ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, CHOCTAW NATION,

Scullyville, August 1, 1861.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States:

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the regiment of mounted rifles authorized for the service of the Confederate States from among the Choctaws and Chickasaws h as been raised, and is now fully organized according to law. When supplied with arms, I can justly state no more ardent, efficient, and patriotic body of warriors will be found under the banner of Southern independence.

It is an unkind and certainly an incorrect statement, made by some Southern journals, that the Indian warriors design using the scalping-knife in any conflict in which they may be engaged with the enemy. These warriors are a civilized people, are Christians in principle, observe the Army Regulations, and drill with commendable closeness, and will show, when proper occasion offers, they are worthy the age, the cause, and the brotherhood they share with their white allies.

There are two Choctaw and one Chickasaw companies organized, besides the number authorized, that are very anxious to enter the service. I learn there will shortly be organized one Choctaw and one Chickasaw company more, expecting to be called into the field.

Five additional companies can be raised in the two nations. It is presumed that the failure of the Cherokees to furnish the regiment asked of them will insure the Choctaws and Chickasaws a chance to supply, that deficiency to the extent of a battalion of three or five companies, if not an entire regiment. Such an order from the War Department would be eminently just to our Chickasaw brethren, because, for good reasons, they have been enabled to furnish only about twenty men to the first regiment. I believe the men who would answer another call would enter the service until the close of the war, and, if necessary, could be armed at home with shot-guns and old-pattern rifles to the number of five hundred. More than half that number have Colt's six shooters. This portion of our people, being what are termed half-breeds, most all speaks the English language, and have better horses and more arms than the full-bloods, who comprise most of those already in the service. I would urge upon your excellency a further call for warriors among the people of the two nations. It would allay a disappointment and rivalry toward the Choctaws, now apparent among the Chickasaw, to allow them to furnish two or three companies to the service, and strengthen the many relations destiny has affixed to the contiguity of soil and the similarity of interests of the Southers and the Indians of the South.

In view of an anticipated call for warriors, it affords me great pleasure to testify to your excellency to propriety of giving the command of them to Josephus Dotson, esq., of Fort Smith, Ark. His high standing among the leaders of both the Choctaw and Chickasaw people, and his service for seven years as a legal adviser,, political sympathizer, and steadfast friend, is fully attested by the recommendations from the principal national authorities of both nations, asking his appointment to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the regiment now in the service, which are now on file in the War Office at Richmond.

I ask the appointment of Mr. Dotson, knowing the brave men among us so eager for the field would rally around him with increased enthusiasm, and believing he would lead them at any hour with credit to the Confederacy. I learn Mr. Dotson design aiding in the organiza-

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