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...1858, back when the US government was persecuting Mormons?

#1...If Mormons were 1858 victims of the U.S. govt...(actually the massacre occurred in 1857)...tell us who the supposed actual victims were?

There was a threatened war that ne'er occurred other than the Mormons causing the deaths of some of the army stationed @ Ft. Bridger [and that wasn't due to any hand-to-hand or shooting combat].

#2 If you try falling back on prosecution of polygamy, that didn't occur in the 1850s. Congress didn't begin addressing laws aimed @ Mormon polygamy until the 1860s thru 1880s.

Mormons were the target of a massacre that was never prosecuted and an extermination order by a governor of Missouri in 1838. Mormonism's founder was lynched by Protestants. I'd say there was plenty of sectarian violence to go around, back in the day.

The Utah War, which was President Buchanan's attempt to exterminate the Mormons under the pretext of putting down a rebellion, fizzled out because of opposition from both federal and state officials, but the fact that this attempt at mass murder ever got started is pretty amazing in itself:

At the end of June 1858 the Army troops under General Johnston entered the Salt Lake Valley unhindered. Riding through the still empty streets of Salt Lake City on June 26, an embittered Johnston was heard to say that he would have given "his plantation for a chance to bombard the city for fifteen minutes."[58] Lt. Col. Charles Ferguson Smith stated that he "did not care a damm who heard him; he would like to see every dammed Mormon hung by the neck."

Congress didn't begin addressing laws aimed @ Mormon polygamy until the 1860s thru 1880s.

And the Spineless MORMON leadership in Salt Lake City rolled right over; throwing their GOD under the bus!

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriage...

I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws..."

~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President

... the Spineless MORMON leadership in Salt Lake City rolled right over; throwing their GOD under the bus!
But; a whole new generation had come along since:

"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;
and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,
and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.
Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)