along its surface were as scorching and suffocating as the famed sirocco. Yet through all these difficulties men and animals toiled on until the objects of the expedition were accomplished.

I could not learn from the Red River half-breeds that any of the Red Lake Chippewas were on the Red River; consequently, in the debilitated condition of the men and the suffering state of the animals, I deemed it improper to make any movement in that direction. I shall, however, on my return, make a demonstration of force toward Otter Tail Lake, and other localities where the Chippewa Indians are usually found, and then post the troops under my command so as to protect the frontier at all points from the few roving Indians who are said to infest it.

Should General Sully take up the pursuit of the Indians at the point on the Missouri River where I was obliged to abandon it, as I trust he will, and inflict further chastisement upon them, it might be consistent with the security of the Minnesota frontier to diminish the force in this military district; otherwise I have the honor to submit that there may and probably will be a further necessity for the use of the whole of it in further operations against these powerful bands should they attempt, in large numbers, to molest the settlements in retaliation for the losses they have sustained during the late engagements.

So soon as I shall reach Fort Abercrombie - in five or six days from this time - I will probably obtain such additional information of the state of things along the border as will enable me to act understandingly in the disposition of my forces, and will again address you on the subject.

I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. H. SIBLEY,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

J. F. MELINE,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, Milwaukee.

HDQRS. DIST. OF MINNESOTA, DEPT. OF THE NORTHWEST,
In the Field, Camp Hackett, Fort Abercrombie, August 23, 1863.

MAJOR: In my last dispatches to headquarters of the department, I inadvertently omitted to state that, after having left Camp Atchison in pursuit of the hostile Indians, I fell in with some of the half-breed hunters from Red River, who informed me that while the main body of the savages had gone toward the Missouri, a small camp of fifteen or twenty lodges had taken the direction of Devil's Lake, and would be found on its shores. I immediately dispatched orders to Major Cook, dated 22nd July, to send Captain Burt, of the Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, with two companies of infantry and one of cavalry, to scour the country in that quarter.

That efficient officer took up the line of march on the 24th July, and during eight days' absence from camp he examined thoroughly the region to the west of Devil's Lake, without discovering any Indians or fresh traces of them, excepting one young man, a son of Little Crow, who was found in a state of exhaustion on the prairie, and was taken prisoner without resistance, and brought into Camp Atchison. He states positively that his father, Little Crow, wa skilled at some point in the Big Woods on the Minnesota frontier, by shots from white men, while his father and himself were engaged in picking berries; that his father had taken with this son and 16 other men and 1 woman, and gone from the camp, then at Devil's Lake, several weeks previously, to the