Harper’s weekly

              THE UTAH EXPEDITION. 
By telegraph from St. Louis we have news from the Utah expedition to New Year. The troops were in ex-cellent spirits. From the Mormon prisoners and strag-gling Utah Indians Colonel Johnston was well advised of the movements of the Saints, who were making active preparations to continue their resistance to the troops in the spring. Their municipal regulations were very stringent, and they looked with suspicion upon every body the least inclined to favor the action of the United States government. Governor Gumming was performing the duties of his office, as far as he was able. The out-ward bound mails were making good progress, and the many Indians whom they met manifested friendly feel-ings.
 A letter from Colonel Johnston, dated December 12, has been published. We make the following extracts: 
"We are still encamped at this place, and will con-tinue until we move in the spring. The army has abundance of food and clothing, and is well sheltered from cold in Sibley tents. With your knowledge of camp life you would pronounce our situation one of great comfort. These Sibley tents are tall, comical tents, twelve feet high and twenty feet in diameter, open at the top, with a vane to prevent its smoking, which it does not quite do. With a stove or fire built in the mid-dle, it is a great improvement in the comfort of the sol-dier, but not as good as a wall tent, with a stove, for an officer.
 "Some think the Mormons, when it is necessary to make the issue with them, will submit to the govern-ment. I do not agree with them. I think their fanati-cism and villainy will lead them to try one encounter at least; and I think our government ought to desire it, as affording a single solution of a difficult political ques-tion. If they resist, a final settlement would be on the basis of a conquest. We could then dictate to them the terms of adjustment. 
Brigham Young wrote to me a few days since, sending as a present some 800 pounds of salt, or if preferred, we might buy it for the troops. Knowing they would enter-tain a fiendish delight in the knowledge that we would starve or freeze, neither of which we intend to do, al-though we have no salt, I sent it back to him with this message: That Brigham Young and his associates are in rebellion against the government; that until they re-turn to their allegiance and obey the laws, I will accept no favor or courtesy from them, nor hold any correspond-ence with them; that when I advance, the people who remain at their homes or engage only in their private business, will be undisturbed. If I find them arrayed in arms I will attack them wherever I meet them; that if they entertained the delusive hope that the army would retire from the Territory, they had better banish it; that the army will never take one step back. 
"A. S. JOHNSTON."