Modern anti-Mormons have to find some way to explain how a book with so many ancient connections, that has influenced the lives of millions of people, could have come from Joseph Smith by any way other than revelation from God.

One of their newer rationalizations is that Joseph Smith may have used The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain as a source for the Book of Mormon. This theory depends entirely on assumption.

There is no evidence that Joseph Smith ever owned, read, studied, or used The Late War. And even if he had read it, and even if all of the weak parallels are accepted, it still does not account for any of the doctrine or even a tiny fraction of the main ideas and storyline of the Book of Mormon.

What Was The Late War?

The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain was written in 1816 by Gilbert J. Hunt as an account of the War of 1812. It was designed to teach children about patriotism and the major events of the war.

The book was deliberately written in King James-style English and uses biblical parallels along the way, such as comparing Congress to the Great Sanhedrin.

It jumps through the major events of the War of 1812 in rough chronological order and includes information about American patriots James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Stephen Decatur, Oliver Hazard Perry, William Henry Harrison, James Lawrence, Isaac Hull, William Bainbridge, and Thomas Macdonough. It is not a character-driven story but is a patriotic war summary that moves between major war events while presenting American leaders, soldiers, and sailors in a heroic, Bible-style narrative.

Chapters and Verses

The Late War was divided into chapters and verses, like the Bible, so it could be more easily studied by students in school.

An irony of this supposed connection of the use of verses between the Late War and the Book of Mormon is that the original 1830 printing of the Book of Mormon had no marked verses and far fewer chapters. The modern chapter and verse divisions we use in the Book of Mormon today were not added until 1879, decades after Joseph Smith died.

There is no evidence that The Late War was widely circulated or that it was ever used as a schoolbook anywhere near Joseph Smith. There were three editions published in 1816, 1817, and 1819. It is estimated that between all three editions there was about 4,500 total copies printed, but there are no known sales records proving exact distribution.

Anti-Mormon Claims About The Late War

Claims that Joseph Smith stole portions of the Book of Mormon as a reference for the Book of Mormon from The Late War did not first appear until 2013.

Nobody in Joseph Smith’s lifetime ever made this connection. We have no record that any of the people who owned copies of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain ever associated it or any connections with the Book of Mormon text.

Test Enough Books, You’ll Find a Few Matches

The claim that The Late War may have been a source text for the Book of Mormon was created by ex-Mormons Chris and Duane Johnson using computerized word studies. They searched approximately 100,000 pre-1830 books, looking for shared four-word phrases, or “4-grams,” between the Book of Mormon and other texts.

According to this study, the Book of Mormon and The Late War shared 549 distinct four-word locutions. After applying additional filters for phrases they considered rare, and after attempting to remove biblical matches, the Johnsons claimed there were over 100 “rare” four-word matches between the two books.

That sounds impressive until you realize what is actually being compared.

We are not talking about copied paragraphs., sermons, doctrine, story structure, characters, or copied themes. Just four-word fragments.

Their conclusion was that, because of these similar word sequences, The Late War “may have” been a source Joseph Smith used, despite no historical evidence that Joseph ever owned, read, studied, or used it.

These anti-Mormons searched 100,000 books looking for a naturalistic source candidate for the Book of Mormon. After all that, the best result they could produce was a Bible-style war book that shares short four-word phrases with another book written in Bible-style English that includes significant content about war.

Their claim was that this made the Book of Mormon 99.999% closer to The Late War than to any other book in the study.

Well, yeah.

They ran a computer test on 100,000 books, and this was the one that produced the most four-word sequence parallels. That is not shocking. Both books use King James-style English. The Late War is literally about war, and much of the Book of Mormon also includes war chapters. On top of that, many of the four-word matches are short biblical-style phrases that sound exactly like the Bible.

The study does not show strong parallels in sections, content, doctrine, themes, story structure, or actual extended text. It shows that, after searching approximately 100,000 books, they found two books from a similar language environment with roughly 550 shared four-word locutions, and a smaller set of “rare” four-word matches after applying their filters.

Where Does the other 99.18% of the Book of Mormon Come From?

Even if every one of those 549 four-word clusters were counted as separate words with no overlap, that would only be 2,196 words Joseph Smith stole from the Late War for the Book of Mormon. Compared against the roughly 269,000-word Book of Mormon, that is only 0.82% of the text. And that number overstates the overlap because many four-word sequences overlap with each other and are exactly the same as phrases used in the King James Bible.

That is a tiny overlap of short phrase fragments that are not surprising at all when you consider how many books they went through to find “the best match”.

This method does not provide evidence of plagiarism. And even if it was, how do you account for the remaining 99.18% of the words in the Book of Mormon?

Replicating 4 Consecutive Word Clusters

So how hard is it to find books written in a somewhat similar style that have matching four-word phrases?

Not hard at all.

Books The Wizard of Oz Apparently Plagiarized

I had ChatGPT run four-word phrase comparisons using public domain books against The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The first book I tested it against was The Princess and the Goblin.

Those two books share 490 unique four-word phrases. That is slightly less than the 549 four-word locutions found between the Book of Mormon and The Late War, but the raw number is misleading because the Book of Mormon is much longer. When the size of each subject book is considered, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has a much higher density of shared four-word phrases with The Princess and the Goblin than the Book of Mormon has with The Late War.

If we count those 490 shared four-word phrases as 1,960 possible overlapping words, that would equal 4.9% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Common four-word phrase matches include:

  • in the middle of
  • the middle of the
  • the top of the
  • on the other side
  • I should like to
  • in her arms and
  • the rest of the
  • as if she were
  • did not know what
  • I will tell you
  • in the midst of
  • to go to the
  • at the end of
  • in a few minutes
  • what shall we do

Okay, maybe I just got lucky with my first try.

Comparing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Peter Pan.

Those two books share 334 unique four-word phrases.

The 1,336 possible overlapping words equal about 3.3% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Comparing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with The Secret Garden.

Those two books share 606 unique four-word phrases.

That would equal about 6.1% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So does this mean The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sourced phrases from The Princess and the Goblin, Peter Pan, and The Secret Garden?

Or is “in the middle of” just a common phrase that multiple authors happened to use without ever looking at or even referencing the other books?

Using this kind of four-word methodology, you either have to believe the literary world is full of plagiarizing plagiarizers stealing common phrases and filler words from each other, or you have to accept that this is just how the English language works. When different writers talk about similar subjects using similar writing styles, four-word phrase matches are natural.

Being that the Book of Mormon is substantially longer than any of these sample books, giving it far more total words with which to potentially create matches. The percentage of matches is substantially less than the comparison books with the Wizard of Oz.

Subject book Comparison book Subject book word count Shared 4-word phrases Possible shared words Shared-word percentage of subject book
Book of Mormon The Late War 269,320 549 2,196 0.82%
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Princess and the Goblin 40,001 490 1,960 4.90%
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Peter Pan 40,001 334 1,336 3.34%
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Secret Garden 40,001 606 2,424 6.06%

The Book of Mormon has roughly 269,000 words and shares about 549 distinct four-word locutions with the Late War. Even if every one of those were counted as four separate words, that would be 2,196 words. That equals only about 0.82% of the Book of Mormon.

And that still overstates the overlap because many four-word sequences can overlap with each other, and many are ordinary biblical-style phrases.

So when anti-Mormons claim that The Late War is 99.999% closer to the Book of Mormon than any other book in the Johnson study, put things in perspective. After searching approximately 100,000 books, the best candidate they could produce for four word connections was a Bible-style war book that has less than 1 percent of four-word fragments shared.

While this is not evidence of plagiarism, it is evidence that two books using King James-style English can share short phrases. And what it really shows how weak the source theory really is. After searching 100,000 books, critics still could not find a known text that even remotely explains the Book of Mormon’s message, structure, doctrine, themes, or content.

The Matching Four-Word Sequences

Now lets look at some of the matching phrases between the Book of Mormon and the Late War. Let’s see if this is where Joseph got his key ideas from it.

# Phrase Why it sounds biblical
1 and it came to Lead-in to the classic biblical phrase “and it came to pass.” which reflects the compact Hebrew narrative form vayehi (וַיְהִי), providing evidence that the Book of Mormon derives from an ancient translated record.
2 they gathered themselves together Common biblical battle, council, or assembly language.
3 a by-word among all Close to Old Testament judgment language.
4 hearkened unto the counsel “Hearken unto” is classic KJV phrasing.
5 and a part thereof Uses “thereof,” a common KJV legal and narrative word.
6 about twenty and four Biblical numbering uses this style instead of “twenty-four.”
7 and slew seven of “Slew” is biblical battle language. Seven is a symbolic Hebrew number.
8 wist not what to Direct KJV phrase structure.
9 women and your children Biblical family-group phrasing.
10 they humbled themselves and Scriptural repentance language.
11 the word of the Common KJV-style phrase used in “the word of the Lord,” “the word of the king,” etc.
12 it came to pass One of the most recognizable KJV-style narrative clauses. Many instances from the Hebrew Bible are not actually included in the King James Version.
13 according to the word Common scriptural wording for obedience, prophecy, fulfillment, or commandment.
14 the land of their Old Testament territorial or inheritance language.
15 from the face of Common biblical phrasing for removal, scattering, or fleeing.
16 the sword of the Strong biblical battle phrasing, especially in judgment or war scenes.
17 in the midst of Very common KJV phrase for people, cities, armies, or divine presence.
18 the children of men Direct biblical phrase used for humanity.
19 in the land of Common scriptural geography phrase.
20 according to their numbers Biblical-sounding census, army, or tribal-count language.

Can someone really look at this list of four-word parallels and believe the “high” rate of connections is because of plagiarism rather than shared biblical language?

These are a few of the obvious four-word connections that are plainly related to shared King James-style phrasing. The connections are based on historical writing style, not shared content, ideas, or storyline.

A four-word overlap can happen because two writers are using the same English style.

For example, “and it came to” is a four-word match. But it proves almost nothing by itself because it is just the lead-in to “and it came to pass.”

But What About the 2000 Stripling Warriors!

The “big” rare connection that anti Mormons like to use to convince people of plagiarism is that both books have an account that mentions 2,000 people going to battle.

The Late War says:

“Immediately Jackson took two thousand hardy men, who were called volunteers, because they had, unsolicited, offered their services to their country, and led them against the savages.

Now the men of war who followed after him were mostly from the state of Tennessee, and men of dauntless courage.”

So which is more likely?

That two books both used the round number 2,000 to describe an approximate group of soldiers going into battle?

Or that “two thousand hardy men” is evidence that Joseph Smith copied this account to create the story of the Stripling Warriors, even though The Late War says nothing about mothers teaching them faith, young men fighting because their fathers had made a covenant not to take up weapons, Helaman leading them, their exact obedience, their miraculous preservation, or every one of them being wounded but none of them dying?

The supposed parallel is just a round number attached to soldiers. It is barely even a similarity.

Now, if there were actual evidence that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source, and if there were something unique or unusual about a group of 2,000 soldiers going into battle, then maybe this argument might have a little bit of merit.

But neither of those things is true.

There is no evidence Joseph Smith used The Late War, and there is nothing unique about the number 2,000 in military history. Groups of around 2,000 soldiers show up all over the place.

Date War / conflict Battle or military event 2,000-men reference
1460 Wars of the Roses Battle of Sandwich A Yorkist force of about 2,000 men landed in Kent.
1485 Wars of the Roses Bosworth Field campaign Henry Tudor landed in Wales before Bosworth Field with around 2,000 men.
1776 American Revolutionary War Battle of Trenton Accounts of the campaign refer to 2,000 men.
1777–1778 American Revolutionary War Valley Forge encampment Valley Forge records describe roughly 2,000 men dying during the encampment.
1781 American Revolutionary War Battle of Cowpens The Battle of Cowpens involved more than 2,000 men.
1814 War of 1812 / Creek War Battle of Horseshoe Bend The National Park Service uses “about 2,000 men” in its account.
1862 American Civil War Battle of Pea Ridge Civil War accounts refer to losses of about 2,000 men.
1944 World War II Rapido River assault WWII accounts refer to more than 2,000 men lost in just two days.

Did the the Late War copy 2,000 soldiers for it’s book from the Wars of Roses and the Revolutionary war? Or might there just have been about 2,000 brave men who battled.

A Few Common Word Sequences or Six Assumptions?

Understanding that it’s the KJV-style that explains the number of four word parallels only requires one fact:

Both The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain and the Book of Mormon use King James-style biblical English.

The plagiarism source text theory requires several extra assumptions:

  1. Joseph somehow encountered The Late War.
  2. He remembered or had access to its exact phrase wording even though there is no record he ever had it.
  3. He used a few of the scattered four-word phrases but not so many to make the plagiarism obvious.
  4. He ignored its actual main themes and structure of the late war, but only focused on the phrases.
  5. He converted patriotic War of 1812 language into an unrelated ancient religious record.
  6. He did this without leaving any historical trace, and nobody discovered it until 187 years later.

Or could it be that both books are utilizing the same King James Bible-style language world?

The Content of The Late War vs. The Book of Mormon

The anti-Mormon argument about The Late War avoids using the full title: The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain because the alone pretty much discredits the plagiarism claims.

If anyone realizes that the Late War is a book about the War of 1812 they immediately realize that it has almost nothing to do with the content of the Book of Mormon. These are two totally different books with different purposes.

If Joseph Smith were sourcing The Late War, or even using it as a reference for ideas, would we not expect the content or themes to match?

I had ChatGPT to break down the 10 main themes of The Late War. If Joseph Smith were plagiarizing it, surely we would find major common parallels.

This is what it concluded:

The Late War is about America defending itself against Britain, patriotic honor, military courage, national memory, using a biblical-style retelling of the War of 1812.

The 10 main themes and ideas of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain are:

# Theme Explanation
1 American patriotism The book presents the United States as a young, noble nation defending its rights and honor.
2 The War of 1812 as a moral struggle The war is not treated as just politics or military conflict. It is framed as a righteous national cause.
3 Britain as the aggressor Britain is portrayed as oppressive, arrogant, and unjust toward America.
4 Liberty versus tyranny The book repeatedly contrasts American freedom with British power and domination.
5 Heroic American leaders Figures like James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Stephen Decatur, Oliver Hazard Perry, and others are treated as national heroes.
6 Military courage and sacrifice The book emphasizes soldiers, sailors, battles, victories, defeats, wounds, death, and bravery.
7 Naval victories and national pride American success at sea is a major focus, especially because the young nation was fighting the powerful British navy.
8 Providence over national events It uses biblical language to make the war feel like part of a larger moral order as part of a divine cause.
9 National memory and education It was meant to teach Americans, especially young readers, the major events and heroes of the War of 1812.
10 Biblical-style storytelling applied to modern history The book’s most distinctive feature is its King James-style language, using phrases like “it came to pass” and comparisons like Congress as the “Great Sanhedrin.”

I then asked ChatGPT to determine the 10 main themes of the Book of Mormon.

# Theme Explanation
1 Jesus Christ is the Savior The central message is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, and the only way to salvation.
2 Faith, repentance, baptism, and enduring to the end The book repeatedly teaches the doctrine of Christ: believe in Him, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and remain faithful.
3 God keeps His covenants The Lord remembers His promises to Israel, including Lehi’s descendants, the Jews, and all who enter into covenant with Him.
4 The scattering and gathering of Israel The book repeatedly teaches that Israel would be scattered because of unbelief and later gathered through Christ and His gospel.
5 Pride leads to destruction Nephite and Jaredite history repeatedly shows that prosperity often leads to pride, pride leads to wickedness, and wickedness leads to collapse.
6 Prophets warn before destruction God sends prophets to call people to repentance before judgment comes. Rejecting prophets is one of the clearest signs of spiritual decline.
7 Revelation and scripture preserve truth The brass plates, Nephi’s plates, Mormon’s abridgment, and Moroni’s record all show that God preserves scripture to teach future generations.
8 Agency and accountability People are free to choose liberty and eternal life through Christ or captivity and death through the devil. Choices bring real consequences.
9 Secret combinations destroy societies The book warns that hidden groups seeking power, murder, and gain can corrupt governments and bring nations down.
10 God works with all nations and peoples The Book of Mormon teaches that God speaks to more than one nation, remembers all His children, and brings forth witnesses of Christ from different peoples.

None of the top 10 themes of either book are even close to matching.

The supposed parallels between the Book of Mormon and The Late War are so weak that they are almost laughable.

Other than a similar English writing style, the subject and intent of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain have almost nothing to do with the main themes of the Book of Mormon:

The one partially similar theme is that the author of The Late War believed the cause of liberty and freedom was favored by Providence.

As Latter-day Saints, we believe that freedom and liberty are part of God’s work. We believe Columbus was inspired to come to America, that early settlers were led here, and that the Revolutionary War was won through Providence and the divine hand of God.

So if freedom and liberty really are divine causes, especially because they allow people to worship God according to conscience, then it makes sense that both books would include that theme.

Both books touch on a truth that Latter-day Saints believe is eternal: God prepares nations, opens doors, and preserves liberty so His work can move forward.

Conclusion

Are we really supposed to believe that Joseph Smith used The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain as a source for a few prepositional phrases and a tiny percentage of four-word connections, most of which are just common biblical phraseology?

When there are this few meaningful parallels, and this few real connections, it is not only unlikely that Joseph Smith plagiarized portions of The Late War. It would actually be harder to use The Late War as a source while only borrowing insignificant phrases and avoiding its actual content, purpose, and ideas.

The amount of blind faith required to believe that The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain was a source for the Book of Mormon, when there is zero historical evidence, is astounding.

It is shocking that any competent anti-Mormon would still reference this argument today.

The tiny, minuscule connections between four-word sequences, found only after comparing 100,000 different books using the same methodology, are best explained by the obvious fact that both books use King James-style writing.

If this is the strongest evidence the word study can produce for plagiarism, then the entire anti-Mormon source theory is built on a desperate foundation of dry sand. It does not include historical evidence, textual dependence, copied doctrine, matching structure, or meaningful shared content.

Believing that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source for the Book of Mormon requires far more faith than believing he translated it by the gift and power of God.

CES Letter Claims that The Book of Mormon Sourced the Late War

The main reason people take The Late War seriously as a “source for the Book of Mormon” is because it appears in the CES Letter with carefully manipulative framing.

If you do not already know what The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain actually is, and if you do not know that roughly 100,000 books were searched to find the one with the most four-word connections, then the accusation can sound much stronger than it is.

All the reader sees is a list of carefully selected parallels, presented in a way that makes the connection feel obvious. It gives the impression that Jeremy Runnells read The Late War, personally found these meaningful similarities, and uncovered a credible source for the Book of Mormon.

CES Letter claim/framing Why the framing is manipulative or untruthful
1. The Late War was a school textbook used in Joseph Smith’s environment. This makes access sound proven when it is not. The book was adapted for school use, but that does not prove that it was used in Joseph Smith’s school, owned by his family, read by him, or even common in his immediate area. “Available somewhere in New York” is not the same as “Joseph used it.”
2. The Late War was written in King James-style English, just like the Book of Mormon. This demonstrates the obvious explanation for the connections: The Late War was intentionally imitating the Bible. If two books both use KJV-style language, short shared biblical phrases are expected. That does not prove one copied the other.
3. The first chapter of The Late War sounds incredibly like the Book of Mormon. “Sounds like” is subjective. The similarity is tone and style, the content is completely different.

The first chapter opens with James Madison, sending a written message to Congress. It lays out America’s complaints against Britain: interference with American ships, seizure of sailors, restrictions on trade, British aggression, and support for Native attacks on the frontier.
4. Both books use phrases like “it came to pass.” This is one of the weakest claims because “it came to pass” is a biblical formula. Its presence proves biblical imitation, not dependence on The Late War. The CES Letter frames common Bible language as if it were a unique fingerprint.
5. Both books contain four-word phrase matches. Four-word matches are too short to prove borrowing by themselves. Many of the matches are fragments of biblical-style wording, such as “and it came to,” “in the midst of,” or “the children of men.” Four-word overlap is found in every book with similar writing style.
6. Computer analysis found unusual similarities between The Late War and the Book of Mormon. This sounds more scientific than it really is if the reader is not told what was measured. The study focused on four-word sequences, not textual dependence. The four word matches account for less than 1% of all the content in the Book of Mormon.
7. The Late War and the Book of Mormon both talk about wars, armies, weapons, liberty, and nations. These are broad themes. Both books include details of war battles. Ancient records, biblical books, American histories, and war narratives all include armies, weapons, rulers, liberty, and national conflict. The Book of Mormon’s wars serve a covenant and prophetic message. The Late War is patriotic American war history.
8. Both books contain “freemen” and liberty language. Liberty language was common in the Bible, early American political thought, and war writing. The Book of Mormon’s “freemen” material is tied to Nephite political conflict, covenant identity, and internal rebellion. The Late War uses liberty as American patriotic rhetoric. Similar vocabulary does not prove source dependence.
9. Both books contain fortified places and military preparations. Fortifications are normal in war narratives. A comparison based on armies building defenses is too general to carry much weight. To prove borrowing, critics would need specific, unusual, extended parallels, not ordinary military details.
10. The Book of Mormon has “storylines” similar to The Late War. This is overstated. The Late War moves through major War of 1812 events. The Book of Mormon is a multi-century sacred record centered on prophets, covenants, apostasy, repentance, Christ’s ministry, and final destruction. Their actual narrative structures are not remotely similar.
11. Joseph Smith could have used The Late War for ideas. “Could have” is not evidence. Many things are possible. The question is what the evidence shows. There is no direct evidence Joseph owned, read, studied, borrowed, or used The Late War.
12. The similarities come from Joseph’s “own time and backyard.” This phrase is designed to make the accusation feel obvious. It compresses a large geography, uncertain distribution, and no proven access into a loaded phrase. It suggests closeness without demonstrating actual contact.
13. The book was popular enough that Joseph likely encountered it. This is not established. There were a few early editions, but no known sales figures showing mass popularity, no evidence it was a dominant reader, and no evidence it was used in Joseph’s local schooling. The claim turns possibility into probability with no evidence.
14. The Late War comparison weakens the Book of Mormon’s ancient claims. Only if the similarities are specific enough to prove dependence. The evidence mostly shows shared KJV-style phrasing and broad war vocabulary. That is not enough to overturn the Book of Mormon’s distinct theology, structure, covenant focus, and witness of Christ.
15. The CES Letter presents the parallels as though they are cumulative proof. A long list of weak parallels can create a strong emotional impression, but weak evidence does not become strong evidence just because it is stacked. If the items are mostly short, generic, biblical, or common war-language fragments, the pile still does not prove borrowing.
16. The claim implies plagiarism without showing it. Real plagiarism involves distinctive wording, extended passages, unique structure, or clear dependence. The Late War argument only provides short phrase fragments and thematic overlap. That is influence speculation, not demonstrated plagiarism.
17. The CES Letter compares style while ignoring purpose. The Late War uses biblical style to teach American patriotism and War of 1812 history. The Book of Mormon uses biblical English to testify of Christ, warn against pride, teach repentance, and explain God’s covenants with Israel. Same style does not mean same source, especially when the purposes are unrelated.
18. The framing encourages readers to notice similarities while ignoring differences. The differences are exponentially larger than the similarities: different setting, different purpose, different doctrine, different structure, different central message, different moral framework, and different ending. The CES Letter’s framing highlights a few surface overlap and downplays the actual content.
19. It treats biblical English as suspicious when used by the Book of Mormon, but expected when used by The Late War. This is inconsistent. If Hunt can write a modern book in biblical English without copying the Book of Mormon, then biblical English alone cannot prove Joseph copied Hunt. The more obvious shared source is the King James Bible style.
20. The claim is presented as if it explains the Book of Mormon. It does not. Even if Joseph had read The Late War, it would not explain the Book of Mormon’s sermons, covenant theology, Israelite focus, internal complexity, prophetic structure, temple themes, or central witness of Jesus Christ. The claim explains a handful of surface-level phrases while never explaining completely different content in the books.

 

Letter for My Wife’s Claims about the Late War

To no surprise, since most of Letter for My Wife is simply regurgitating CES Letter anti-Mormon talking points, the arguments are virtually the same.

It adds a few extra accusations, and presents them with enough confidence that an uninformed reader may assume the claims are accurate. These comparisons depend on the reader never checking the details. They only sound persuasive if you do not know what The Late War actually says, or if you do not know the Book of Mormon passages being compared. Several of the claims are not merely weak, but they are misleading, exaggerated, and in some cases not even accurate. Instead of proving that Joseph Smith borrowed from The Late War, they show how far critics are willing to stretch a supposed parallel to accomplish a goal is to create doubt rather than tell the truth.

Letter For My Wife repeatedly turns possibility into probability. It does not show Joseph owned, read, studied, or used The Late War. It claims he “likely” read it because it was a school-style book and because people around him had teaching connections. That is multiple layers of stacked unverified assumptions.

It also frames short biblical-style parallels as if they prove dependence, while the simpler explanation is that The Late War was intentionally written in scriptural style. A book imitating the King James Bible will naturally share Bible-like phrases with another text using biblical English.

Letter For My Wife claim/framing Why the framing is manipulative or misleading
1. Joseph Smith likely grew up reading The Late War. “Likely” does the emotional framing here. There is no direct evidence Joseph owned it, read it, studied it, borrowed it, or used it. The claim turns a possibility into a probability.
2. The Late War was published in New York in 1816, near Joseph’s world. New York was a large state. In the 1820s, traveling from Palmyra to New York City would have been roughly a two-week journey on foot. New York City was closer to Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. than it was to Palmyra.

Publication in an unrelated part of the state does not prove local access in Palmyra. “Same state” is a manipulative way of implying that “Joseph Smith encountered it.”
3. It was used in schools throughout the United States. This overstates what the title-page marketing proves. A book being “adapted for use in schools” does not prove it became a standard reader or that it was ever used in Joseph’s school.
4. Joseph was connected to teachers, including his father, Hyrum, Emma, and Oliver Cowdery. This is guilt by association. Knowing teachers does not prove those teachers used this specific book, owned it, taught from it, or introduced it to Joseph.
5. Oliver Cowdery was a schoolteacher, so he could have known The Late War. “Could have” is not evidence. There is no shown chain from Oliver to the book, then from the book to Joseph, then from the book into the Book of Mormon text.
6. WordTree compared over 100,000 books and found a striking connection. The phrase “striking connection” sounds strong until you realize that it was the strongest of 100,000 different books in four-word sequences, and that the connections aren’t even strong at all. It includes no copied paragraphs, shared plots, or shared theology.
7. There are over 100 rare phrases connecting the two texts. This framing hides how small the overlap is. Even 100 four-word matches would total only about 400 words, roughly 0.15% of the Book of Mormon at most, and many are biblical-style fragments.
8. These phrases supposedly do not appear in other contemporary books. That claim depends heavily on database limits, OCR quality, search method, phrase selection, and filtering choices. It does not mean the phrases are unique in normal speech, biblical imitation, sermons, or non-digitized texts.
9. Both books use King James-style language. That is not suspicious by itself. The Late War was intentionally written in biblical style. The obvious common source for that language is the King James Bible tradition, not necessarily direct borrowing.
10. Both books contain battles at forts and rivers. Forts and rivers are normal features of warfare. Armies fight near forts because forts are built to defend strategic locations. Armies fight near rivers because rivers serve as boundaries, transportation routes, supply lines, and obstacles. This same “parallel” would connect the Book of Mormon to almost every military history ever written. War of 1812 books discuss Fort McHenry, Fort Erie, Fort Niagara, and the Niagara River. Revolutionary War books discuss Fort Ticonderoga, the Delaware River, and Hudson River campaigns. Civil War books discuss Fort Sumter, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and the Mississippi River. And if the Book of Mormon really took place on the same land where there is so much archaeological evidence of Ancient mounds and forts that were built during Book of Mormon times, wouldn’t it make sense that both regions would include forts and rivers?
11. Both books mention weapons of curious workmanship. This sounds convincing only if the reader does not know KJV-style language. In the Bible, “curious” means skillfully made, carefully designed, or intricately crafted. Exodus uses this language. Psalm 139 says the body was “curiously wrought.” The Late War used normal biblical-style wording, exactly as a book intentionally written in King James English would.
12. Both books mention 2,000 soldiers or “striplings.” This is framed to evoke Helaman’s stripling warriors, but the comparison is not equivalent unless the surrounding story, covenant setting, mothers’ teachings, miraculous preservation, and military context also match. They don’t.
13. Both books contain bands of robbers. The band of robbers in the Late war was talking about sea pirates in a totally unrelated context. Robbers, bands, armies, and marauders are common in ancient and modern war writing. The Book of Mormon’s secret combinations and robbers have a much different covenant-collapse focus.
14. Both books mention martyrs being burned. Burning and martyrdom are not unique literary fingerprints. The question is whether the scene, doctrine, narrative function, and wording match in a distinctive way. Broad resemblance is not enough.
15. Both books refer to savage natives. This isn’t even true. The Late War uses early American language like “savages” for Native forces in the War of 1812. The Book of Mormon does not use the phrase “savage natives.” It describes Lamanites in covenant terms, including both periods of warfare and promises of future restoration. Critics flatten completely different contexts into one loaded phrase.
16. Both books include cataclysmic events. Once again, misleading and not even really related. The Late War describes a gunpowder explosion in a military setting, with smoke, rocks, and casualties. The Book of Mormon describes a land-wide divine sign at the death of Jesus Christ, with earthquakes, tempests, cities destroyed, and three days of darkness. The loose shared parallel that basically “destruction happened” are not unique events of these two books. The cause, setting, scale, purpose, and meaning are completely different.
17. Both books mention Columbus. This is framed as suspicious, but Columbus was a standard figure in early American historical and providential writing. Early Americans believed that Christopher Columbus was divinely inspired on his voyage. His main purposes were to convert natives to Jesus Christ and to obtain wealth to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Modern revisionist has changed the lens in which people view Columbus today. The Book of Mormon doesn’t specifically mention Columbus, but uses the Gentile discovery of the promised land within a covenant prophecy framework.
18. Both books contain false prophets. False prophets are a major biblical category. Their presence in two Bible-style texts proves very little unless the wording and narrative role are distinctively shared.
19. Both books use liberty and freemen language. Liberty language was common in the Bible, the American founding, sermons, patriotic writing, and War of 1812 rhetoric. Shared political vocabulary does not prove source dependence.
20. Both books contrast freemen with men of the king. This is misleading way to make another loose parallel seem stronger than it is. The Late War does not use the term “king-men” at all and it’s reference to “men of the king” or “servants of the king” for British forces serving the king of Britain is not the same context. In the Book of Mormon, the king-men were an internal Nephite faction trying to overthrow the free government from within. That is a very different context. The shared idea is broad liberty-versus-monarchy language, not a copied story.
21. Both books mention silver plates and brass engravings. This is false or badly framed. The Late War does not a mention “silver plates” or “brass plates.” The closest reference is “vessels of silver, with curious devices,” which refers to honorific silver gifts, not sacred records. The Book of Mormon’s metal plates are an entire record-keeping structure involving prophets, scripture, abridgments, sealed records, and covenant preservation. The context of the records is completely different.
22. The War of 1812 was recent, so Joseph would have absorbed its stories. Joseph likely knew about the War of 1812 generally. That does not prove he used The Late War specifically. General awareness of a recent war is not the same as literary dependence on one book.
23. The Late War was discussed and studied during Joseph’s life. This is vague. Many books and events were discussed during Joseph’s life. The relevant question is whether this specific book can be connected to Joseph or the translation.
24. The similarities are presented as cumulative evidence. A pile of weak parallels can create an emotional impression. But if the pieces are mostly short phrases, common biblical formulas, and broad war themes, stacking them does not create strong proof.
25. The Late War is grouped with other alleged sources like View of the Hebrews and The First Book of Napoleon. This creates a “source soup” argument. If one source does not explain the Book of Mormon, critics add another. But combining speculative sources does not prove Joseph used any of them. And even if he did, it still wouldn’t account for but a small fraction of the content of the Book of Mormon.
26. Joseph’s imagination plus available books could explain the Book of Mormon.

This conclusion is much bigger than the speculative evidence behind it. Short phrase overlaps and broad themes do not explain the Book of Mormon’s theology, structure, sermons, covenant focus, internal chronology, or witness of Jesus Christ.

And they certainly do not account for the ancient Hebrew elements in the Book of Mormon that serve as evidence of its authenticity, including its knowledge of Jewish feasts, temple worship, ancient Hebrew and Jewish names, chiasmus, covenant patterns, and record-keeping structure. They also do not explain the power of the book to draw people closer to Jesus Christ and lead them to make covenants with Him.

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