was very salutary, and paved the way for the successful negotiations of a treaty with that tribe on the 9th of June last, by which they have surrendered the greater portion of their reservation, including all of the gold- mining regions.

On the 9th of May last I assembled six companies of troops, under command of Colonel J. Steinberger, First Washington Territory Infantry, at Fort Lapwai, preliminary to said negotiations. I have no doubt that the concentration of those troops had a salutary effect on all the those Indian tribes have remained at peace with whom the Indian wars of 1855, 1856, and 1858 were carried on, and the only Indians who have committed assaults upon the frontier, have been the Snakes. The Snakes speak the Comanche language, have the same habits, and are in fact a branch of the Comanche tribes of the region east of the Rocky Mountains. On the 14th of October, 1862, I sent to department headquarters a letter (forwarded afterward to the Adjutant-General of the Army) recommending the estabishment of a military post at or near Fort Boise for the protection of emigrants and settlers in that country. On the 29th of January I received instructions from department headquarters, pursuant to the authority of the Secretary of War, to make the necessary arrangements for the establishment of a past at Fort Boise. Said arrangements were made with the assistance of Bvt. Major P. Lugenbeel, Ninth Infantry, to whom the command of the troops destined for that post was given. After a careful reconnaissance he established it on the 4th of July at a point about forty-three miles east of old Fort Boise and 275 miles from Wallula (the depot on the Columbia River better known as old Fort Walla Walla.) He has found a good site for a saw-mill on a creek ten miles from the post. He has commenced, agreeably to instructions the erection of temporary quarters for a five-company post, three of infantry and two of cavalry. I have no doubt he has located the post judiciously and that he has practiced the utmost economy, which was strictly enjoined upon him. During this winter for want of forage the cavalry, with the exception of twenty-five men, will withdraw to Fort Walla Walla. A population of 10,000 or 15,000 people have gone into those mines and that whole region is fast increasing in importance. Colonel Maury, with three companies of First Oregon Cavalry and two of infantry, was ordered to proceed in July last from Fort Boise to a point on Snake River above Fort Hall for the protection of the emigration. He has at last dates successfully carried out the plan, and on the 17th of August, 1863, met Captain M. Crawford assistant quartermaster, in charge of the emigrant escort, at the ferry on Snake River, as had been arranged by me early in the spring when Captain Crawford left here for Washington City. Owing to the pacification effected by General Connor and Governor Doty, of Utah, the Snake Indians upon that route have been very quiet this summer. Colonel Maury is now on his return to Fort Walla Walla, and has crossed Snake River at Salmon Falls and intended thence to proceed to the headwaters of the Owyhee and Malheur Rivers, southwest of Fort Boise, in which quarters it was reported that the Snake Indians had fired upon some of the miners prospecting for gold. Colonel Maury was directed this year, as also a year ago, not to return to Fort Walla Walla until the 1st of November, thereby insuring the most efficient protection which could be rendered before the commencement of winter. The experience of former expeditions as in the unfortunate massacre of September, 1860, had admonished me that the troops should not return to the military posts until the approach of