The Union And Eastern Journal

Later from Utah.

Washington, Dec. 28.

The war department to-day received official dispatches from the headquarters of the army of Utah dated Black Fork, 3 miles below the mouth of Harris Fork, Nov. 4. Col. Johnston states that Col. Smith with his command, and the numerous trains guarded by it, reached there Nov. 30. The march was slow and tedious, averaging 11 miles a day. Although the roads were excellent and the weather fine, it was not impossible to make more rapid progress on account of the broken down condition of the draught animals. No molestation whatever was attempted by the Mormons, which may be attributable to the presence of cavalry and the judicious disposition and vigilance of Col. Smith.

The communications from Brigham Young to Col. Alexander, and Elders and Taylor to Capt. Marcy, and the orders of D. Wells, commander of the Mormons, which Capt. Johnston encloses, and the acts of the legislative assembly at the last session, show, he says, a manifest and settled design on the part of the Mormons, to hold and occupy the territory independent and in open defiance of the government, connected with numerous overt acts of treason.

Col. Johnston has ordered that wherever they are met with in arms they may be treated as enemies, and he reiterates the necessity for prompt and vigorous action, or the United States must submit to the occupation of their territory. The conduct of the Mormons results from a settled determination on their part, not to acknowledge the authority of the United States nor any other outside of their church.