Alma 43

So Alma’s sons went out to preach again. Alma, always the peripatetic, couldn’t help but tag along. Not much to say about their message. You know how it went. Doggedly fundamentalist, true to old-timey scripture and practices, straightlined and consistent with priestliness.

I enjoy writing about wars more than preaching. In the eighteenth year of the judges’ reign

the Zoramites turned into Lamanites and decided to rain blows on the Nephites, who rearmed and gathered in Jershon.

Thousands of Lamanites came to Antionum (Zoramite territory), led by Zerahemnah. Since Amalekites almost bled testosterone, Zerahemnah favored them as captains. Zoramites lacked the spittle for gore. And Amalekites hated better.

His plans, no surprise, ran the narrow spectrum from conquest to enslavement.

The Nephites, the presumptive white-hatters, fought only to defend what they owned, which included their wives and children, and the right to worship freely (or at least as freely as one can in a one-religion state). Lamanites would crush their faith like grapes.

There was the longlived bad blood, too, of course—especially to the Anti-Nephi-Lehites (a.k.a. Ammonites), who refused weaponry and effectively led themselves like lambs to any prospective slaughter. Nephites had to defend them or wallow in cultural guilt for negligence. The Ammonites paid them, of course, outfitted the armies of their defenders while they took the seeming high road of pacifism when Lamanites laid siege (“Lamanites” a collective term, remember, that included not only bloodlines of Laman and Lemuel, but also of Ishmael, estranged Nephites, Amalekites, Zoramites, and Priests-of-Noah-ites, all of which, combined, amounted to the population of the Nephites they wanted to destroy).

So, to recap: Lamanites in Antionum, Nephites in Jershon, the latter led by the twenty-five year old Captain Moroni, slightly mistitled, since he was more of a general, or even the secretary of defense. No one argued with him about killing people for self-defense.

“Defense,” of course, in the broader sense of pre-emptive strikes. He and the army attacked Lamanites at the Jershon border, slicing them up with swords, bashing skulls with clubs and maces. Fortunately, they themselves wore helmets, breastplates, and arm-shields, all atop thick clothing. The Ammonites spared no expense for their surrogates.

Most of the Lamanites armies were next to naked. A little loin cloth, which had no effect but a pretense of modesty. It couldn’t even protect what lay beneath it. So superior numbers meant little. The majority normally wins, yes, but only if the minority is as naked as the majority.

Predictably, the Lamanites backed off, camping in the woods and brushland along the Sidon River till they hit Manti, where they hoped Moroni wouldn’t find them.

But he did. (Remember: history is always written by the winners.) He sent spies to watch them in Manti and asked Alma to check with God on what the Nephites should do. The answer? Lamanites were drilling their troops in the wilds, readying to attack. So Moroni took some of his troops from Jershon and headed to Manti, where he gave pep talks on rallying to withstand the insurgents.

He then hid with his troops in the valley near Sidon River. Scouts watched for advancing Lamanites.

Moroni, might I add, had convinced himself of the justness of any killing they might have to do in the name of freedom and prosperity.

Even the best of potential kings were not good enough for Nephites. They wanted a laissez-faire government. And that was worth some mayhem, if needed.

So he split his army again and hid half of them on the south of the hill Riplah and the rest in the west valley. (I wish I could scratch a decent map onto these plates: I’m not that good.) Lamanites marched up Riplah and started to cross the river. Soon they were surrounded by both flanks of Moroni’s army. They fought to their rear, where an officer named Lehi commanded the subset of the Nephite army.

I’ve already mentioned the army vs. partial nudity discrepancy. You know who got the worst of it. The Nephites came up with a clever euphemism for their slaughter: “the work of death.” Meaning, um, (a) killing is hard work and (b) killing is a kind of calling to which one aspires. (I didn’t say it was a good euphemism, just clever.)

The unarmored Lamanites that survived the bloodbath ran toward the river. Lehi’s soldiers ran them into into it. Moroni’s men stood on the opposite side and started hacking them to death in the water. Praise God.

To their credit, truth be told, the Lamanites fought back hardily. They even shoved swords in the unarmored spaces or pushed them, in some cases, into the armor itself.

Still … really. Come on. It was disgusting. As they chopped off Lamanite heads, Nephites thought of how glorious was their cause: true religion. If the church had many members, they defended their membership by dismemberment. This was a duty to God, they reasoned. And hadn’t God said, “After the second offense of an enemy, you have my blessing to hack them limb from limb.” Or something like that. I forget the reference.

Still, some Nephites started to desert the field, given the Lamanites’ ferocity defending themselves against the God-defending carnage. Moroni speechified as best he could, convincing people to go back and fight for their lands, houses, wives, and scriptures. Oh, and freedom.

Amid the screams of pain you could hear the Nephites singing to God in praise for their victory. Lamanites kept fleeing—the lucky ones, that is. As they ran, they had to hop over—or step on—mushy corpses.

The combined armies of so-called Lamanites had started with about twice the number of their opponents. Now, with the relatively few survivors standing in the river begging for their lives, Moroni said “enough.” And the Lord smiled.