for them. Your scouts, Keene and Costello, know him. Ascertain if they are in good order, and let me know the particulars of their condition, number, and price. If possible see them yourself. If they can be had cheap enough it will not be necessary for me to drive stock over the desert for the Mobile expedition. You can say this to the ownver. Lieutenant-Colonel West informs me that Yager had on hand some seventy tons of hay which he was willing to sell at $55. This is a very high price. As I may send a few cavalry to Fort Yuma to remain until the warm weather sets in, buy it at that price if you can not get it for less. Tell him to cut some more if he can and haul it out to the mail stations on the road across the desert-say to the amount of ten tons to each station -commencing at Carriso Creek, thence eastwardly on the road to Yuma, if he is willing to place it there at the price last paid by the Overland Mail Company, according to the station at which it was delivered. This will be an excellent job for him, and it will do to feed my pack-mules and animals as I cross the desert on the Mojave expedition. He can haul out a good deal, I am told, from the neighborhood of Gonzales' Ferry and thereabouts. A man named Quirino Garcia can tell him the best place to cut it. On these two points I wish you to inform me at once by special express what can be done about them. I can get along without either and will not submit to any extortion. Send Keene to report to me the moment he returns. Practice your men at target firing. You can use three rounds per day for that purpose, commencing at 100 yards and increasing to 200, firing kneeling or off-hand, as each man would prefer to make good shots. Keep an exact record of each shot in each company and report to me the result. I wish you to send a scout who has good judgment about the subject, preferably an officer, to Gonzales' Ferry by the other side of the Colorado to examine the quantity and extent of the grazing in that neighborhood. Report the information to me at once. Practice your men carefully two hours per day at the skirmish drill until further orders. You will keep your own counsel about this and all letters written to you on public business. Keep them under lock and key. Report to me the moment the two field pieces and the barley for the cavalry reach you. These articles left San Francisco on a steamer for Guaymas three weeks ago. They consist, I believe, of gus, ammunition, barley, &c., of about sixty tons weight. Should Captain George A. Johnson be at your post tell him to send some one else down with his boat for these stores, and to come on here himself immediately, as I wish to see him. He must lose no time. You are to obey no writs of habeas corpus issued for Showalter or either of this party, or for any other secessionist who has been or who may be taken prisoner and confined at your post, without orders from the general commanding the department.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Colonel First California Volunteers, Commanding.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DIST. OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,

Numbers 22.
Los Angeles, Cal., December 21, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph R. West, First Infantry California Volunteers, will proceed to San Francisco, Cal., on public business connecte with the movement of troops in this district. He will report at these headquarters in twenty days.

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Colonel First California Volunteers, Commanding.