true that he promised Mr. Johnson that if he would loan his quartermaster the $350,000 it should be punctually repaid to Major Quesenbury as soon as moneys should be received at Little Rock, which he said would be in who or three weeks. This promise has not been kept. It is also true that he stopped and seized the clothing procured by me for the Indians, when he knew they were expecting it, had been promised it, and were already discontented, and immediately on its being stopped at Fort Smith it was commenced to be issued to the white troops, and none of it has yet reached the Indians. It is equally true, incredible as it may seem, that he promised Mr. Scott, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, at Little Rock, that the clothing should go to the Indian when that officer was on his way to the Indian country to give the Indians assurance of the good faith of the Government and that no more of their supplies would be stopped; and while Mr. Scott was giving these assurances they were falsified by the seizure, by order or permission of General Holmes, of all the clothing, after I had furnished him a copy of paragraph VI, of General Orders, Numbers 58, prohibiting it, and that he thus made his own violated promise the broken pledge and the shame of the Government. The disgust and alienation of the Indians is thus completed, and the Indian country, by the acts of Generals Holmes and Hindman, is lost beyond redemption. They shall not cast the blame of losing it on me. It is their sole doing, and the "deep damnation" of it shall fall on them. I have been guilty of no insubordination, except what has been forced on me by these generals and in resisting their constant endeavors to ruin our cause in the Indian country and their resolute determination to set wholly at naught your orders and those of the President and to oppose his wishes and counteract his policy. I reassumed the command with the utmost reluctance and only in obedient to the President's wishes, as sent to me through Captain Mackey. The point of honor would have compelled me to remain there until the last moment if I had not been taken out by force. I am individually of very little importance, but it seems to me it will be a matter of no small moment if my case shall become a precedent and if it shall become a settled habit of the Republic to allow inferior officers to be sacrificed for resisting the exercise of illegal authority, protesting against disobedience of the President's orders, and opposing the substitution of armed violence in the place of law, and especially if such sacrifices should continue to be made, because otherwise it would be necessary to bring officers of higher rank to justice.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

ALBERT PIKE, of Arkansas.

LITTLE ROCK, November 22, 1862.

(Received November 26, 1862.)

General S. COOPER:

I could not get to Vicksburg in less than two weeks. There is nothing to subsist on between here and there, and the army at Helena would come to Little Rock before I reached Vicksburg.

TH. H. HOLMES,

Lieutenant-General.