IMPORTANT FROM UTAH.
The Indian Troubles at the West—Conduct of the Mormons—A Case of Personal Re-venge—Assassinations, &c.
From Our Own Correspondent.
UTAH, Tuesday, June 5, 1860.
The Indian troubles have occurred six hundred miles west of Camp Floyd. One or two stations have been threatened between here and Ruby Val-ley, (300 miles west;) but between Ruby Valley and Carson City the Mail and Express route has been al-most abandoned. Immediately after the intelligence of the murder of the Express riders, Light Company "B," Fourth Artillery, was converted into an im-promptu Dragoon Company, and Lieut. WEED sent out with a detachment of twenty men with orders to proceed as far as Ruby Valley, there to establish a dépôt and wait the arrival of Lieut. PERKINS, who started the day after with the remainder of the Com-pany, about forty men. The whole Company was then to go on to Carson Valley. The volunteers from California will undoubtedly meet them there. What Lieut. WEED can do with his handful of men against the swarm of Indians on the Mail route remains to be seen. His friends anxiously wait intelligence from him.
A new and perhaps serious cause of difficulty with the Mormons has occurred. To give an intelligent account of the matter it is necessary to go back a year and recall the account of the shooting of Dr. COVEY, and the assault on Lieut. SANDERS, Second Dragoons, in Salt Lake City a year ago last Winter. These gentlemen were spending the evening in the store of Messrs. LIVINGSTON & KINKAID, and, as is the pleasant Mormon custom, were dogged by a body of police. When the police were remonstrated with for spying around a house contatning only peace-able persons, they replied with oaths, and final-ly one of them struck Lieut. SANDERS a vio-lent blow in the head with a stone or club. Dr. COVEY on coming to his rescue was shot by one of the party, and still carries in his breast one of the balls he then received. The other occupants of the store, while looking out of the door, were saluted with such exclamations as “Pull in your head, G— d— you.” This vigorous command enforced by carbines and pistols, was of course speedily obeyed. The officers subjected to this inexcusable outrage have, I sup-pose, not yet learned to forget and forgive. One of them while leaving the Territory with one of the re-tiring columns, recognized one of his assailants while in camp near the Muddy. This man, named HENI-FER, was in camp with his brother, selling vegetables—or at least had with him a wagon loaded with vege-tables. He was seized by Dr. COVEY, and a pistol of-fered him to defend himself with, which he would not take. He was then tied to his own wagon and soundly thrashed with a "black snake." Meanwhile some of the soldiers took his vegetables, or part of them. On learning this his castigator proffered him payment for them, but the price demanded—$3,000—put an end to further negotiations. The man's brother was ducked in the creek to quell his disposi-tion to interfere.
This statement is made public in justice to Dr. CO-VEY. The most exaggerated and unfounded state-ment appears in the lying sheet known as the Moun-taineer, and will no doubt be copied into the eastern papers. No one was engaged in the affair except the officer referred to, and all statements implicating Lieut. GAY, or any body of enlisted men in an active participation in the occurrence, I believe to be un-founded. Under ordinary circumstances this whip-ping would be justly censurable. But it must be borne in mind that there is here, for the Gentile, no law, and that it is not often that the studied insults given by the Mormons can be so richly repaid.
The sequel to the affair is not yet. It is an undoubt-ed fact that, on the night of the 2d of June, a pri-vate meeting of Mormons was held in Salt Lake City, and that nearly thirty men volunteered to go, and many of them have gone, with the avowed purpose of assassinating the two officers named in the Moun-taineer. They can hardly be successful, as it is to be hoped that to be forewarned is in this case to be forearmed. Great excitement exists in the city, and a Gentile has no more "show" than before the Army came in.
Truly this is an enticing country. Human life is at a discount, and men are killed here as partridges in the States. Murder is reduced to a science. Some-times a man will be shot with from twenty to forty buckshot from a double-barreled fowling-piece. This was the case with the notorious JOAQUIN JOHNSTON, lately killed in the city. Sometimes a cocked Der-ringer, carried in the pantaloons pocket, is made a sort of masked battery. When shooting has become too tame, the knife becomes a favorite weapon, and a man is literally carved up, as was RHODES in the City the last Winter.
A corporal of the artillery command named OTTER-BACH was killed in January last, in "Frogtown," and all efforts to ascertain the perpetrators of the crime were unsuccessful. But murder will out, and by the confession of a discharged soldier, it appears that the corporal was murdered in a house of ill-fame kept by a man and wife named HARRIS. This man followed one of the out-going columns with the movable part of his establishment, and was killed by the soldiers on his guilt becoming known. It would be interesting to know how many deaths from violence occur in this Territory yearly.
It is stated in many of the Eastern papers that nearly a thousand men have been left at Camp Floyd. This is a mistake. There are now less than two hundred and fifty men there. When all the troops are in camp during the Winter, the command will not muster six hundred men.
The Utah war, from its beginning to the present ridiculous state of affairs, will never tease to be exe-crated by all familiar with its history, save the con-tractors. If the little force now here, required to pro-tect Camp Floyd, the Northern Emigrant route and the California Mail route, or a part of it, is sacrificed, it will be a fitting termination to the blunders which have marked every step of the expedition. X.
Renewed Conflicts between the Mormon and Federal Authorities.
From Another Correspondent.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, Friday, June 8, 1860.
There seems to be a degree of unhappiness, al-most amounting to fatality, connecting with the movements of the Utah army. Originally dispatched in the midst of universal clamor and hot haste, to bring to satisfactory terms the contumacious Mor-mons, the first drawback was the diversion of the Commander-in-Chief and a considerable portion of the force to take special care of Kansas. Next, the nation was startled with the vexatious intelligence that some of the unguarded supply trains, injudi-ciously sent on so far in the van as to be out of reach of protection, were destroyed by what the Mormons term a "prairie fire." Then the advancing main bo-dy of troops, still destitute of its chief commander, was brought up standing, at the fiat of the sturdy and redoubtable BRIGHAM, in the inhospitable region of Ham's Fork. There the Colonel commanding declared with solemnity that he was perfectly able to reach Salt Lake, notwithstanding the opposition, and in re-turn the Mormons politely inquired why, if he was so very good looking and able, he did not come in, in-stead of staying out there in the cold, and wandering up and down Ham's Fork, like some poor forlorn out-cast.
By and by the deserted and charred Fort Bridger was taken by assault, and fixed upon as Winter quar-ters, and straightway grave fears were entertained by the whole nation for the safety of the expedition from famine and the marauding Mormons. But the sequel proved that, even with very short allowance of bis-cuit, men were strangely unwilling to starve to death while oxen and mule flesh remained, though exces-sively lean, dry, and tough. As to the Mormon guer-rillas, when the army was surely stopped and "cor-roded" for the Winter, they showed no indisposition to return to their mountain homes—to the arms of their numerous Rebeccas and Leahs, and to enjoy the dances, theatricals, and Tabernacle preachings; not, however, till a "volunteer diplomatist" had ar-rived, and in the exercise of his fine art had smoothed the way for our burly Governor, and actually brought the elephant in, not "with banner and with music," or with flourish of trumpet and thunder of cannon, but with feu de joie and grand illumination of the world-famed Echo Cañon, by the Mormon soldiery, and the civic welcome of the Mormon corporations.
Soon the army marched into the Holy City, not in the flush of victory, not in the midst of a feu d'enfer, but after a very unique fashion, under she sternest orders to "touch not, taste not, handle not." The city was empty of inhabitants, save the few men de-tailed to guard the houses and lots. No Mormon houris peeped forth from the glassless boarded-up windows. Not a female was to be seen, and scarce-ly a male, in the deserted, solemn streets. If this was a triumph at all, it was a rusty triumph rather than a brilliant one.
Now the army which came to punish the Mor-mons stayed to enrich them. Soon every Mormon farmer owned a fine team, and gold and calico and tea and tobacco were as plentiful and as common, probably, as in any place in the world, which every-body who knows Utah will admit is saying some-thing.
A few small expeditions were in the course of time dispatched on emigrant routes, which expeditions generally, from some cause or other, contrived to secure the ill-will of the Mormon small settlements in their line of march, and ended with very trifling results in the shape of protection to emigrants on the overawing and proper punishment of the red man.
The expedition on the largest scale was the one menacing Provo, which, to "preserve the unities,” met with the most flat-footed condemnation from the Executive at Utah and the greater Executive in Washington.
The horde of motley adventurers, some in the em-ploy of Government, and some merely camp-follow-ers, soon instituted a state of things which the Mor-mons sarcastically termed "civilization," but which might be very properly called the reign of the bowie-knife and the revolver, until sober people actually thought and declared that the advent of the army caused more drunkenness, gambling, swearing, theft, and capital crime than ever before known in the Ter-ritory, and that was needless.
When the army had spent all its money, and could not get any more, and had sold, "dirt cheap," most of its mules and oxen and wagons, it was deemed policy to remove the bulk of the troops, which re-moval followed, of course.
Now, even in the departure of the troops, the same unhappy vein of circumstances is discovered. The body of a discharged and murdered soldier was found in a slough close to the military camp in Provo cañon. Next the whole community was startled with the news that in the midst of an army camp near Bear River, a hapless Salt Laker was lashed to a wagon, and by and under the direction of an army Surgeon and a Lieutenant, the unfortunate victim was stripped and whipped to within an inch of his life, amid the applauding cheers of the gratified spectators, while not a soul stepped forward in the interest of common humanity to stay the proceedings. This man was whipped because he once was a Salt Lake policeman, and his tormentor happened, in a certain drunken spree, to get rather the worst of a fray with the Salt Lake City Police.
The night before, a discharged soldier named HAR-RIS, late of the Fifth Infantry, was shot in his tent, the idea being that his wife, who was with him, would be of more service to the soldiery than the man would.
This flogging scrape has created an immense indig-nation excitement in this city, but I suppose it will cool down by and by, though the Mormons take it as an indication of what a great portion of the army would do to Mormons in general, if they could safely.
Again, scarcely has the army gone, when a serious Indian war breaks out in the western part of the Ter-ritory. The Pony Express is stopped, the mail is un-certain, the stations are broken up, numbers of whites are killed, and when applied to through Governor CUMMING, the Commandant at Camp Floyd is very sorry that he can only detail three score men to pun-ish the Indians, and protect the mail, the express, and numerous parties of emigrants and travellers. He wants the balance of his troops to protect the post at Camp Floyd—that is, except the dragoons, who are ordered to march to Fort Hall, where there is no mail, no express, and very little emigration or other travel; and sure enough, while mail and express communi-cation is stopped with California, about two hundred dragoons under Col. HOWE, with their beef herd and two score of ox and mule wagons passed through this city yesterday toward the North.
Verily the spirit of cross-purposes has pervaded the Utah military expedition from first to last.
A party of Yampah Utes, under the Chief White-Eye, are now in the city. They were to receive some presents last night, from the Indian Agency. This tribe has a large encampment not far from Camp Floyd, and it is sagely whispered that a brisk free trade is carried on between the soldiers and the Indi-ans. The soldiers and camp-followers are said to furnish money and liquor to the Indians, who in re-turn loan their squaws to the whites. Very accom-modating, this.
A strong feeling exists against the taking of the census by Mr. BURR. He has been politely informed that he has no authority, that Marshal DOTSON is no longer a Marshal, that his resignation has been ac-cepted in Washington, and that Mr. GRICE has been appointed Marshal of Utah. A tall, lanky caricature has appeared on a fence post in a conspicuous place in the city, with the words written, "I take census. How many wives?" Nothing daunted, however, Mr. BURR continues his job, taking notes wherever the people will answer his questions.
A train of merchandise, purchased by Messrs. MOORE & GREENE, arrived from the East last Sunday, having left Independence, Missouri, April 10.
We had a heavy rain-storm on Monday last, and a slight shower yesterday.
A week ago Mr. REES WILLIAMS fell against a cir-cular saw in a mill in Little Cottonwood cañon, and his shoulder was instantly divided and his side sliced. He died in a few hours.
