"All They Want is Hyrum" and Myself takes place in the upstairs bedroom of the Carthage Jail in Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844. This painting shows the moment when the Prophet leaped out the east window to save the lives of his brethren. A few days before the Martyrdom Joseph had said "All they want is Hyrum and myself " (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg 376). It was the belief of Willard Richards, and the artist, that the Prophet jumped out the window, not to save his own life, but to save the lives of his brethren. Clearly, there was death at the door, Joseph had just seen Hyrum shot through the thin panel and his body still lay on the floor. Clearly there was death at the window, John Taylor had just tried to leap from the window moments before, and had been shot four times. Balls were flying through the window, shattering the glass and the sill, but the Prophet still managed to cross the room, push himself up on the wide sill, and dive, probably head first, through the open bottom half of the window. All this was done against the force of the musket balls that pierced him twice in the back, once in the right collarbone, and once in the right breast.

In this image I tried to portray the moment of decision, where, looking back at the lone figure of Willard Richards beside the door, the Prophet decided that if he got out of the room, the mobbers would follow, and Richards and Taylor would have a chance to survive. He was correct, and as soon as he was out the window the mobbers in the jail rushed down the stairs and outside.

Willard Richards recounted "Joseph attempted, as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered the right breast from without, and he fell outward, exclaiming, 'O Lord, my God!' As his feet went out of the window, my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side, a dead man. At this instant the cry was raised, 'He's leaped the window!' and the mob on the stairs and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around General Smith's body."(Willard Richards, Two Minutes in Jail, Times and Seasons, Aug. 1, 1844, 5:598-99.)

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