FROM SALT LAKE CITY AND THE PLAINS.
INDEPENDENCE, OCTOBEB 2, 1856.
To the Editors of the Intelligencer :
The mail from Salt Lake arrived in this city on the evening of the 29th, bringing interesting and important news from Salt Lake and the Plains. Brigham Young has of late been making some important prophecies—among others, that if Utah is not admitted into the Union they would set up an independent government, and that the Lord will protect them in it. They have been em-boldened to this by the news which was received there from the States respecting the Kansas difficulties, which, coming as it did very much exaggerated, led them to believe that the dissolution of the Union was at hand.
On the 4th of August an attempt was made by four noted members of the " Danite Band" to assassinate Mr. Joseph Troskolowski, a United States deputy surveyor. Mr. T. was quietly walking alone about dusk on the principal street of Salt Lake City, when two of the ruf-fians stepped up behind him and knocked him senseless with the butt of a loaded horsewhip ; all four then stamp-ed upon and kicked and beat him with their whips. Messrs. Hooper and Williams, hearing a cry in the street, ran out to sea what it was, and arrived barely in time to save Mr. T.' s life, at the risk of their own, for the villains drew their knives upon them, but were prevented from using them by other persons who by this time had reach-ed the spot. Mr. T.' s life was despaired of for several days, but he is now slowly recovering. No reason was assigned for this outrage, nor was there any thing done by the authorities to arrest the offenders. On the con-trary, they paraded the city the next day threatening to serve other United States officers who are at present there in the same manner; and on the following Sunday the two counsellors of Brigham Young rebuked the peo-ple for haying exhibited sympathy for Mr. T., and de-clared that the " Danite" brethren were right in anni-hilating the " gentiles."
Brigham is fortifying himself, as he has nearly com-pleted a stone wall twenty feet high around his house and harem.
The mail met three companies of Mormons crossing the plains with handcarts. The first and second com-panies were near the three crossings of the Sweetwater and the third was just crossing the Platte river. The sight was described as one of the most pitiable that the eye could rest upon. Not only men, but women, three and four abreast, were harnessed into the carts trudging along through the sand exposed to a cold northeasterly wind, clad in the rags and tatters of light summer cloth-ing ; behind them were children from ten years of age upwards, scarcely able to stand, dragging along their little blistered feet tied up in rags, their shoes being long since worn out; and still further in the rear old men and women tottering on the edge of the grave, but with their faces still turned to Zion. These miserable beings are allowed to support them in their journey one pound of flour each a day and a cup of tea once a week. All of these are the victims of a most horrible and atrocious deception, which enslaves annually thousands of human beings to a government more cruel and tyrannical than any other on earth.
The mail brings also late and reliable information in respect to the disturbances with the Cheyenne Indians. A party of the Cheyennes, numbering some fifty war-riors, first attacked the weekly mail between Fort Kear-ney and the States on the 24th of August, within ten miles of the Fort, and wounded the conductor in the wrist; but the mules, becoming frightened, ran away, and, outstripping in their flight the Indians, reached the fort in safety. A party of dragoons, under command of Capt. Stewart, were immediately sent out in pursuit of the In-dians, and, having with them some Sioux who acted as guides, on the afternoon of the next day they surprised the Cheyennes in their camp and completely routed them, killing ten and wounding many more. That same night the Indians in their flight came upon a train be-longing to Col. Babbitt, loaded with goods for Salt Lake, and killed two men and a child and carried off a woman prisoner; two men only escaped, one of whom was se-verely wounded. They then continued up the Platte river, and a few days afterwards attacked a party return-ing from California, consisting of two men, a woman, and a child, about seventy miles above the fort, and they killed the woman and child and wounded one of the men, carrying off all the horses and mules. They then cross-ed the river, and about 150 miles above the fort attacked and massacred a party of returning Mormons, consisting of three men, a woman, and a child. A discharged sol-dier who was travelling with them was out at the time hunting, and thus escaped the fate of his companions.
There is also no doubt but that A. W. Bibbitt, the Secretary of Utah Territory, was murdered by the same band of Cheyennes ; for he refitted his train at Fort Kearney, and then, giving it in charge to a friend, left the fort on the 21 of September in company with two men and with fresh mules and a light wagon, taking with him an express from the commander at Fort Kearney to the commander at Fort Laramie. He expected to reach La-ramie in five or six days, but the mail passed Laramie on the 14th instant and he had not yet arrived there, and it met on the 18th instant at Chimney Rock his train which he had left at Kearney, and they had seen nothing of him, supposing, of course, that he was along distance ahead.
The mail encountered beyond Green river a severe snow storm, which lasted two days; the snow fell to the depth of two feet, but soon melted. The wheat crop in the valley is nearly all harvested; it is what may be term-ed a middling crop. The potato crop, however, has al-most entirely failed, in consequence of the ravages of the potato worm; therefore many predict a harder time next spring and summer than there was this year.
The merchant trains of Messrs. Livingston, Kinkead & Co. had arrived, and those of Messrs. Gilbert & Ger-rish were within ten days' journey of the city.
The grass on the plains, more especially this side of Fort Laramie, was unusually fine.
19th Century Mormon Article Newspaper Index
