Excerpts from a vision received by John Taylor and related by Excerpts from a vision received by John Taylor and related by Wilford Woodruff: I [John Taylor] then looked over the country; in every direction as far as I could see, a similar condition prevailed. I then passed eastward above the earth and looking down saw many people coming west, mostly women who were carrying small bundles on their backs, and I thought it strange that there were so few men among them. They were on their way to the mountains, and I wondered how they could get there as the railroads were abandoned and the rails were in bad condition. I continued on my way passing through Omaha, Council Bluffs, and Iowa, and saw many women moving about in an excited manner. Sickness and death prevailed on all sides. The inhabitants of Illinois and Missouri were in dreadful condition, the men and women killing each other in the most brutal manner. Next I visited the city of Washington, D.C., and found the place deserted and in ruins. From there I went to Baltimore and on the square, where stands the monument of 1812, dead bodies of the inhabitants [14] of the place were piled in heaps. While there I saw mothers cut the throats of their own children and drink the blood in order to quench their thirst. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay were so befouled from the effect of dead bodies that the water could not be used. Sickness and death prevailed throughout the city and the stench was something awful. I thought surely that this must be the end of suffering, but when I visited the city of Philadelphia, I found the place in ruins and the smell from dead bodies was beyond anything one could imagine. (See Visions of the Latter Days, Kraut, pp. 103-107.)   http://ogdenkraut.com/?page_id=30