possible way, to organize an artillery battalion, of which I had appointed Captain Woodruff to be acting major, and asked of the President his promotion and appointment as chief of artillery. I had procured for the Indian troops 7,000 suits of clothing, 5,000 pairs of shoes, 1,000 flannel shirts, and 1,000 tents. The troops of Generals Van Dorn and Price, by somebody's authority, appropriated to their own use whatever of those articles they desired. Nearly every one of the few boxes that reached her had been opened, and parts of the contents abstracted. No receipts were given for anything. What was left has come here, a little by one wagon and a little by another; not enough of all to do the troops any good. The clothing was for the winter, and, being delayed by General Van Dorn's orders, came here in April and May. Of the 7,000 suits, I have received 200 or 300; of the shoes, about 1,800 pairs; of the tents, about 160. Not a single wall-tent out of 250 has reached me. The Indian regiments have sent, time and again, for shoes and clothing, and I have had to confess our poverty, excuse myself, and satisfy them as best I could. What little was left I had to divide with the white troops, even with a regiment that remained her only two or three weeks, and then was marched off, ostensibly to hasten to Corinth, in reality to be furloughed in Texas, and now [said] to be still on the road to Corinth, somewhere in Arkansas. It cannot be said that General Van Dorn did not know that his order to send everything to Little Rock would take everything of mine away from me, because he could not have forgotten that he ordered the whole to remain at Fort Smith, and that this order had not been revoked. If others had not interfered, all the medicines and hospital stores for the command, and all the rifle powder, would also have gone to Little Rock, the latter being actually in process of shipment, and partly on board steamboats when it was rescued. And all this occurred at the very time when the general was sending me order to the effect that I was expected to maintain myself in the Indian country independent of his army. I had never applied to him or any other general for anything. What I had provided I had secured by own exertions, and everything was sent specially for my command. I only wished his army to maintain itself independent of me. He had permitted the order of the Secretary of War to stand, which authorized me to have two regiments of infantry raised in Arkansas, and when they were raised he ordered them away,m even when part of one had reached Fort Smith.

I had hardly entered the Indian country-to find everything in confusion there, delegations of Osages and Comanches awaiting me, tribes anxious to receive their moneys, and troops clamorous for their pay, with $681,000 in my hands which I had no authority to pay out, and knew not what to do with-than I was compelled by his reiterated orders, to join him with my whole force, to go to him with what Indians I could. By the treaties, none of them could be taken out of the Indian I could. By the treaties, none of them could be taken out of the Indian country without their consent. The Creeks refused to go; the Choctaws and Chickasaws delayed in order to be paid off, and I joined him with less than a thousand men, of the two Cherokee regiments. Taken out of their country to help us defend ours, their presence in the action is ignored and virtually negatived by the general's official report, and they returned home to complain of it, and to tell their people, if they chose, how out troops were defeated, and how many fled, routed, from the field, part one way and part another, and how when 5,000 or 6,000 men were with the train, and no enemy within 25 miles, tents and other property were burned and destroyed, with every mark of alarm and consternation, while the main army was fleeing as rapidly in the other direction.