every confidence, and in whose hands we believe our Nation would prosper and our general welfare and happiness be promoted. Such we have found Brigadier General D. H. Cooper to be in all his relations in Indian affairs.

Our convention will be called together soon, and the wishes of the whole people expressed and forwarded to you.

We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants,

SAML. M. TAYLOR,

Acting Assistant Chief Cherokee Nation.

JOHN SPEARS,

Executive Council.

ALEX. FOREMAN,

President of the Convention.

[Inclosure Numbers 7.]

PRAIRIE SPRINGS, C. N., June 24, 1863.

SIR: The question of again creating the Indian Territory a separate military department we understand, has been brought up. We hope it may be created. Since it has been attached to the Trans-Mississippi District the country and people have suffered severely. Supplies and funds for pay of troops, having to pass through so many hands, are long delayed, and many of them never reach us. Arkansas military leaders stripped the Indian Department of all that General Pike provided for it. Troops that had been raised for the express purpose of defending the Indian country were taken away from it at a time the enemy was invading it, and their services most needed, and the Indians left to defend it as best they could, without arms, subsistence, and clothing that had long been promised, and which had even reached the border of their country, yet passed into other hands, with the exception of a few suits, and many of them troops with pay due for twelve months. We do not mention this with any spirit of complaint, but to show the necessity of creating the Territory a separate department. But while we greatly desire it to be made so, we are fearful that some favorite Arkansas military politician may be appointed to command it, as we have reasons for believing that some of them are looking to and are aspiring for it. As far as our observation and knowledge extend, Arkansas politicians who fill military offices are endeavoring to lay a foundation upon which to build political capital hereafter, and politics in that State have mixed too much with military appointments in it for the good of the State or Indian country. It is our desire that this department be separated from all others. If you deem it best to grant our desires, we earnestly request you to appoint to the command of it Brigadier General D. H. Cooper, a man in whom we have every confidence,and who has been with us from the beginning of the war; who has suffered with us and has shared all our privations, and who, by his own exertions, raised troops for our defense, and, when the enemy had advanced to the center of the Indian Territory, came to the rescue, and, by his firmness, drove them from the country, and marched his little army into Missouri and there gained some advantages over them, but was not supported by officers placed in command over him by political military chieftains, but ordered back into Arkansas, the troops he had raised for our defense taken from him, and we, composing but a small force, were driven south of the Arkansas River, and when all other generals had deserted and deprived us of all that was necessary to render us efficient and comfortable, with a dreary winter before us, with no subsistence and an enemy in our midst, he