THE UTAH EXPEDITION.
We publish to-day some interesting letters from our Special Correspondent whom we have sent out with the Utah expedition. These letters contain graphic details of the severe sufferings and waste-ful losses which have attended the bootless occu-pation of Fort Bridger. Our correspondent evi-dently reflects with fidelity the feelings of the army, whose march he has attended, and it is plain that the mortification of having failed to reach Great Salt Lake, and the prospect of passing the Winter amid the snows of the Wahsatch mountains has produced in the camp at Fort Bridger a very bitter state of feeling. The military men seem to be laboring under a good deal of excitement lest the punishment of the Mormon treason may not be pushed with sufficient alacrity, and they are already beginning to criticise freely the conduct of the civil officers and the proclamation issued by Governor Cumming, as not indicating a degree of indignation quite adequate to the emergency.
We are glad, for our part, to find by the procla-mation of Gov. Cumming that he has not gone the reported length of declaring the Territory in a state of rebellion. His proclamation only charges treasonable acts against certain "lawless indi-“viduals supposed to have been countenanced by "the late Executive," and against those persons only is the accusation of treason brought. So far from declaring the Territory in a state of rebellion, the proclamation merely calls upon all armed parties to disperse, under penalty, if they disobey, of subjecting themselves to be proceeded against as traitors. The Governor is also careful to disavow any enmity or hostility against the Mormons, or dis-position to interfere with their rights of conscience or system of worship. He proposes only to en-force obedience to the Constitution, the organic law of the Territory, and other acts of Congress applicable to the people of Utah.
As the preset expedition is based upon the fact or the allegation that the laws of the United States have been systematically disregarded in Utah, and that the officials of the United States, in conse-quence of their efforts and disposition to enforce those laws, have been compelled to fly from the Territory, it is very singular that some proclama-tion of this was not issued long ago, or, at least, simultaneously with the march of the troops. This would even have seemed to be a case in which, without any sacrifice of his dignity, the President might have put forth a proclamation of his own, which, both in the way of warning and terror, would have been likely to have had more weight with the Mormons than the proclamation of a newly appointed Governor of whom they know nothing, and who does not issue it till he and the army with him are fairly stuck in the snows and unable to advance a step further for several months to come.
We are glad to find also, that in the letter of Governor Cumming addressed to Brigham Young, that individual has at length received official notice that he has ceased to be United States Governor of the Territory.
The capture referred to in that letter of Brigham Young's orders under which the destruction of the provision trains took place, puts the ex-Governor into rather an awkward predicament. We have a good deal of curiosity to see what sort of an answer he will make to Governor Cumming's invi-tation to disavow those orders if they are not authentic. Whatever the other Mormons may do, the fact of this evidence against him will certainly make it inexpedient for Brigham to await the arrival of the troops at Salt Lake City. Possibly the result may be that, while the great body of the Mormons remain behind in the valley, Brigham Young with some other of the chief leaders may withdraw into the British dominions, or somewhere else out of reach of United States process. If we can judge from the implicit obedience which seems to be paid to his orders by the Mormons scattered all over the United States and Europe, he might find no difficulty in governing the Mormon Church from such a retreat, which might, indeed, by removing him from the dangerous test of imme-diate contact with his people, give him a still stronger hold upon their faith and imagination.
In the mean time, in the leisure of the camp at Fort Bridger, it is not merely critsms on Gov. Cummings's proclamation and the speculations upon the proper punishment of treason that are indulged in. The idea seems to be entertained that Salt Lake City ought to have been, and even yet ought to be, entered this Winter, at any rate, and the con-duct of some of their own officers appears to be very freely criticised by the troops. It appears to us, however, to be quite a mistake to charge the present awkward position of the troops either upon the hostile demonstrations of the Mormons or the want of resolution and efficiency on the part of the officers of the expedition. If the Mormons had not lifted a finger in the way of opposition, it was impossible for the troops to have succeeded in en-tering the valley this Winter. It seems to be pay-ing the Mormons altogether too high a compliment to give them the credit, at least so far as things have yet gone, of foiling the expedition. Their destruc-tion of provision trains and driving off of cattle may have contributed to render the present posi-tion of the troops more uncomfortable and more critical, but it was not the proclamation of Brigham Young, nor his occupation of the passes, nor his skirmishing parties; it was the lateness of the sea-son and the snows in the mountains that stopped the advance of the troops. The credit of this op-eration belongs not to the Mormons, but to those who kept the troops in Kansas long after they ought to have been in full march for Utah. It was this delay and the deficiencies in the Quartermas-ter's department to which our correspondent re-fers, not the hostile attitude of the Mormons, that has caused the misehief.
The feeling in the camp against Col. Alexander, in consequence of the backward movement toward Fort Bridger is, to judge from Col. Johnston's letters to the War Department sometime since published, entirely unreasonable. In the first place that movement was made in consequence of Col. Johnston's orders—a fact which seems not to be known in the camp; and, in the second place, the original advance was not with any intention of marching into the Valley, but merely of wintering at Soda Springs instead of at Fort Bridger. The difficulty which the rear of the army had in reach-ing Fort Bridger, justifies the wisdom of Col. Johnston in concluding to stop there instead of attempting to reach Soda Springs.
