CAMP DOUGLAS, UTAH TER., April 17, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor to report that in pursuance of special instructions from General P. Edward Connor, commanding District of Utah, I ordered Lieutenant Honeyman, of the Third California Volunteer Infantry, with five gunners and one howitzer, with ammunition (covered up in an ambulance as a blind), to start from this post on the morning of April 11 and proceed to the town of Pleasant Grove, situated in a southeasterly direction and distant forty miles from this camp, and there await my coming or further orders. That on Sunday evening, April 12, at 6 o'clock, in pursuance of the same instructions, I started for the same town with forty-seven men of Company A, commanded by Second Lieutenant A. Ethier, and forty-nine men of Company H, Second California Volunteer Cavalry, commanded by First Lieutenant C. D. Clark and Second Lieutenant James Bradley, for the purpose of making that town the base of operations against a band of hostile Indians, the same who committed the late depredations upon the overland stages between Salt Lake City and Ruby Valley, and who were reported to be in Spanish Fork Canon, thirty-five miles in a southerly direction from Pleasant Grove; that I reached the town of Pleasant Grove at 3 a. m. April 13 and found that Lieutenant Honeyman had arrived there on the previous morning, and had put his animals up in a corral of one of the Mormon settlers to await my arrival or further orders; that at 6 p. m. of the same day a band of some 100 Indians came rushing down upon the town, and dismounting on the outskirts deployed into the town skulking behind adobe fences, hay-stacks, &c., until they completely surrounded the building in which Lieutenant Honeyman and his five men were, when they commenced firing upon him. The lieutenant when he first discovered the approach of the Indians-they being yet some miles from the houses in which he was-immediately set his men to work uncovering, getting out of the ambulance, and putting together for action his howitzer, which being done he loaded with shell with a 600-yards fuse, and ran his piece up to the cross street, at the end of which the Indians had dismounted, with the intention of using it against them as they started into the town, but they deploying as above stated rendered it impossible for him to use his gun to any advantage, and finding that the Indians were surrounding him he very prudently retired to the house where his ambulance and mules were. By this time the Indians were within some thirty or forty yards of him, and he, seeing that unless something was done promptly he and his little party would be massacred, very wisely took possession of the house (a small adobe) and prepared to defend himself as best he could. After firing two shots from the house with the howitzer the walls of the building became so much cracked that he was compelled to cease firing for fear of the building falling. The Indians in the meantime from the adobe wall-fence and hay-stacks in the vicinity were pouring an incessant shower of balls into the house, which they kept up from about sun-down until 8 o'clock at night, literally riddling the door and windows, but fortunately without killing or wounding any one in the building, although the stovepipe, pans, plates, and almost everything in the house except the men received a shot. At 8 o'clock the Indians ceased firing and left the town, taking with them the provisions, blankets, &c., of the lieutenant and his five men, as also the Government animals that were left alive, seven in number, five having been killed during the engagement. I enter into details in mentioning these seemingly unimportant facts, not because I deem them of any importance in themselves, but that they may be taken and considered in connection with the strange