Kentucky requires that every man should be on the ground there who is not absolutely needed elsewhere. I hope therefore that you will not detain in your department any more troops than are absolutely necessary for protection from the Indians, and that you will send the rest forward immediately to General Wright. I am quite sure your regard for the service will induce you to do so. Your other telegrams will be answered speedily.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON, D. C., September 23, 1862.

Major-General POPE:

Your requisitions on the Quartermaster's, Commissary, and Ordnance Departments are beyond all our expectations, and involve an immense expenditure of money. Moreover, they cannot be filled without taking supplies from other troops now in the field. The organization of a large force for an Indian campaign is not approved by the War Department, because it is not deemed necessary. Telegraph immediately how many troops you expect to organize and where you propose to send them.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE NORTHWEST, Saint Paul, September 23, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK,
Washington, D. C.:

Your dispatch of this date just received. You do not seem to be aware of the extent of the Indian outbreaks. The Sioux, 2,600 warriors, are assembled at the Upper Sioux agency, ready to give battle to Colonel Sibley, who is advancing against them with 1,600 men and five pieces of artillery. Farther west they have murdered the settlers along the frontier of Dakota and nearly depopulated that Territory. In Nebraska the same.

All the frontiers of Minnesota to within a short distance of the Mississippi have been depopulated, large towns and villages abandoned, an the property and crops of more than 50,000 people totally abandoned. Unless vigorous and powerful measures are at once taken to put as stop to these troubles and restore confidence the whole of Minnesota west of the Mississippi and the Territories of Dakota and Nebraska will be entirely depopulated. The Chippewas and Winnebagoes all on the verge of outbreak and the whole of the Indian tribes as far as the mountains are in motion.

I have in Minnesota, including one Wisconsin regiment, about 4,000 men. There are at Fort Snelling about 1,200 Minnesota troops, unarmed. All the Iowa troops that were armed have been sent by your orders to Saint Louis. I am using the Wisconsin regiment and some companies of the Minnesota regiments to establish temporarily a line of posts from north to south along the frontier in rear of Sibley to prevent the Indians from getting in his rear and running back upon the settlements.

You have no idea of the wide, universal, and uncontrollable panic everywhere in this country. Over 500 people have been murdered in Minnesota alone and 300 women and children now in captivity. The