ment to which they did not belong, but it will be seen that General Wright has given it a more extended application. This is not immediately material, as no question of command or personal consideration will be allowed by me to interfere with the interests of the service. It is proper, however, that its status should be fixed by superior authority. If this force is to return to the Department of the Pacific, that fact will modify materially the recommendations made in my report of the 6th instant.

HEADQUARTERS COLUMN FROM CALIFORNIA,
Santa Fe, N. Mex., September 20, 1862.

COLONEL; I wrote to you on July 22, informing you of all the important events connected with the Column from California from June 18 to that date. I then inclosed copies of General Orders, Nos. 10 and 11, from these headquarters, which prescribed the mannher in which the column should march across the desert from Tucson to the Rio Grande. I left Tucson myself on July 23; passed Colonel West, with most of the troops encamped on the San Pedro, on the 24th, and led the advance of the column from that point to Las Cruces, N. Mex., with one company of infantry and two of cavalry. From the hostile attitude of the Chiricahua Indians, I found it indispensably necessary to establish a post in what is known as Apache Pass. It is known as Fort Bowie, and garrisoned by 100 rank and file of the Fifth California Volunteer Infantry, and 13 rank and file of Company A, First California Volunteer Cavalry. This post commands the water in that pass. Around this water the Indians have been in the habit of lying in ambush and shooting troops and travelers as they came to drink. In this way they killed 3 of Lieutenant Colonel Eyre's command, and in attempting to keep Captain Roberts' First California Volunteer Infantry away from the spring a fight ensued, in which Captain Roberts had 2 men killed and 2 wounded. Captain Roberts reports that the Indians lost 10 kiffair the men of Captain Roberts' company are reported as behaving with great gallantry. Two miles beyond Apache Pass I foudn the remains of nine white men who had been murdered by the Indians. They were a party traveling from the Pino Alto mines to California. One of them had been burned at the stake; we saw the charred bones and the burnt ends of the rope by which he had been tied. The remains of seven of these men were buried on that spot. From the Rio de Sauz to Ojo de la Vaca there was a great dearth of water. At the latter place I addressed a letter to General Canby, giving him all the elements going to make up the column, the object of its march, and the wishes of General Wright. A copy of that letter is herewith inclsoed, marked A. *

Having been informed that a large number of men, women, and children were in a destitute and starving condition at Pino Alto mines, forty-odd miles northeastward from the Ojo de la Vaca, I directed Colonel West to furnish them with some subsistence stores as a gratuity. (See letter of instructions to Colonel West, marked B, and Captain Shirland's report on the starving condition of these people, marked C.) I arrived on the Rio Grande on August 7 at a point three miles above Fort Thorn, and immediately communicated with General Canby by letter, marked D. On August 9 I passed the Rio Grande at the San Diego Crossing, eighteen miles below Fort Thorn. The river was still very high and very rapid, but the men stripped off their clothes and

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*See Carleton's report to Canby of August 2, p. 92.

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