St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1858-05-06
Latest from Utah.

The New York Times las letter
from Lcavcnworth, which furnishes
some reports in regard to Utah affairs
Of an entirely different kind from those
We usually receive. The informant OF
the writer is Mr.. Frederick Loba, an
cx-IIigh Priest of the Mormons, who
escaped from Salt Lake with his fami-
w. and is now at Leavcnworth. The
writer of the letter says:
Mr.. Iloba bases his positive opinion
that the Mormons will make no at
tempt at organized resistance, upon
lis personal knowledge of the fact
that they have no means of resistance.
They have very little ammunition, no
gunpowdcr factory, no material from
which to make the powder, none of
the appliances essential to that pur
pose, nor any single man who knows
how to make an ounce of explosive
material even if his life depended up
on it. Nor have they any artillery,
with the exception of a single piece of
cannon. a two FOUNDER, one of pair
given them long since by the United
States-the other one having burst
while Mr.. Loba was in the Valley.
They have no iron from which to
cast cannon-and if they had the ma
tcrial, they have no foundry, nor any
machinery for boring them, nor any
mechanic competent to do the work
True, there is an abundance of iror
ore 800 miles or more south of Sal
Lake City, but it is highly magnetic
and up to the time when Mr.. Lob;
left. although large sums had been OK
pended in experimenting, all efforts
to melt it and render it fit for use had
failed. Neither arc the Mormons any
better off in the matter of manufactur
ing small arms. They have some few
gun-tinkcrs among them; but, as an ev
idcncc of their utter incOmpetcncy, he
mentions the fact that no one of them
was able to make screw for him,
torcplace one he had lost from q re,
volvcr of peculiar construction.
Mr.. Loba estimates the total popu
lation of the Valley at $4,000 souls
OF these, counting every male from fiji
teen to sixty years of age, he est
mates that there are not to exceed
1900 capable Of bearing arms, while
rot more than $500 of the whole mum
Der, in his opinion, would make even
passable soldiers, under drilling by
skillful men. Not one in ten of the
entire male population have firearms
of any description and large por
ton of those they have are out of re-
pair and worthless. He has no conf
lcnce in the statement that the Nor
mons have fortified Echo Canon, ex
ccpt it may be by digging bitches, anC
posing rocks to be rolled down from
the ovcrhanging cliffs. Their boasts
of mines under the road, and all that
sort of thing, he scouts as idle non
sense In short, he considers the Nor.
mons destitute of any effective power
Of resistance to even the small force
already under command of Gen. John.
ston, and maintains that Brigham
Young's entire reliance has been based
upon his hope Of being able to deter
the United States from attempting to
deal with him, by lying boasts of his
ability to wage successful resistance
Mr.. Loba reports tale of horror in
regard to the celebrated hand-cart
trains. lie says that of the twenty
five hundred persons who started from
the frontier, only about two-hundret
frostbitten, starving and cmaciate'
beings lived to tell the tale of thei
s-uilerings the remaining twenty tire,
hundred persisted on the way, Of hun,
ger, cold and fatigue Mr. Loba says
that the route is strewn with skele-
tons, while among the Indian tribes of
Utah white children are now living,
who were picked up from the snow by
the savagcs, and thus rescued from
the death which their parents had fail
cd to escape.
Mr.. Loba, is said to be a very intel
ligent man and those who converse
with him are satisfied that he speaks
what he believes to be the truth.