The problem here in Alma 59:9 is that in both manuscripts Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the text without the comparative clause “than to retake it from them”. And in both manuscripts, this clause was later inserted supralinearly. In the original manuscript, the level of ink flow for the correction is somewhat blacker and unevenly applied, and the quill was sharper. In the printer’s manuscript, the ink flow is also uneven, with the heavier ink flow blacker; and once more, the quill used for the insertion was slightly sharper. The unevenness of the ink flow suggests that the ink in the quill was drying out. These similarities in the ink argue that both corrections were made at the same time, yet some time after the text had been initially written down in 𝓟. In fact, we can be more specific: the correction in 𝓟 looks like it was made when 𝓟 was proofed against 𝓞. There are two nearby examples of corrections made in 𝓟 during proofing where the ink for those corrections looks very much like the ink here in 𝓟 for Alma 59:9, that is, slightly sharper and darker than the inline writing (see the discussion regarding the emendation of himself to themselves in Alma 58:16 and the correction of the to those in Alma 58:31). What seems to have happened here in Alma 59:9 is that as Oliver was proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞, he decided to emend the text by inserting the words “than to retake it from them”. Other examples where Oliver later corrected both manuscripts suggest that he first inserted the clause in 𝓟, then inserted it in 𝓞.
Corrections like this in both manuscripts are almost always instances of scribal intervention (where the scribe himself creates a secondary reading). It seems highly unlikely that Oliver Cowdery would have missed inserting this rather long comparative clause both times, especially when copying the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟 since the supralinearly inserted text, had it already been there in 𝓞, would have been distinctly noticeable.
It is possible that the original text had a clause here in Alma 59:9 that was accidentally missed when Oliver Cowdery took down Joseph Smith’s dictation (although there is little evidence elsewhere for such a loss of this many words during dictation). As far as the inserted words are concerned (“than to retake it from them”), they agree with usage elsewhere in the text. For instance, cities can be retaken:
In addition, the use of than to in “than to retake it from them” seems like a marked usage (that is, modern English speakers would prefer simply than). But this occurrence of than to is supported by usage elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text:
But a different issue to consider here is whether Oliver Cowdery’s inserted than-clause is contextually correct. In my opinion, a more appropriate textual revision would be to insert something equivalent to “by sending men to the city”. In other words, what Moroni is thinking here is that it would have been easier to have maintained the city of Nephihah by sending some extra men to supplement the forces already in the city:
These extra words set in bold (or something like them) were not in the original text, nor were they lost from it. Rather, they are implied by the context.
Don Brugger points out (personal communication) that Moroni was not thinking of sending his own men to maintain the city of Nephihah. Instead, he was relying on Parhoron to send those extra men. Verses 9 and 10 act as a whole, with the result that the initial clause in verse 9 is explained by the therefore- clause in verse 10: “and now as Moroni had supposed that there should be men sent to the city of Nephihah to the assistance of the people to maintain that city ... therefore he retained all his force to maintain those places which he had recovered”. This passage is not contradictory. Instead, it assumes that Parhoron rather than Moroni would be the one sending the extra men, which explains the use of the passive “there should be men sent”. Moreover, the modal should here means ‘would’. Unfortunately, no such men ever arrived, and thus much to Moroni’s distress that city was lost when it could have been easily maintained. The implied phrase “by sending men to the city” (based on the preceding “there should be men sent to the city of Nephihah”) is the intended meaning, but it is recoverable from the context itself and does not need to be inserted into the text.
This interpretation also explains the sorrow and anger Moroni (and his chief captains) felt over the seeming wickedness and indifference of the Nephite people, especially since the responsibility for the loss of the city of Nephihah could be directly assigned (or so it seemed) to Parhoron and the government:
Thus Moroni is now fully motivated to write a scathing and threatening letter to Parhoron (which is found in Alma 60, the next chapter).
Oliver Cowdery thought that the comparative clause in Alma 59:9 required some kind of than-clause, which he supplied on his own. The problem is that Oliver’s conjectural emendation (“than to retake it from them”) goes beyond what the text actually intends to say. The critical text will follow the initial manuscript reading here, without any added than-clause, but with the understanding that Moroni thought that sending men to the city of Nephihah, presumably by Parhoron, would have made it easy to maintain that city.
Stan Larson, in his work on the text dating from the 1970s, came to the same conclusion regarding the status of the than-clause, namely, that this clause is secondary to the text and was supplied by Oliver Cowdery on his own; see footnote 13 on page 28 of Larson’s article “Textual Variants in Book of Mormon Manuscripts”, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10/4 (1977): 8–30.
Summary: In the original text for Alma 59:9 there was no explicit comparison completing the statement “it was easier to keep the city from falling into the hands of the Lamanites”; on his own initiative, Oliver Cowdery emended both manuscripts by adding a secondary than-clause, “than to retake it from them”; the context itself implies that what would have made it easier would have been the sending of men to help maintain the city; the critical text will not add any explicit explanation since there was none in the original text, nor is it required.