the reply to his written application, as his services can be better spared for the next fifteen days than at any other time.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRANCIS J. LIPPITT,

Colonel Second Infantry California Vols., Commanding Humboldt Mil. Dist.

Major R. C. DRUM, U. S. Army,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Pacific.

P. S. - Lieutenant Hanna has leave till the steamer of September 5.

HEADQUARTERS HUMBOLDT MILITARY DISTRICT,
Fort Humboldt, August 31, 1862.

COLONEL: In the afternoon of the 15th instant I received information of a band of Indians having taken possession of a timbered point of land on the coast about forty-five miles from this post, and about twelve above Trinidad, where they had attacked parties of travelers, and where they were supposed to intend to remain in order to cut off all communication with the settlements above. I immediately repaired to Camp Curtis, two miles beyond Arcata; took with me Captain Schmidt's company (B, Second California Volunteer Infantry) and proceeded with it the same evening to Trinidad, where we arrived at daybreak. The people of Trinidad were much alarmed; were expecting an attack every hour; had placed all their women and children in a brick store, and a loaded cannon in the main street. All the domestic Indians in the place were at once put on an island and watched, to prevent their giving information of our march. We lay by at Trinidad the whole of that day, and at dark commenced our march for the point where the Indians were stated to be. The night was pitchy dark, and as the march was conducted in the most perfect silence, there was nothing to betray our approach. At daybreak we arrived on the beach about one mile below the destined point. I made the men lie down behind the trunk of an enormous tree that was lying on the beach, and proceeded onward with a guide, a packer, and Lieutenant Campbell, with a citizen overcoat thrown over him. If the Indians had fired on us we should have retreated in such a manner as to draw them into the ambush prepared. We passed by the timbered point a third of a mile or more, but no Indians made their appearance. The command was then ordered up, and was employed for some time in examining the timber and the brush between the beach and Redwood Camp, a ranch three miles inland, which the Indians had attacked and burnt some three days before, and whither, it was supposed, the band had now gone, from the direction of a few fresh tracks we found on the beach. One-half of the command under Captain Schmidt was sent round to the same point by another trail. We camped that day at Redwood Camp to allow the men to get some sleep. In the afternoon three Indian scouts came within a few hundred yards of the camp to reconnoiter. On their being seen and reported by the sentry, Lieutenant Campbell was hastily dispatched with ten men to capture them. On being pursued the Indians scattered and ran into the forest in different directions. Captain Schmidt and Lieutenant Campbell, each with a detachment deployed as skirmishers, dashed into the woods after them, while I posted myself with the remaining nine men as a reserve in a central