troops, if they are at the time behaving themselves well. A treaty of peace has also been entered into at Fort Bridger with other bands of the Shoshones, and it is understood that all of that nation are at peace with the United States and are under a pledge to remain friendly.

JAMES DUANE DOTY,

Commander and Governor of Utah Territory.

HDQRS. EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SNAKE INDIANS,
Camp Numbers 42, Near Fort Hall, Idaho Ter., August 24, 1863.

GENERAL: I have the honor to inform you that my command arrived at this camp in good health and condition on the 18th instant, having marched a distance of 170 miles from our depot in Camas Prairie, which we left on the 9th instant. Our present camp in on the Port Neuf River, about four miles from Fort Hall and about eighteen miles below the ferry across Snake River, at the mouth of Blackfoot Creek. After leaving Camas Prairie and the adjacent valleys, many of which are of good size and present every appearance of fertility, there is no country offering any inducement for settlement or affording supplies of any kind for the Indians, the streams all sinking at the line of an immense lava field, which approaches the base of the mountains so closely in many places for miles that there is barely a passage for wagons. Water and grass, however, is sufficient, with exception of about sixty miles at this end of the march. The road is generally level and good, with exception of having oass over points of the lave fields. I arrived at and crossed Snake River on the 17th, when I met Captain Crawford, of the overland escort, both reaching the ferry in the same hour. He had left his camp on Ross Fork, where the routes for the north and south sides of Snake River separate, and was undetermined as to which he would take. After consultation he concluded, on account of the forty-mile drive on the north side, and the report that one train of forty wagons had preceded him on the south side, to follow the latter route. He reports that there has been no difficulty or trouble of any nature with the emigration this season up to this point. There has been none from this west. He thinks he has the rear of the emigration, consisting of seventy or eighty wagons, with him, having telegraphed from the last station to the rear some 200 miles, and getting information that none had passed that point since his party, and that none had been heard of in rare of that. With the exception of his party, and an occasional team transporting goods or produce from Salt Lake to Bannock City, in the Beaver Head country, none have passed our camp or been heard of. Captain Crawford and party were in good health and generally well supplied, and stock in good condition. The emigrants have had good teams and are well supplied, though the emigration, as compared with that of last season, is very small. About 250 wagons have passed over the route on the north side of the river, and probably 110, including Captain Crawford's party, on the south side. I will wait in this camp some days yet, when I will return to Camas Prairie; from thence, as indicated heretofore, I will cross the river with the cavalry at or near Salmon Falls and visit the headwaters of the streams entering from the south, meeting my supplies for return to Walla Walla at Owyhee or Malheur, the infantry returning by the same route we came to Fort Boise. At the falls and on these streams I am in hopes I may be able to satisfy the desire of my command and the ends of justice by inflicting punishment upon