FROM UTAH AND THE WEST.
ACTION OF THE KANSAS PEOPLE.
Interesting from Salt Lake City—Escape of a Disgusted Mormon.
Probabilities of a Peaceful Result—Brigham Young likely to Retreat—Lack of Military Material—Condition of the Females, &c.
From our Special Correspondent.
LEAVENWORTH CITY, K. T., Monday, April 19,1858.
The freemen of Leavenworth celebrated the supposed death of Lecompton with a grand public demonstration on Saturday evening. The signal was sounded from the bluff overlooking the river, by the celebrated Kickapoo cannon, and was promptly re-sponded to by a very general turning-out of the peo-ple, hundreds of whom formed a procession with music, banners and transparencies, the latter bearing mottos, patriotic, jubilant, defiant or comic, but all referring to the great struggle impending here, or to some of the more vivid and startling facts connected therewith. The town was illuminated, also a great majority of the citizens participating, so that the blaze of joy-betokening light, was seen in nearly every window. The procession, after parading through the principal streets, marched to PERRY'S Hotel, a noted Free-State house, located conspicu-ously upon one of the highest elevations in the set-tled portion of the town. The view from this point was grandly beautiful, embracing not only the long rows of illuminated buildings on the lower levels but also the numerous cottages dotting the distant hills, standing out boldly conspicuous in the blaze of their own beacon lights.
The procession, having countermarched in front of the hotel, halted, when a meeting organized by the appointment of Mayor ADAMS as President. I omit-ted to state that the military organization of the Free-State men of Leavenworth turned out under arms, going through their evolutions and firing occasional salutes by platoons at the word of command. The Kickapoo cannon, a permanent feature in the proces-sion, was constantly plied, and in one instance at least, was loaded with the Missouri statutes imposed upon Kansas by the old Border Ruffian Legislature' and fired towards the section whence the ruffians came upon the iniquitous errand. A series of stir-ring resolutions was reported by J. C. VAUGHN, Esq., and adopted by acclamation. Speeches were also made by Mayor ADAMS, Messrs. Durand, Thos. Ew-ing, Jr., J. C. Vaughn, Dr. K. V. Kobb, George H. Keller, (who had suffered in person by the hands of the Missourians,) A. C. Wilder, J. W. Simonton, of the NEW-YORK TIMES, and others. The speeches were more moderate in tone than might have been expected from a people exasperated as the Free-State men are by sad events of the revolution through which they have passed. The enthusiasm was in-tense—men of all sections of the Union uniting most heartily in rejoicing over the defeat of an instrument which has scarce an apologist in this the most con-servative town in Kansas Territory. But permit me to refrain yet a little from any opinion upon the state of political parties here. I know that your readers in the East have been much bewildered by the con-flicting accounts of the state of popular sentiment here. I do not suppose that I can throw any new light upon a subject already so well worn, but your read-ers may find interest in the views and opinions of one whom they have been accustomed to read and in whose intention to write justly and with discrimination, at least, I trust they have learned to place some reliance. I shall endeavor to retain their confidence by not venturing upon the delicate ground until I have had time to thoroughly examine it,—for nearly every man here is so intense in all his feelings and expressions, one way or the other, that it is not easy to be certain exactly where lies the strong and enduring pulse of the popular heart.
Major BEN MCCULLOCH, one of the Utah Commis-sioners, has arrived, and is busy in making prepara-tions for his journey across the Plains, but the date of his departure is not yet settled. It is understood that word has been sent to General JOHNSTON, by ex-press, ordering him not to advance upon Salt Lake until after the arrival of the Peace Commission-ers. It would be difficult to express the feelings of regret and contempt with which frontiersmen, who are familiar with the Mormons, look upon this scheme of sending out Commissioners to treat with BRIGHAM YOUNG for they say it will give him the de-sired opportunity to escape from the consequences of his past treason, will result in the complete defeat of the moral effect of the military movement which has already cost so much, and give BRIGHAM and his fol-lowers a new lease of their Salt Lake possessions, until they shall have recuperated their rapidiy-ex-hausting energies, and so be ready to renew their former outrages in exaggerated form, after the troops shall have been again withdrawn. Those who oppose the military expedition upon humanitarian grounds, in reality do the Mormons no service; for in Missouri, Kansas, and the States of the northwestern frontier, there is a deep-seated feeling of exasperation towards the Saints, which will be likely to break out in a war of extermination, unless the Government shall check and restrain the latter by the strong arm of civil law sustained and enforced, as alone it can be, by military power.
It was my fortune to meet here FREDERICK LOBA, an ex-High Priest of the Mormons, who escaped re-cently from Salt Lake with his family, and is now in this city. I do not know when I have heard or read a more interesting or remarkable history than his, and within a few days I shall be able to lay it before you in full. For the present I will only say that he is a native of Switzerland, a man of great intelligence and liberal education, an accomplished linguist, and pos-sessing rare conversational powers. He has traveled over and is familiar with every part of Europe, was distinguished in his own land and in Russia for his scientific attainments, and was formerly a prominent official in his native town of Lausanne. But not-withstanding all this, he became a victim to the strange delusion of Mormonism, and attested his sin-cerity by forsaking his high, honorable and indepen-dent position at home, and journeying with his family to Salt Lake in 1854, in the confident expectation to find there the Zion of God towards which his culti-vated enthusiasm and intense religious zeal had turned with the highest and holiest aspirations.
How soul-crushing was his disappointment when he reached the much-longed-for "Valleys of the Mountains," to find them the theatre of lust and crime of every description and the most disgusting charac-ter, perpetrated in the name of religion. His eyes were speedily opened. Once in the city of the Saints, he awoke from his delusion,—for his education and refinement were proof against even religious fanati-cism and superstition. From that hour his attention was turned to plans for escape from the Valley. Foreseeing, however, that this would be impossible if his purpose should be discovered, he was compelled to conceal his true feelings and appear to join with heart and soul in the ceremonial mummeries from which his judgment turned with intensest loathing. He escaped finally, in April last, and arrived here, after suffering incredible hardships, broken down in health, his family all sick, and without a farthing left of the ample means with which he started towards Salt Lake. No one who talks with Mr. LOBA can doubt his sincerity, for honesty is stamped in every lineament, and truth beams out from every line of his eloquently simple narrative.
Of course, then, his testimony in regard to the con-dition and resources of the Mormons at Salt Lake is of especial value, for no man could be better quali-fied to speak intelligently of the facts, as they are. I have questioned him closely upon these points, with the following result: He says, unhesitatingly, that the Mormons will not attempt to resist the United States troops if they go out in a body, instead of scattering along the road in small and careless parties, as did the Government wagon trains, which, were destroyed upon the plains last season, Mr. LOBA met these on his way in, and earnestly cautioned their conductors against their carelessness, assuring them of their danger, and urging them to concentrate and move forward in a body: but they could see no enemy, nor apprehend any danger, failed to follow the friendly advice, and were cut off and robbed.
Mr. LOBA bases his positive opinion that the Mor-mons will make no attempt at organized resistance, upon his personal knowledge of the fact that they have no means of resistance. They have very little ammuntion, no gunpowder factory, no material from which to make the powder, none of the appliances essential to that purpose, nor any single man who knows how to make an ounce of explosive material, even if his life depended upon it. Nor have they any artillery with the exception of a single piece of cannon, a two-pounder, one of a pair given them long since by the United States—the other one having burst while Mr. LOBA was in the Valley. My informant is a man of considerable military capacity, having been an officer in the French service in the time of CHARLES X. This fact becoming known, on his arrival at Salt Lake, he was for a long time besought to accept a military title and position, which gave him ample op-portunity of ascertaining the military resources of the country and capacity of its people. He asserts that they have no military knowledge, even if they had arms—that their talk about their battalions and regiments and legions is the veriest humbug imagina-ble—and that their pretences of the possession of abundant armaments are falsehoods unmitigated. They have no iron from which to cast cannon,—and if they had the material, they have no foundry, nor any machinery for boring them, nor any mechanic competent to do the work. True, there is an abund-ance of iron ore 300 miles or more south of Salt Lake City, but it is highly magnetic, and up to the time when Mr. LOBA left, although large sums had been expended in experimenting, all efforts to melt it down and render it fit for use had failed. Neither are the Mormons any better off in the matter of manufactur-ing small arms. They have some few gun-tinkers among them; but, as an evidence of their utter in-competency, he mentions the fact that no one of them was able to make a screw for him, to replace one which he had lost from a revolver of peculiar construction.
Mr. LOBA estimates the total population of the Val-ley at 32,000 souls. Of these, counting every male from 15 to 60 years of age, he estimates that there are not to exceed 7,500 capable of bearing arms—while not more than 3,500 of the whole number, in his opin-ion, would make even passable soldiers, under drill-ing by skillful men. Not one in ten of the entire male population have firearms of any description; and a large proportion of those they have are out of repair and worthless. He has no confidence in the statement that the Mormons have fortified Echo Canon, except it may be by digging ditches, and poising rocks to be rolled down from the overhang-ing cliffs. Their boasts of mines under the road, and all that sort of thing, he scouts as idle nonsense. In short, he considers the Mormons destitute of any effective power of resistence to even the small force already under command of Gen. JOHNSTON, and main-tains that BRIGHAM YOUNG'S entire reliance has been based upon his hope of being able to deter the United States from attempting to deal with him, by lying boasts of his ability to wage successful resistance.
He believes that when BRIGHAM finds his bragga-locio has failed, and that the United States authori-ties are determined to pursue him, he will have a "special revelation from God" instructing him to retire from before the Philistines. In obedience to these directions he will go off with his 2,500 Danites or “Destroying Angels," and, when the troops arrive at Salt Lake, will be found missing. They will probably go northward to Vancouver's Island, or possibly to the Russian possessions, which they can do easier than go southward to Sonora, as they are without means of sustenance while crossing the desert lying in that direction. There is no probability that the "Saints" will retire in a body thence, to sally in predatory bands upon the Gentile troops or civil oc-cupants of the valley. The Danites—well fitted by experience and wicked instincts for the life of ban-ditti—might take to the mountains; but the masses could not follow them there, because it would be sim-ply a journey to starvation and death. And for this very reason no considerable body even of the Danites will seek the mountain life, because there they could no longer live upon the sweat and blood of the toiling masses, whose tithes and other offerings have hereto-fore afforded to the Mormon hierarchy and their mini-sters of despotism known as "Destroying Angels," the support and means of gratifying their debasing tastes and passions.
Mr. LOBA naturally feels very deeply the misery and degradation which Mormonism entails. A man of large heart and noble instincts, he is sorely grieved at the condition of his fellow creatures whom he left under the heel of the Mormon Theocracy. He has witnessed every species of outrage and crime heaped upon men and women in the name of religion, and feels that it is a stern duty of the Government of the United States to go to every extreme in order to pre-vent the sacrifice of further victims. Understanding the whole system of Mormonism in all its secret mys-teries arid its continuous net-work of crime, he is firm in the conviction that it can never be tolerated with safety, and that only in extermination can the evil be reached and cared. To this issue he thinks the ques-tion must come at last, believing that the "Saints," if they escape now, will eventually force either the Federal Government, or the indignant people of the border, to cut off the tail of the rabid dog, imme-diately back of the ears.
Perhaps no single incident in connection with Mor-mon history presents more of horror, than the history of hand cart trains, which you may remember was painted in such glowing colors by some of the Mor-mon missionaries whose harangues I reported at one of their meetings in New York last Summer. I asked Mr. LOBA to give me an unvarnished statement of the facts,—for it was evident from the story told by the Mormons themselves that they were hiding impor-tent details which would not bear discovery. It ap-pears that YOUNG sent FBAKKLIN and SAMUEL D. RICH-ARDS,—two of his shrewdest and most unscrupulous minions,—to Liverpool, to superintend the emigra-tion thence to Salt Lake, of the numerous proselytes made in Europe. These men collected a large sum of money from the faithful, in sums of £53 each, which was to purchase wagons and other outfit for the passage from New-York to Utah,—each sum of £53 providing for a family,—or if the man had none, for himself and associates. A party of about 2,500 souls, collected under this arrangement, set sail with their faces toward "Zion." On their arrival on the frontier they were informed that Brother BRIGHAM had received a revelation from God, directing that in order to try their faith and thus test who among them were worthy the honors of the faithful, they should journey to Salt Lake in hand-cart trains!
Accordingly, their pilots and leaders,—filled with the grace acquired at the feet of their Prophet BRIG-HAM,—kindly purchased the hand-carts for them at a cost of eight dollars each, and generously put them at the disposal of the newly-arrived brethren at exactly double that sum. Of course the entire party were compelled to go on foot, six to each hand-cart, which they dragged along with its contents, consisting of seventeen pounds of luggage to each person. All the property of the emigrants, over and above this, they were compelled to throw away, of course,—thus losing the little remnant of their savings after having been most religiously robbed of all their cash. Now dissensions rose among them, and the result was that they did not reach the banks of the Missouri, from whence to start westward, until the 1st of September.
Here, then, they stood, with twelve hundred miles of weary travel on foot before them, and the merci-less rigors of a Northern Winter staring them in the face. The commonest humanity would have in-spired the leaders of the deluded band to stay their steps until the opening Spring. But they seem to have been oblivious to any such sentiment. They got up another revelation from on high, in which the travelers were bidden onward, and assured that the angels of the Lord would be upon their right hand and their left, shielding them from harm, providing them sustenance and protection, and conducting them rejoicing into the valleys of the mountains, where dwelt the glories of Israel's God!
Thus twenty-five hundred honest, simple souls, full of honest faith and zeal,—old men and young, gentle women and tender children, plunged into the wilder-ness, never doubting the result. Sad to relate, of that entire band, only about two hundred frost-bitten, starving and emaciated beings, lived to tell the story of their sufferings! Mr. LOBA, himself, witnessed the entrance of the survivors,—many even of whom, were compelled to submit to the rudest kind of sur-gery for the amputation of limbs already frozen to death! Twenty three hundred of the de-voted band had fallen by the way, tor-tured victims of hunger and cold, some of them indeed torn by famished wolves, while life still struggled for the victory over famishment and frost! The picture is too horrible to contemplate—but my informant states that its truth is well attested by man persons who soon after passed over the scene of this march of death, and found it strewn with its thousands of ghastly human skeletons! He says, too, that among the Indian tribes of Utah white children are now living, who were picked up from the snow by the savages, and thus rescued from the death which their parents had failed to escape.
Mr. LOBA well asks whether it is not the province of Government to take notice of such events as these, and essay an effort to prevent their recurrence. It was far from safe, however, to suggest such an idea in Salt Lake City. A London friend of Mr. L.'s, named JARVIS, stung to the quick at sight of the mis-erable remnant of the hand-cart immigration, re-marked, that if such an event had occurred in Eng-land, BRIGHAM YOUNG would have been called to ac-count by the Government. For utterance of this sentiment JARVIS became at once the object of cruel persecution. The Destroying Angels burned his house, robbed him, and dragged him out by the hair of his head. He was obliged to fly for his life, aban-doning all his property of every description.
The condition of the female portion of the commu-nity at Salt Lake is represented as most deplorable. Large numbers of them feel deeply the degradation of their position, and look forward with joy, even to death, as a means of release. When the army shall have reached the Valley, Mr. LOBA be-lieves that the greater portion of the female Saints will avail themselves of the protection thus afforded them, and abandon Mormondon. Many of these will do so because of their sufferings, notwithstanding that they still maintain faith in the doctrine of the Saints, while a larger number will because of their intense disgust of the whole affair. I have thus given you a few of the prominent facts and sug-gestions derived from my intelligent informant. His intensely interesting personal narrative shall be forthcoming as soon as he has had time to make it complete.
Strange as it may seem, new victims to the delu-sions of Mormonism continue to pass up the Mis-souri, on their way to the Valley. Forty families of them passed here yesterday from St. Louis, on board the steamer Omaha. RUSSELL & MAJORS, Government contractors, endeavored to procure passage hence on the same ves-sel for a party of their teamsters, but the Captain wisely declined to take them, foreseeing, as he did, that there would be serious trouble between them and the Mormons, for the teamsters were boasting upon the levee of their hostile intentions.
I understand from what seems to be excellent au-thority, that there are several companies of emigrants organizing here for Arizona, intending to start for that new field of agitation and political strife, as soon as the season is sufficiently advanced. The notorious TITUS is stated to be raising a new company of his Border Ruffians at Kansas City, for that destination, and Mr. CUTLER of Lawrence, and Ossawatomie BROWN, are each drilling companies of Free-State men for the same line of march. I am informed that a Mr. LAWRENCE of Pittsburg, Pa., has been appointed Surveyor-General of Arizona, or has been tendered the place; and several men who obtained a "bad eminence" among the Missourians in the recent diffi-culties in Kansas, state that they have been offered Federal appointments in that next theatre of section-al strife.
S.
