received the compliment of a brevet -Captain Shinn to be brevetted as major an First Lieutenant Harwood as captain. Unless these young men are rewarded by a compliment of this kind I shall always feel that the passage of a battery of light artillery, always in fighting condition, over such in inhospitable, in the midst of the heat of summer, is a matter of such trivial artillery, always in flighting consumer, over such an hospitable waste, in the midst of the heat of summer, is a matter trivial importance in the profession of arms as not to be worthy of notice. Their was the first battery that ever crossed the desert. I am sure that the who crosses the next one will be considered an accomplished soldier.

I trust that General Wright will call the attention of the General-in-Chief to the credit which is eminently due these young gentlemen for their service in this column. I have already asked for promotion of my adjutant-general, Lieutenant Benjamin C. Cutler; for my medical director, Surg. James M. McNulty, and for my regimental quartermaster, First Lieutenant Lafayette Hammond, all of the First California Volunteer Infantry. Their merits are too well known at the headquarters Department of the Pacific to need any further words of commendation from myself.

In conclusion, I beg to that General Wright for the confidence he always reposed in me. In carrying out his orders and instructions I have endeavored to do my best, yet, as it was a new and very extended field of operations, my judgment about what was best to be done under emergencies as they arose was doubtless not always of the soundest character; yet I feel that General Wright has kindly overlooked all imperfections of this nature, and saved me the pain of any rebukes, which no doubt I have deserved. For this I feel very grateful.

The march of the column from California in the summer months across the Great Desert, in the driest season that has ever been known for thirty years, is a military achievement creditable to the soldiers of the American Army; but it would not be just to attribute the success of this march to any ability on my part. That success was gained only by the high physical and moral energies of that peculiar class of officers and men who composed the Column from California. With any other troops I am sure I should have failed.

I send you a set of colors which have been borne by this column. They were hoisted by Colonel West on Forts Breckinridge and Buchanan, and over Tucson, Ariz.; by Colonel Eyre over Forts Thorn and Fillmore, and over Mesilla, N. Mex., and over Fort Bliss, in Texas. They were hoisted by Captain Cremony over Fort Quitman, and by Captain Shirland over Fort Davis, in Texas; and thus again have those places been consecrated to out beloved country.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.

Lieutenant Colonel RICHARD C. DRUM,

Asst. Adjt. General, U. S. Army, San Francisco, Cal.

[Inclosure B.]

HEADQUARTERS COLUMN FROM CALIFORNIA,
Miembres River, Ariz., August 6, 1862.

Colonel JOSEPH R. WEST,

First California Volunteer Infantry, Commanding Camp"

COLONEL: I have been credibly informed that there are some 20 families of men, women, and children at the Pino Alto mines, some 40