February 1864

Series I, Vol. XXXIV, Part II

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HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE NORTHWEST,

Milwaukee, Wis., February 6, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have submitted to the General-in-Chief, by this mail, a plan of operations against the Indians in the Territories of Dakota and Idaho, and in the same connection I have the honor again to invite your attention to some suggestions as to the policy to be pursued toward the hostile Indians who were directly or indirectly concerned in the Minnesota massacres, as well as toward those tribes of wild Indians with whom treaties halve never been made, but with whom the troops as well as emigrants will be brought into contact during the proposed military movements. Upon the policy adopted will largely depend the successful results of any military operations.

The system of Indian policy hitherto pursued seems to have been the result of temporary expedients, and not of well-considered examination of the subject, and, with its results, is briefly as follows, viz: As soon as the march of emigration began to press upon land claimed or roamed over by wild tribes of Indians, a treaty was made with them which provided for the surrender of a large part of the lands and the location of small reservations for the exclusive occupation of the Indians, or for the purchase of that limited portion of the Indian country bordering on the white settlements, leaving the Indian the larger part of the region claimed by him. In consideration of this surrender, considerable money annuities, as well as annuities of goods, arms, ammunition, &c., were granted to the Indians and an Indian agent appointed as special custodian and disbursing agent of the funds and goods.

By this operation we were placed in contact with two classes of Indians-first, the Indians entirely surrounded by white settlements and living on small reservations and, second, the Indians who still maintained their roving life and their relation with the wild scribes on the one hand, whilst they, on the other, were connected with the whites through the annuities of money and goods paid annually for the surrender of that small portion of their lands bordering on the

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white settlements. Of course the Indian of the first class was no longer able to maintain himself by hinting in the circumscribed area allotted him, and, with his unconquerable dislike to manual labor, grew rapidly to be an idle vagabond, dependent entirely upon the Government for support. The money and goods annually furnished him under the treaty, through the Indian agent, necessarily attracted all the gamblers, whisky sellers, Indian traders, and other unprincipled characters who infest the frontier, whilst the purchase and transportation of large quantities of goods brought also into the Indian system a horde of contractors.

The Indian was thus provided with the worst possible associations and surrounded by the most corrupt influences, and became a gambler, a drunkard, and a vagabond, plundered and wronged on all sides. His reserved lands rapidly became valuable by the growth of settlements around them, and land speculators besieged Congress with every sort of influence to make another treaty involving another removal of the Indians and the expenditure of more money and more goods, whilst the coveted lands fell to the lot of the fortunate or skillful speculator. This process was repeated at no long intervals, the Indian tribe diminishing rapidly with each removal and becoming thoroughly debased, until, transferred to a region where they could not derive any support from the soil and emasculated of their manhood, they soon fell a prey to hostile Indians or perished with disease and want.

The Indians on these reservations, surrounded by such influences and forced into association with so depraved a class of white men, were completely fortified against any efforts to educate or Christianize them. Even in their wild state they were not so entirely withdrawn from any hope of civilization. To the Indians of the second class, viz, those who have sold portions of their lands bordering on white settlements, though they still retain their roving habits, much the same remarks, though in a more limited degree, are applicable. The yearly or semi-yearly payment of money and goods requires their presence at stated periods on the frontier of the white settlements. Indian traders, whisky sellers, and gamblers assemble there to meet and plunder them, and these payments become scenes of wild debauch, until the Indian has parted both with his money and his goods, when he is forced again to resort to the prairies to support life. Gradually, also, the white settlements encroach more and more upon his lands. He again sells, until, corrupted by gambling and drinking and by contact with depraved whites, he gradually parts with his whole country and is allowed a small reservation, upon which, with the assistance of his annuities, he supports himself as he can, becomes one of the clas of "reserve" Indians, and goes to his end through the same course.

There do not and have not lacked occasions, time and again, when the Indian, goaded by swindling and wrong and maddened by drink, has broken out against the whites indiscriminately, and committed those bearable outrages at which the country has stood aghast. I think it will be found, almost without exception, that Indian ward of late years have broken out with the second class of annuity Indians, and can be directly traced to the conduct of the white men, who have swindled them out of their money and their goods. By our system of reservations, also, we have gradually transplanted the Indian tribes to the West, and have located them from north to south along our Western frontier, building up by this means a con-

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stantly increasing barrier to travel and emigration westward. Through this barrier all emigrants to the new Territories and to the Pacific States are compelled to force their way, and difficulties, leading to robbery and violence and oftentimes to extensive massacres both of whites and Indians, are of not infrequent occurrence.

If the whites be worsted in these difficulties, troops are immediately demanded, and then begins an Indian war, which the greed of contractors and speculators interested in its continuance, playing upon the natural apprehensions of the people and influencing the press, makes it very difficult to conduct successfully or bring to an end. Both in an economic and a humane view, the present Indian policy has been a woeful failure. Instead of preventing, it has been, beyond doubt, the source of all the Indian wars which have occurred in late years. So long as our present policy prevails, the money and the goods furnished to the Indians will be a constant and sufficient temptation to unscrupulous white men, and so long may we expect outrages and Indian outbreaks on the frontier.

It is not to be denied that the expense of this system to the United States has greatly exceeded what would have been necessary to keep troops enough on the frontier to insure peace with the Indians. It is equally certain that the condition of the Indian, so far from being improved, has been greatly injured. He has lost all the high qualities of his native state, and has simply been reduced to the condition of an idle, drunken, gambling vagabond. The mortality among these annuity Indians living on reservations has far exceeded that among the wild tribes, and bids fair to extinguish the whole race in a wonderfully short period. I think it will not be disputed by those familiar with the subject that our Indian policy has totally failed of any humanizing influence over the Indian, has worked him a cruel wrong, and has entailed a very great and useless expense upon the Government. I have passed ten years of my life in service on the frontier, and the facts herein stated are the result of observation and experience and are familiar to every officer of the Army who has served in the West. However wise may have been the theory of our Indian system, it can readily be substantiated that in its practical operation it has worked injustice and wrong to the Indian, has made his present state worse, morally and physically, than it was in his native wildness, and has entailed heavy and useless expense upon the Government. Some change, therefore, seems to be demanded by well-established facts resulting from an experience of many years.

It will doubtless be remembered by the War Department that shortly after my arrival in Minnesota in October, 1862, to assume command of this department, I invited the attention of the Secretary of war to this subject in relation to its application to the reserve and annuity Indians concerned in the outbreaks in that State. I proposed then that all the annuity Sioux, as well as the Winnebagoes, be collected together, with or without their consent, and be removed to some point far in rear of frontier settlements that their arms be taken away from them that the payment of money annuities be stopped that the appropriations for that purpose and to pay for all lands claimed by such Indians be devoted to building them villages and supplying them with food and clothing. By this means the annuity Indian would be deprived of any power to indulge his wandering habits or to injure his white or other neighbors, the temptation which the payment of money to his constantly presents to

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unscrupulous whites would be taken away, and he would thus be shielded from all the corrupt and debasing influences which have surrounded him in time past.

He would be placed under the most favorable circumstances to apply to him the influences of civilization, education, and Christianity with hope of successful results, and without the surroundings which have hitherto made such instruction impracticable. In the second, if not in the first, generation such humanizing influences would have their full effect and the Indian, if he could not be made a good citizen, could at least be made a harmless member of any community in which his lot might be cast. So long as annuity Indians retain their tribal organization and are treated in their corporate and not their individual capacity, the change of habits and of ideas necessary to effect this result cannot be accomplished, nor can these results ever be attained under any circumstances until the Indian is no lange an object of cupidity to the white man. By this mean also the great barrier to emigration and travel now constantly accumulating along our Western frontier would be removed, and Indian hostilities such as have marked our history of late years would come to an end.

This system would be very much less expensive to the Government than the present, attended as the latter is at short intervals with expensive Indian wars. Certainly, in a humane view, such a system as is here sketched has every advantage over that hitherto pursued. Whilst in October, 1862, I did not consider it my province (as indeed I do not now) to recommend the application of this system to any annuity Indians, except such as are within the limits of my own command, I yet believed then, as I do now, that such a system possessed every advantage over that hitherto pursued, and was much more worthy of a humane and wise Government. In proposing it I have hot undertaken to discuss the question of the right of a few nomadic Indians to claim possession of the vast district of country which they roam over, to check the advance of civilization, or to retain in wildness and unproductiveness, for the scanty subsistence of a few thousand savages, regions which would support many millions of civilized men. However such questions may be decided by abstract reasoning, all history shows that the result will certainly be in some way the dispossession of the savage and the occupation of his lands by civilized man. The only practical question, therefore, for the Government to consider is the means by which this result may be attained with the greatest humanity, the least injustice, and the largest benefit to the Indian morally and physically.

No Government except our own has ever recognized Indian title to lands on this continent. It is with just pride that we point to our record on this subject, but such pride cannot but be mush abated when we come to contemplate the practical working of the system which is based on this principle. Whilst our Indian system is based upon the principle of remunerating the Indian for lands taken from him, the practical result of its application has been to leave him in contact and intercourse with a class of unscrupulous whites, who are attracted to him only in the hope of securing the money which he receives. No measures are omitted to plunder him, and as the most effective method of doing this if first to degrade him by drink and gambling, that process is of course the one generally pursued.

No sufficient protection from these influences is afforded to the Indian, and the very principle of recognizing his title to lands and

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paying him for them, upon which we pride ourselves so much, has been in fact, by the manner of its application, the direct cause of his degradation and of the temptation to wrong and plunder him. To the practical operation of a principle which is in itself wise and humane, we owe the constant recurrence of Indian wars and the deep degradation of the Indian. I propose, therefore, that the annuity Indians who still observe their treaties be removed to points far in rear of the frontier settlements in the manner and under the conditions indicated, and that all other Indians be left to the exclusive management of the War Department and the military commanders in the Indian country.

The application of a system based upon these recommendations would of necessity require a radical change in our whole Indian policy and although I hardly feel justified in recommending so extensive a reorganization of our Indian system, I consider it not improper to present these views for the consideration of those who have jurisdiction of the subject. I have presented the foregoing suggestions for the consideration of the War Department because I believe that the time has arrived when, having had abundant experience of the evil working of our present Indian policy, we can remodel it without confusion so as best to promote the interests of the Government and to secure humane and just treatment of the Indian tribes. I have sketched the subject thus briefly, because I only design to present the outline of suggestions which can properly be made the basis of action by the legislative department of the Government, and to invite attention to a subject which merits and should receive careful consideration.

My immediate purpose in giving thus, in detail, the evil working of our present Indian system is simply that the facts stated my be made the basis of an urgent request to the War Department in view of military operations on the great plains during the coming spring. These operations will bring us into contact with tribes of wild Indians with whom treaties have never been made, and with powerful bands of annuity Indians belonging to the second class of annuity Indians described in this paper who have violated their treaties. In view of any permanently successful results of military movements, I have the honor to request respectfully, but with all earnestness, that the present system of treaty making be not applied to the wild tribes, and that treaties already violated be not renewed. I have proposed to establish large military posts in the midst of the Indian country which shall cover the border settlements of Iowa, Dakota, and Minnesota, at a long distance, and at the same time so locate them that they shall furnish some protection along the emigrant route to Idaho. Strong cavalry forces will visit the various tribes of Indians east, north, and south of the Missouri River, and hold such conferences with them and take such measures as shall assure quiet.

I would ask, therefore, that the military be left to deal with these Indians without the interposition of Indian agents. I ask it because I believe that any permanent peace with the Indians depends upon it, and because I am convinced that the condition of the Indian in his wild state is far better than his status under present Indian policy. If we could provide by treaty for the removal of the Indians to points far within the frontier States, and could place them in such condition that they would no longer be a temptation to covetous white men, whilst at the same time they would be prevented from indulging

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their wandering habits and subjected under the most favorable circumstances to all the influences of education and Christianity, I have no doubt that such treaties would be eminently wise and humane but between such a condition and the native state of the Indian there is no intermediate arrangement which is not attended with wrong to the Indian, unnecessary expense to the Government, and constant danger to the frontier settlements. In his wild condition the Indian possesses at least many noble qualities, and has only the vices which are inseparable from the savage state. He is free, and, so far as he can be, happy, contented, and easily managed. If the Government make any change in his condition it should be for the better. It is easier far to preserve the peace and protect emigration where only wild Indians are in question than where these annuity Indians are concerned. Either a radical change in our Indian policy should be made, or, in justice to the Government as well as to the Indian and to the cause of humanity, he should be left in his native state, only subject to the condition that he shall not molest the emigrants who pursue their journey though his vast domain.

If we cannot adopt the former of these alternatives, the latter has at least been made more easy by the fact that we have already reached the western limit of the great fertile region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The great region now roamed over by the Indians offers no inducements to settlement and cultivation, and the lands are not coveted by the whites, except in the circumscribed regions within the mountains where gold has been discovered. Special arrangements can, if necessary, be made with the Indians who claim those immediate districts, but there is no longer the necessity of interfering with the wild Indians of the great plains further than to secure immunity of travel for white emigrants. This safety of travel can readily be secured by thee kind action of the military authorities.I believe that the further application by Indian agents of our present system of treaty making would only jeopardize this result, and for this reason, as well as in consideration of the facts heretofore stated, I urge upon the Department that no treaties be made nor renewed with Indians in this department. The system of Indian policy I have herein sketched and recommended I hope earnestly will be adopted, as well for the good of the Indian as for the good of the country. Until that is dome or some such change in our Indian system be made, I trust that on grounds of humanity, as well as of interest, the Government will decide to leave the Indian in his native wildness.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JNO. POPE,

Major-General, Commanding.

Series I, Vol. XXXIV, Part II

Page 460 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter XLVI.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KANSAS, Fort Leavenworth, February 28, 1864.

His Excellency A. LINCOLN,

President of the United States:

When in 1861 I had penetrated Western Arkansas so as to command the Indian country on my right flank, you telegraphed me to give such protection to the loyal portion as I could.

Knowing the attitude taken soon after my movements by John Ross and the Penn Society, I carefully avoided entering the Indian country because I knew my troops were exasperated after some barbarities committed by the Indians at Pea Ridge, and because I could not remain and protect them for want of supplies, which I soon exhausted in the country. But I have always borne your injunctions in memory, and in subsequent movements of troops through this Indian country and beyond, favored by every means in my power the wisdom and humanity of your prescribed policy.

In a recent reconnaissance which I have made to ascertain the position of foes and the resources of my command, I have traversed a large portion of the Indian country, and personally inspected the Indian troops and the refugee camps of negroes and Indians that are gathered around our commands, and knowing their interests are still pressed upon you, I present to Your Excellency such crude ideas as seem important to them and my command. The route traversed by me was from Fort Gibson down the Arkansas River to Van Buren, back to Fort Scott, and from thence west to Humboldt and north to Topeka. I thus traversed and skirted most of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Osage, Sac and Fox territories. All the country abounds in rich prairie lands, well timbered, watered, and gently rolling meadows. Fine coal and great salt springs abound, cattle and hogs run wild, and my troops killed them for our subsistence, and the meat was fat and good at this season of a closing hard winter.

But the Indians have entirely abandoned their widely scattered farms and there is no other food in the country. From the limit of white settlements, about 15 miles below Fort Scott, to Fort Gibson, 150 miles, not a human being was found and hardly a track, and everywhere, except close by our posts or in and adjoining white settlements, the Indians have deserted their homes. They are therefore massed as refugees about Fort Scott, Fort Gibson, and in the Sac and Fox Nations, about 40 miles south of Topeka. The Indian Department is furnishing breadstuffs to a considerable extent, but down on the Arkansas I found them at their meals generally eating only meat. These refugees have miserable hovels made of bark, old tents, and sometimes hides. Many told me that they had left comfortable homes and cultivated farms to which they are exceedingly anxious to return.

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Vegetation is starting and they want to plant, hoping thereby to procure bread next year, and they eagerly inquire as to their probable protection. Their rebel foes, partly Indians, but led by whites, are on the Red River, where three brigades under Cooper were reported. Beyond Cooper's forces the rebel army is in winter quarters. The Sac and Fox Indians have sold, and with the refugees about them desire to go to their new lands south. The people of Kansas, too, are very anxious they shall go, but in view of such a plan, which I understand the honorable the Commissioner proposes and everybody favors, two matters are especially presented:

First. The necessity of a large depot of provision at or near Fort Smith. As such a depot will invite rebel raids, it becomes necessary for me to look to the location of such depot and its defensive arrangement. Either Fort Gibson or Van Buren, on the north side of the Arkansas, would be safest, as I have written to the War Department.

Second. The requisite number of troops to defend the Indians and the depot. The Indians are and will be in this department, but as the department orders are construed the troops are in another department. Just as you advance the Indians and their supplies farther south more force is needed to defend them, and Your Excellency will perceive the magnitude of the difficulty by noticing the fact that we have only about 2,500 very irregular Indian home guards, while all the aggregate Indians and negroes must amount to 15,000 or 20,000, who at least for the coming year want protection and will produce very little.

Keokuk, the head chief of the Sac and Fox tribes, told me his people do not wish to move till the rebels are conquered, but I suppose if we have a strong force on the Arkansas below, or on the Red River, he would be willing to move down on the Verdigris, where the Osages are collected.

In view of all these circumstances, Your Excellency will see the importance of regulating the Indian movement so as to conform to military power in this department, and either strengthen the latter or delay the former for at present there is not adequate force in this command to insure safety to the whites and the Indians, congregated as they are in the safest positions. I have written Major-General Halleck and the honorable the Secretary of War concerning arms, fortifications, and forces necessary to defend the people in this department, and I hope Your Excellency will feel an interest and exert an influence in the premises.

I well remember at the commencement of this war Your Excellency went with me to the War Department and personally directed supplies of guns to be furnished as I requested, and I trust your zeal has not lessened or my experience diminished my qualification to urge the application of means to proper military purposes, hoping, Mr. President, that in the great army movements which you have to consider you will indulge me in anxious petitions in favor of your devoted but much-neglected friends in this department. I have heard much of the troubles of Kansas, but my personal observations during the past four weeks have brought to my notice more of the havoc of war, and savage cruelty, and infamous barbarity on the part of rebel foes than human imagination can compass. I have returned to headquarters after 800 miles of travel a wiser but a sadder soldier in your devoted service.

I have the honor to be, Mr. President, your very obedient servant,

S. R. CURTIS,

Major-General.

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HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KANSAS, Fort Leavenworth, February 28, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

The Indian regiments at Fort Gibson, about 2,500 strong, are anxious to be mounted they of all other troops are best suited to mounted service. The Osage Indians have come in from their hunt with plenty of ponies, which can be bought for from $20 to $30 apiece. I respectfully recommend the mounting of the Indian troops on these ponies. There is danger of the rebels obtaining the ponies if we do not get them from the Osages. Besides, such ponies are used to living on the prairies, are acclimated, and I would buy them for Government use where better horses are now becoming very scarce. If you approve, telegraph me to buy the ponies, so that it can be done before they are scattered or stolen. If bought, I would collect them at Fort Scott and Humboldt where grass and corn would recruit them, so as to deliver them for use in April, when grass is good and friends and face will begin to operate in the region of the Arkansas and Red River.

I have the honor to be, Secretary, your very obedient servant,

S. R. CURTIS,

Major-General.

WASHINGTON, February 28, 1864-12 m.

Major-General CURTIS, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.:

The dividing lines of the Departments of Kansas and Arkansas remain as fixed by the orders of the President, and the military commands must conform to them but this should not prevent the co-operation of the troops against the common enemy. The inconveniences of which you speak were foreseen and represented before the order was issued.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KANSAS, Fort Leavenworth, February 28, 1864.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief:

GENERAL: I have received no answers from you or from the honorable Secretary of War concerning the ambiguity or dilemma involved in the meaning of the words "Fort Smith" as contained in the order, Numbers 1, of the honorable Secretary creating this Department of Kansas. I wrote you last from Elm Springs, Ark., in which I expressed my views, after personal reconnaissance, of the necessity of fortifying both Fort Smith and Van Buren, this latter place being the safe and proper depot for stations above. Since my arrival here, I am informed that General Steele has advised General Thayer that the War Department has decided that the town of Fort Smith is in the Department of Arkansas, and therefore directs General Thayer to command all the troops in and about the town.

When I was there the stone inclosure, about 200 feet square, did not contain a corporal's guard, and it would be mere mockery to attach such a place to my command while all the troops within 50 miles belong to another department and if such be the construction,

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that Fort Smith does not mean the town, and is not made to include the troops and heights which are its legitimate defenses, I desire the words "Fort Smith" may be erased from my department as being entirely void of all military meaning. This construction excludes from my command all the troops that took and hold the country about Fort Smith, as the troops at the date of the order were in and out of the city of Fort Smith mostly for convenience of forage east of the west line of Arkansas.

If such be the construction of my department order I have only the Indian Brigade now at Fort Gibson, a dismounted, decimated, undisciplined, and poorly armed Indian command, to protect the whole country below Fort Scott. I also find your Special Orders, Numbers 81, removing the Ninth Kansas away from the Missouri border where they had just scattered 100 or 200 bushwhackers, and sending them also to General Steele in Arkansas. The greatest anxiety and apprehension prevails in Kansas, where the towns and people have been subject to atrocious assaults from secret and most unrelenting foes. Taking away the troops best acquainted with the haunts of fiends, who have but recently sacked their towns and murdered 250 unarmed inhabitants and overpowered soldiers, will greatly increase public anxiety and peril the towns in that vicinity.

Small gangs of bushwhackers are assembling in the Sni Hills, where Quantrill's band has repeatedly assembled, and the people cannot feel safe or pursue their avocations without the presence of a considerable force being distributed as the Ninth and other troops are in that vicinity. I cannot, therefore, withhold my surprise and mortification at orders which seem to reduce my force and expose this command to the same sort of outrages that have heretofore disgraced civilized and even savage warfare.

The lives and property destroyed by the raids, sacking, and cruel murders committed at Shawnee, Gardner, Olathe, Humboldt, Osawatomie, Baxter Springs, and Lawrence were of more value than the cost of keeping twenty regiments in the field to guard them. Yet far less, well disposed and properly armed, can prevent further similar outrages, which without such force may well be apprehended. The enemy, it is true, is not found organized and in force north of the Canadian, but such was the state of things when the last disaster burst upon the people at dawn of day and reduced a city to ashes, and the whole country was clad in mourning. It seems to me more, not less, troops should be appropriated to even the defenses of Eastern Kansas and the Indian country. Besides, offensive thrusts against Texas and traitors assembled on the Red River can be made on the good roads and grassy prairies west of the mountain ranges which intercept the movements through Missouri and Arkansas. I ask your fair and favorable allotment of forces to my command, and your sympathies for an unfortunate but devoted people.

I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant,

S. R. CURTIS,

Major-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF KANSAS, Numbers 10.Fort Leavenworth, February 28, 1864.

The Department of Kansas includes the State of Kansas, the Territories of Nebraska and Colorado, and the Indian Territory, including

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the military post of Fort Smith. This department, for further convenience, is divided into districts, as follows:

First. District of the Frontier, embracing all that portion of the department south of Kansas, commanded by Major General James G. Blunt, U. S. Volunteers.

Second. District of South Kansas, comprising that part of the State of Kansas lying south of the Kansas River and its tributary, the Smoky Hill Fork, commanded by Brigadier General Thomas J. McKean, U. S. Volunteers.

Third. District of North Kansas, including that part of the State north of the Kansas River and Smoky Hill Fork, commanded by Brigadier General Thomas A. Davies, U. S. Volunteers.

Fourth. District of Nebraska Territory, commanded by Brigadier General R. B. Mitchell, U. S. Volunteers.

Fifth. District of Colorado Territory, commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., U. S. Volunteers.

The districts thus designated are for the convenience of police regulations, but commanders in the field will not hesitate to cross lines and co-operate with adjacent commands, when the interests of the department seem to require. Generally, reports should be made through district headquarters, but commanders of posts and expeditions in the field may, at their discretion, report important matters to these headquarters.

By command of Major-General Curtis:

JOHN WILLAMS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Series I, Vol. XXXIV, Part II

Page 469 Chapter XLVI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION. FORT LARAMIE, February 29, 1864.

Colonel J. M. CHIVINGTON:

Colonel Collins had the opportunity of arresting or notifying those parties previous to their leaving the agency. I notified the colonel that they were lawfully licensed traders and were going to start out asked him if he had any orders to give them said not. I notified the traders accordingly. The Indians are all quiet and well disposed toward the whites at the points where the traders were going, and need small quantities of ammunition for small game. The traders, under my advice, have taken but a small proportion of ammunition to the amount of goods they have. The traders' invoices filed at the Indian Department call for double the amount I allowed them to take out, I knowing nothing of Order Numbers 29. There not being any condemned provisions at the post, and not having any provisions of my own, the Indians must necessarily have some ammunition, or will soon be in suffering condition. I know of no other way of supplying their wants. Should you know, please make the suggestion. I respectfully ask the discharge of the parties.

JOHN LOREE,

U. S. Indian Agent.