HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,
Fort McCulloch, Jun 24, 1862.

Major General T. C. HINDMAN,

Commanding Trans-Mississippi District:

GENERAL: Your orders of the 31st of May reached me by courier at 5 p. m. on the 8th. On the same day I issued orders to Captain Woodruff and Colonel Dawson to march to little Rock. As soon as I could prepare my dispatches and a messenger could be got ready, I forwarded my reply, which you have before this time received. It is, by the way of Fort Smith, 334 miles from this point to Little Rock. Your orders of the 17th reached me this evening at 6 o'clock. I shall return this reply by the same courier.

As long as I retain my command here, I shall obey all lawful orders received from any quarter, if I can. Captain Woodruff made all possible haste to march. Colonel Dawson was delayed longer, owing to the absence of part of his wagons, which he had sent away of his own motion, with his furloughed men. I shall move my remaining white force, as soon as possible, to or near Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation. The furloughs of the Texas troops, granted for the purpose of enabling them to reap the wheat harvest, expire to-morrow, and all who do not report on the 27th will be dropped from the rolls as deserters. On that day the election for reorganization will be held.

I shall be delayed after that for the want of transportation. We never had half enough for the command, and half of what we had was unserviceable. Having ordered a movement of the Creek and Seminole commands toward the Santa Fe road, with a view of destroying Fort Larned and the fort on Walnut Creek, I have sent a train to the Seminole Agency with supplies of subsistence; and some days ago, upon receiving information of the invasion of the Cherokee country by a small force of the enemy, I ordered Colonel Sampson Folsom's First Choctaw Regiment, lately organized, to Fort Gibson, and assigned Colonel Douglas H. Cooper to command all the troops north of the Canadian. This compelled me to place supplies at Fort bison and North Fork, and this, with the necessity of sending transportation to Colonel John Drew, took all the wagons we could raise. I have made a depot of provisions at Fort Washita, and have a large supply there, a large quantity here, and some 60,000 pounds of flour at Fort Cobb. No provisions can be had at Fort Gibson, and I know there are none of any amount at Fort Smith, since flour has for some two months been carried there from that part of Texas adjoining this country. And, besides, I have had experience enough of the consequences of reliance on officers at Fort Smith for provisions, transportation, and money not to expect anything from that quarter. Major Pearce, while administering the commissariat at Fort Smith, managed to send us, in all, $81,000, and Major Clarke lent Major Quesenbury $30,000. As I suppose the removal of the troops from this post is to be a permanent one, the quantity of supplies and other articles to be removed is very considerable. I shall do the best I can as long as In continue to have anything to do with it, but it will be a slow process at the best. We have available, of the general train, 25 wagons, and the two regiments and six companies of white troops have 41. Out of these all the brigade, field, and staff officers have to be supplied.

There is not an ear of corn to be had after we leave here, nor anywhere in the vicinity of Fort Gibson. To look to Major Pearce for forage would be mere nonsense, and when we leave here our credit in