Alex D. Smith, research historian with the Joseph Smith Papers Project in the LDS Church History Department, was a specialist in Nauvoo-era Mormon history when this was written. He has worked with early Mormon manuscripts for many years, first as a document editor and research historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History and more recently at the Church History Library. He was coeditor of the recently released The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Vol. 2, with Andrew H. Hedges and Richard Lloyd Anderson.