Porter Rockwell was that most terrible instrument that can be handled by fanaticism; a powerful physical nature welded to a mind of very narrow perceptions, intense convictions, and changeless tenacity. In his build he was a gladiator; in his humor a Yankee lumberman; in his memory a Bourbon; in his vengeance an Indian. A strange mixture, only to be found on the American continent
Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1871). “The Heart of the Continent: A Record of Travel Across the Plains and in Oregon, with an Examination of the Mormon Principle”, p.355