No. 7.

Reports of Captain Richard S. Caldwell, First Oregon Cavalry, of operations July 3-16.

CAMP ON BRIDGE CREEK, July 10, 1864.

SIR: I have the honor to report that I left Fort Dalles with my command on the 3rd and arrived at this camp yesterday without any event of interest transpiring. I found the command of Lieutenant Wood at this camp. He arrived on the 5th. He reports having seen Indians upon the hills near here. There have been no depredations on the road since the fight here except a few shots fired at the Mountain House yesterday morning. The stage bound up stopped there for the night. The Indians left before day. I shall move to-morrow for Rock Creek, thirty miles above here, where I shall make permanent camp. I shall leave detachment of six infantry at Alkali, four miles above here, and with the train returning shall send a small escort as far as Muddy, where they will remain this being the lower end of the route, where every difficulty has occurred. Muddy, Alkali, and Rock Creek are all stations where the stages stop for the night and where packers and travelers will make. The travel upon the road is larger than I had anticipated, and even now families are traveling upon the road. The locality of the Indians and their captured stock is a matter upon which great variety of opinion exists, some putting them upon one side of the John Day's and some upon the other. I hope to determine the matter with certainty before the arrival of Lieutenant Olney's command. The Eugene City trail comes in at at his place. I learn the distance is from sixty of eighty miles to where it crosses the road, twenty-five miles below Camp Maury.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. C. CALDWELL,

Captain, First Oregon Cav., Commanding Canyon City Road Expedition.

Lieutenant J. W. HOPKINS,

First Oregon Cavalry, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General,

Hdqrs. District of Oregon, Fort Vancouver, Wash. Ter.

CANYON CITY ROAD EXPEDITION, Camp Watson, Rock Creek, Oreg., July 18, 1864.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 9th instant, with Special Order, No. 94. I am in receipt of no communication from Lieutenant Olney, or of the acting assistant quartermaster at Ford Dalles, as to what transportation and rations he will be supplied with. This command arrived here on the 12th instant, having left six infantry at Alkali, twenty-five miles below. The supply train started back on the 14th with an escort of seven cavalrymen, who will accompany it as far as Muddy, where they will remain for the protection of that section. I did not deem it necessary that the train should have an escort below that point, as no Indians had been seen below there, but learn since of depredations committed at Antelope, twenty-five miles below. On the same day I sent ten men as escort to some families going to South Fork to settle, with orders to scout in that vicinity for two or three days. They will be back to-day. Lieutenant Wood has scouted for ten or twelve miles in the mountains south of this camp, and reports no sign of Indians. A few Indians have been seen about the stage station on the road the last week, but, strange as