overawing and holding in check, as it does, the warlike and influential Hoopa thibe, which can turn out its 400 warrious in the valley, and in forty-eight hours 400 more from its allies on the Klamath, and holding in check also, indirectly, through this tribe the thousands of Indians in Del Norte and Klamath Counties. Captain Johns has but forty-six men in his company. This number might suffice as long as no change takes place in the existing state of things; but if anything should occur which should incite the Indians there to hostilities, the present garrison would be entirely too small. I therefore recommend, as a measure of prudence, that Captain Johns' company should be recruited up to its maximum standard as soon as possible. Since my arrival here I have had no report from Fort Ter-Waw, and, in fact, have had no news concerning the garrison there whatever. Captain May's replies to my official communications to him, forwarded by the way of Crescent City, have probably miscarried. The direct route from here to Fort Ter-Waw, which is along the coast, has been impassable the whole winter. I had intended to visit it on my late tour, by descending the Trinity and Klamath Rivers from Fort Gaston, but owing to unexpected difficulties in the route, I arrived at Fort Gaston three days later than I had expected, and unless I returned here immediately I should have been too late to receive and answer the dispatches from your headquarters.

March 10, the steamer has just returned from San Francisco and brought a number of dispatches from department headquarters. By the last steamer I had the honor to solicit another or a further detail for the general court-martial already ordered at this post. If the court is to sit with its present detail it would cause great inconvenience to the service. Of the six members of the court in the district three are the three company officers of Company F, Second California Volunteers Infantry (Captain Douglas, Lieutenants Flynn and Johnson), which company is now just commencing military operations against the Indians in the field, and the judge-advocate, Lieutenant Hubbard, of Company K, Second California Volunteer Infantry, is with his company, which is also in the field. Meanwhile the state of discipline in Captain Akey's company, and which alone I have retained at this post on account of the court-martial, is such as to require the mutineers to be tried as soon as possible. The witnesses are now expected down from Fort Seward every day. Rather than call in officers from active duty in the field I shall wait two weeks longer till the arrival of the next steamer from below, hoping that it will bring another detail for the court. The three members of the court remaining at this post are Lieutenants Swasey and Hanna and myself. The three officers of Captain Akey's company are Captain Arkey, First Lieutenant Daley (now in arrest under charges), and Lieutenant Davis, now on his way from Fort Seward and the principal witness for the prosecution. At Fort Gaston the officers are Captain Johns, First Lieutenant Anderson, and Second Lieutenant Myers (Company D, Third California Volunteer Infantry). The order convening the court directed that no other charges than those already presented should be tried by the court. I respectfully request that some action be taken in regard to the charges subsequently forwarded, including those against Private Janson, Company K, Second California Volunteer Infantry, herewith inclosed. Captain Stuart, with Company G, of my regiment, has arrived here in the steamer en route for Fort Ter-Waw to relieve, he informs me, the company already there. This change in my command is, of course, perfectly agreeable to me, but it has caused me some surprise, having received no official notice of it.