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Alma 55

A City Taken Without a Death — The Wine, the Silence, and the Mercy at Gid

Alma 55: c. 63 BC, closing the twenty-ninth year of the reign of the judges. Moroni reads Ammoron's reply and grows angrier still — not at the insult, but because he sees that Ammoron *knows* his cause is fraudulent and wages the war anyway. He refuses the exchange on any terms but his own and resolves instead to free the Nephite prisoners held in the city of Gid by stratagem. He searches his army for a descendant of Laman and finds one, a man named Laman, formerly a servant of the Lamanite king Amalickiah murdered. By night Laman and a small band approach the guards at Gid posing as escaped Lamanites bearing stolen Nephite wine; the guards, urged on by Laman's feigned reluctance, drink the strong wine freely until they are all drunk and asleep. Moroni's men, in profound silence, pass weapons over the wall to the imprisoned Nephites — even the women and the children able to bear a weapon — until all are armed within. They could have fallen on the sleeping, drunken Lamanites and slain them all; but Moroni *did not delight in murder or bloodshed,* and he would not. Instead he surrounds them, and in the morning the Lamanites wake to find themselves encircled without and their prisoners armed within. They cast their weapons at the Nephites' feet, pleading for mercy. The city is taken without the shedding of blood; the Nephite prisoners are freed and join Moroni; the war's recoveries continue, and the year ends with preparations to retake fortified Morianton.

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Witnesses on the page:Captain Moroni

Where we are

Alma 54 ended with Ammoron's defiant letter, and Alma 55 opens inside Moroni's reaction to it — but the reaction is not what a reader might expect. Ammoron has insulted him, mocked his God, threatened eternal war; and Moroni was more angry. But Mormon is careful to tell us exactly what the anger is about, and it is not wounded pride: he was more angry, because he knew that Ammoron had a perfect knowledge of his fraud; yea, he knew that Ammoron knew that it was not a just cause that had caused him to wage a war against the people of Nephi (v. 1). What enrages Moroni is not that Ammoron disagrees with him but that Ammoron knows better and persists anyway. The grievance about the stolen government, the claim of avenging a wronged brother — Ammoron knows these are pretexts. He is not deceived; he is a deceiver who knows he is deceiving. And that, to Moroni, is the unforgivable thing: not error, but the deliberate waging of a war one knows to be unjust. The chapter begins, then, by locating evil precisely where Mormon always locates it — not in ignorance but in knowing, willed wrongdoing.

So Moroni refuses the exchange. He will not give Ammoron any more power than what he hath got (v. 2) by handing back trained soldiers. Instead he resolves to recover his captured people another way — I know the place where the Lamanites do guard my people whom they have taken prisoners (v. 3) — by a stratagem at the city of Gid. And the stratagem he devises is one of the most carefully told episodes in the war record, because Mormon means it to be read against everything Ammoron's letter revealed. Ammoron fights a war he knows is unjust, indifferent to the blood it costs. Moroni is about to take an entire city, full of armed enemies, without costing a single life on either side — and to do it precisely because he will not spend blood he does not have to spend. The chapter is the practical answer to Ammoron's letter: this is what a war looks like when it is waged by a man who answers to God.

The means is almost comic in its human simplicity, and entirely serious in its meaning. Moroni finds among his soldiers a man named Laman, a descendant of Laman and a former servant of the murdered Lamanite king, who can pass among the enemy as one of their own. Laman and a few men approach the Gid guards by night with a story — escaped prisoners, bearing wine taken from the sleeping Nephites — and the guards, weary and eager, drink the strong wine until they are all senseless. Then, in profound silence, Moroni arms the prisoners inside the wall and surrounds the drunken garrison outside it. By morning the thing is done, and not a sword has fallen.

The chapter has four movements.

  1. Moroni's anger and resolve (vv. 1–7). Moroni, angrier because Ammoron knowingly wages an unjust war, refuses the exchange and resolves to free the prisoners at Gid by stratagem; he finds Laman, a descendant of Laman, to carry it out.
  2. The wine and the sleeping guards (vv. 8–15). Laman approaches the guards posing as an escaped Lamanite with stolen wine; his feigned reluctance only makes them more eager; they drink the strong wine until all are drunk and asleep.
  3. The silent arming and the restraint (vv. 16–24). Moroni arms the imprisoned Nephites in profound silence; though he could slay the drunken Lamanites, he will not, for he did not delight in murder or bloodshed; he surrounds them, and in the morning they surrender without a fight, pleading for mercy.
  4. The recoveries and the cautions (vv. 25–35). The freed prisoners join Moroni; the Lamanite captives fortify Gid and are sent to Bountiful; the Nephites, wary of poisoned wine, test all their liquors on prisoners first; the year ends with preparations against Morianton.

The verses that carry the chapter are these. Verse 1 names the true offense — Ammoron's perfect knowledge of his fraud. Verse 19 names the chapter's heart — Moroni did not delight in murder or bloodshed, but he delighted in the saving of his people from destruction. Verse 23 names the bloodless victory — the Lamanites brought them forth and cast them at the feet of the Nephites, pleading for mercy. And verse 31 names the discipline that follows — the Nephites were not slow to remember the Lord their God in this their time of affliction, and so could not be taken in their snares. The chapter exists to show a whole city won without a death, and to ground that bloodless victory in a commander whose deepest desire is not to kill the enemy but to save his people.

The anger that knows what it is angry at (verses 1–7)

Now it came to pass that when Moroni had received this epistle he was more angry, because he knew that Ammoron had a perfect knowledge of his fraud; yea, he knew that Ammoron knew that it was not a just cause that had caused him to wage a war against the people of Nephi. — Alma 55:1

It is worth pausing on Moroni's anger, because Mormon takes care to make it the right kind of anger, and the distinction matters for everything the chapter is about to show. A lesser man, reading Ammoron's mockery of his God and his people, would be angry at the insult. Moroni is angry at the fraud. The thing that kindles him is not that Ammoron attacked him but that Ammoron knows his own cause is unjust — he knew that Ammoron knew it was not a just cause — and presses the war regardless. This is anger directed at the truth of the matter rather than at wounded vanity, and it is the same anger Mormon praised in Alma 48: Moroni did not delight in bloodshed and yet was angry at iniquity, exceedingly wroth at those who would destroy his people. Righteous anger, in Mormon's portrait, is anger that sees clearly — that is provoked by real evil, not by personal affront, and that drives a man toward the protection of others rather than the gratification of himself. Notice what the anger produces: not a slaughter, but a rescue. Moroni's response to being mocked is to go free his imprisoned people without killing anyone. That is the test of anger's quality — what it makes a man do. Ammoron's grievance produces eternal war; Moroni's anger produces a bloodless deliverance. The same emotion, in two souls, yields opposite fruit, because in one it serves the self and in the other it serves the saving of others.

The enemy undone by his own appetite (verses 8–15)

But Laman said unto them: Let us keep of our wine till we go against the Nephites to battle. But this saying only made them more desirous to drink of the wine... And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely; and it was pleasant to their taste, therefore they took of it more freely; and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength. — Alma 55:10, 13

The stratagem at Gid turns on a piece of plain human psychology that Laman plays perfectly: he withholds the wine, and the withholding makes them want it. Let us keep of our wine, he says — and this saying only made them more desirous. It is the oldest trick of desire, that the thing held back becomes the thing craved, and the Lamanite guards, weary and off duty, talk themselves into it: by and by we shall receive wine for our rations, so why not now? They drink freely, and then more freely, and the wine was strong, having been prepared in its strength — and they drink themselves into helplessness. There is no need to make the guards villains; they are simply tired men who wanted a drink, and their wanting is the whole of their undoing. Mormon, who reads every event for its pattern, is showing us once more the theme that runs through all the war chapters: the enemy defeated by his own appetite. The Lamanites at the waters of Sebus, the army that chased Teancum's decoy with vigor, the host that pursued Helaman's little band in a straight course — again and again the Lamanites are undone not by superior Nephite force but by their own unchecked desire, their eagerness, their appetite running ahead of their discipline. Here it is wine; elsewhere it is bloodlust or pride; but the shape is the same. An undisciplined appetite is a door left open, and Moroni has learned to walk through doors the enemy leaves open in himself. The contrast with his own men is exact and deliberate: the Nephites, later in this very chapter, would not partake of their wine (v. 31) — the discipline the Lamanite guards lacked is the discipline that keeps the Nephites from the same snare.

The restraint at the height of advantage (verses 16–24)

But behold, this was not the desire of Moroni; he did not delight in murder or bloodshed, but he delighted in the saving of his people from destruction; and for this cause he might not bring upon him injustice, he would not fall upon the Lamanites and destroy them in their drunkenness. — Alma 55:18–19

Here is the moral center of the chapter, and one of the clearest windows in all of scripture into what kind of man Moroni was. The Nephite prisoners are armed. The Lamanite guards are drunk, asleep, defenseless. Mormon states the obvious so we cannot miss it: had they awakened the Lamanites, behold they were drunken and the Nephites could have slain them (v. 18). The whole garrison lies at Moroni's mercy; he could end them where they sleep and lose not a man. Every calculation of war says do it. And Moroni will not. The reason Mormon gives is stated twice, positively and negatively, so that it cannot be reduced to mere tactics: he did not delight in murder or bloodshed, but he delighted in the saving of his people from destruction. The sentence is built as a contrast of delights — what a man takes pleasure in, what his heart turns toward. Moroni's heart does not turn toward killing the enemy; it turns toward saving his people. And those are not the same thing. He could have killed the enemy and saved his people, here, easily. But to slaughter sleeping, drunken men would be murder, not war — and Moroni will not let the deliverance of his people be purchased with an injustice, even an injustice against men who would have killed him. For this cause he might not bring upon him injustice. He guards his own soul as carefully as he guards his people's lives.

This is the disposition the whole war record has been teaching us to see, and it is no accident that it sounds like God's own. The Lord declares through Ezekiel, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11) — using the very language of delight and pleasure that Mormon uses of Moroni. The man who fights God's war fights it with God's own reluctance toward blood. Moroni takes no pleasure in killing even the enemy; he takes pleasure only in saving. And so, instead of a massacre, he chooses the harder and more disciplined thing — he arms the prisoners in a profound silence (v. 17), surrounds the sleeping garrison, and waits for morning.

And thus they saw that the Nephites had power over them; and in these circumstances they found that it was not expedient that they should fight with the Nephites; therefore their chief captains demanded their weapons of war, and they brought them forth and cast them at the feet of the Nephites, pleading for mercy. — Alma 55:23

The morning vindicates the restraint. The Lamanites wake to find themselves surrounded by the Nephites without, and that their prisoners were armed within (v. 22) — checkmated without a blow struck. And seeing that resistance is hopeless, they cast their weapons at the feet of the Nephites, pleading for mercy. The image is the inverse of everything Ammoron's letter celebrated. There is no avenging, no blood for blood, no eternal war — there is an enemy laying down its arms and asking mercy, and receiving it. Now behold, this was the desire of Moroni (v. 24): not their death but their surrender, not a field of corpses but a city taken whole and prisoners freed alive. The whole episode is Mormon's demonstration that Moroni's refusal to kill the sleeping men was not naive or weak but wise — the patient, disciplined course delivered a fuller victory than slaughter would have, and delivered it clean. The city is taken; the prisoners are freed; the enemy lives to lay down its arms; and not one soul has died. It is, in miniature, the whole ethic of righteous war that Alma 43–48 laid down, enacted to perfection: the sword is for deliverance, never for vengeance, and the moment the enemy yields, the killing stops — or here, more remarkably still, never begins.

The discipline that cannot be ensnared (verses 25–35)

But behold, the Nephites were not slow to remember the Lord their God in this their time of affliction. They could not be taken in their snares; yea, they would not partake of their wine, save they had first given to some of the Lamanite prisoners. — Alma 55:31

The chapter's last movement turns the wine-stratagem back on itself with a quiet irony. Having taken Gid by means of wine, the Nephites now have to guard against the same weapon used against them — the Lamanites attempt to administer of their wine to the Nephites, that they might destroy them with poison or with drunkenness (v. 30). And the Nephites do not fall for it, for a reason Mormon states plainly: they were not slow to remember the Lord their God. The phrase is the key to the whole sequence. The Lamanite guards fell because their discipline was governed by appetite — they wanted the wine, so they drank it. The Nephites stand because their discipline is governed by remembrance — they remember God, and so they are watchful, sober, careful. They could not be taken in their snares. And the test they devise is almost wryly practical: they would not partake of their wine, save they had first given to some of the Lamanite prisoners — if the wine would poison a Lamanite it would poison a Nephite, and thus they did try all their liquors (v. 32). The same enemy, the same wine, two opposite outcomes — and the difference is entirely a matter of discipline rooted in remembrance. The Lamanites' snares recoil on the Lamanites; the men who remember the Lord cannot be caught by the very trap they themselves had just sprung on others. Mormon's point is steady and unspectacular: the people who keep their heads, because they keep God in mind, are the people no stratagem can take.

How the chapter is built

Alma 55 is built as the deed that answers Alma 54's words. The previous chapter was two letters; this chapter is two actions, and Mormon arranges it so that the contrast lands as conduct rather than argument. Ammoron wrote a war of vengeance, eternal, indifferent to blood, grounded in the denial of God. Moroni now fights a battle that is its exact opposite — a whole city taken without a single death, the enemy spared in the moment of their helplessness, the victory grounded in a commander who did not delight in bloodshed. The chapter does not refute Ammoron's letter with a counter-letter; it refutes it with a bloodless victory. This is Mormon's method throughout the war record: let the men reveal themselves not only in what they say but in what they do when they hold absolute power over a defenseless enemy. Ammoron says he knows no God and will spare no one. Moroni shows, standing over sleeping men he could kill for free, that he answers to a God who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The architecture sets word against deed, and the deed wins.

And the chapter is built as a single sustained study of two disciplines, framed by the same substance — wine — used twice. In the first half, wine is the enemy's undoing: the Lamanite guards, governed by appetite, drink themselves into capture. In the second half, wine is the Nephites' test: governed by remembrance, they refuse to drink until they have proven it safe, and so cannot be taken in their snares. The same cup defeats one army and cannot touch the other, and Mormon places the two episodes deliberately on either side of Moroni's great refusal to kill, so that the chapter's whole shape teaches one lesson: the outcome of the war turns on discipline, and discipline turns on what governs the heart. The Lamanites are governed by what they want; the Nephites by what they remember. Between an army that drinks because it craves and an army that tests because it remembers God lies the whole difference between the city lost and the city kept — and between a victory bought with slaughter and a victory clean of blood.