all military connection with Arkansas-a connection now more unwisely insisted and determined on, and which must always subordinate its interests to those of Western and Northwestern Arkansas, whose welfare and safety will always be the principal, if not only object of the officer in command; must always direct elsewhere the troops, arms, and ammunition intended for and promised to the Indians and the moneys owing to them and procured for them.

2. The officer in command of the Indian Department must not be subject to the orders of officers a distance having other chief ends in view than the protection of the Indians and the fulfillment of the solemn pledges and promises made them by treaties, especially where the objects of the officers conflict with those which ought to be had in view by the commandant of the Indian country. This country is a large one, and the means of communication of the slowest nature. As long as the war lasts one of the chief purpose of the Northern Government and officers will be to redeem their promises to the hostile Creeks and Seminoles by replacing them in their own country; and this is to be effected not by a movement upon Fort Gibson and along the eastern edge of the Creek country, but by one much farther to the westward, turning the positions at Fort Gibson and Cantonment Davis in the rear and reaching the Deep and North Forks of the Canadian in the heart of the Creek country, and leaving these posts in the rear. This therefore must be guarded against by a commander in the Indian country itself, who can act promptly when the emergency happens, and who shall not be liable to have been at the most inopportune moment ordered by some one in Little Rock or elsewhere to march into the Northern part of the Cherokee country, or even into Kansas, Missouri, or Northwestern Arkansas. The will tribes on the western frontier also require a constant vigilance and the presence of troops in the Chickasaw country and leased district. The Cherokee country is not by any means the whole Indian country, and the administration of the affairs of the command in the latter will always make as many demands on the time of a commander and control his movements as much as its military necessities.

3. The promises contained in the treaties, and made by the Commissioner, of protection to the Indians by an adequate force of white troops must be faithfully and fully performed. As yet they have never been so for a moment. One thousand two hundred or 1,300 mounted Texans, with six pieces of artillery and no infantry, amount to nothing. Placed in the Cherokee country, their weakness immediately known would only invite and insure invasion. Besides this, such mounted men are worthless. They never have done and never will do any valuable service unless strongly supported by infantry and artillery. They were never asked for or wanted by the brigadier-general commanding, nor would he venture upon an engagement with them and the Indians alone with them and the Indians alone with any organized and disciplined force of the enemy. The President should send to the country four full regiments of infantry, well armed, from other States than Arkansas and Texas, who would have but one object-to hold the Indian country for itself, and not be always anxious to fly to the relief of their own States or on account of the vicinity of their homes be always clamorous for furloughs and affected with a thousand diseases by means of which to get away from the service. It would be easy to send here a regiment from South Carolina, one from Georgia, one from Alabama, and one from Mississippi or Louisiana; with these a small force of mounted men would be valuable. The artillery company and battery taken away the command should be restored and the