Daniel Hanmer Wells (1814-1891) -  Commander-in-Chief of the territorial militia, the Nauvoo Legion, it is not known as to whether Wells had prior knowledge of the attack that took place at Mountain Meadows. However, as third in command in the military hierarchy, he, as well as his superiors, George A. Smith, and Brigham Young, are culpable under the military rules of accountability. Further, there is little question that he and superiors were involved in the cover-up that followed the tragedy. 

Wells was born on October 27, 1814 in Trenton, New York to Daniel Wells and his wife Catherine Chapin. When he grew up he married Eliza Rebecca Robison on March 12, 1837 in Commerce (later Nauvoo), Illinois. The couple made their home in Nauvoo and Wells was a "Jack Mormon", a term applied to non-church members, who defended the church and its members.  He was personal friends with Joseph Smith which helped him get elected to the Nauvoo City Council and later as a judge. After his friend, Joseph Smith, was killed in June, 1844 and the Mormons were expelled from the area, Wells decided to join the church. Made an official church member in 1846, Wells remained in Illinois until 1848, when he went to Utah and began working toward the organization of the State of Deseret. However, his wife, Eliza, who never participated in plural marriages, did not accompany him. In Utah, Daniel, on the other hand, would take six wives.

In the year of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Wells was ordained as an Apostle, was the second counselor to Brigham Young, and the commanding officer of the Nauvoo Legion, the territorial militia.  Later he would preside over the church's European missions while living in Great Britain and when he returned to Utah Territory was elected mayor of Salt Lake City in 1866, a position he held until 1874.