows massacre. He intended them as a vindication of his part in that massacre, which he claimed was in accord with the will of God. He shows amply that that wholesale murder was of a kind with the previous history of the Mormon Church; and that he was given over by the ecclesiastical authorities only because the government at Washington was determined on vengeance against the Mormon body. He shows that he acted under the orders of his superiors in the Mormon hierarchy in the Mountain Meadows affair; and that his actions were endorsed by the hierarchy for years after its occurrence, until those authorities feared to do so any longer.

One of the most appalling things about these confessions is the picture they give of man's capacity to fall while thinking apparently that he is doing right. His degrading creed, accepted with rankest fanaticism, leads him to strangle the most fundamental impulses to the right. He will lie, cheat, deceive, murder a Gentile ruthlessly as doing God's will, voiced through his superiors in the Mormon priesthood. One of the most useful features of the book is its exhibition of the genius of Mormonism as incarnated in the author. John D. Lee was a typical Mormon, a favorite of Joseph Smith and of Brigham Young... see him see it.

When first published, it said that Brigham Young did all he could to buy up and destroy the copies of his confessions. But certain copies escaped; and the Home Protection Publishing Co. has done well to republish them, under the title of "The Mormon Menace".