FORT BAKER, Cal., APRIL 3, 1862.

Lieutenant JOHN HANNA, Jr.,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, Humboldt Military District:

SIR: I deem it my duty to report to you that a party of whites [citizens] have been out hunting Indians in the vicinity of Eel River, and they say thet seventeen bucks were killed by tthe party and the women and children were turned loose. I have also been informed that there are quiite a munber of citizens who intend, as soon as the snow goes off, to make a business of killing the bucks wherever they can find them and selling the women and children into slavery. It is supposed that they will make their headquartees somewhere in the neighborhood of Fort Seward, taking their captives into Long Valley, there selling them to certain parties at $ 37,50 per head, who put them in a covered wagon, take them down to the settlements, and there dispose of them at a very handsome profil. One person is said to have made $ 15,000 last season in the busiiness. It looks like an exaggerated statement; but say that one ranch is then with ten women and twenty children, it amounts to the sum of $ 1,125, which is more money than men of that class can make in any other line of business. Captain Akey, Second Cavalry California Volunteers, passed through Long Valley on his way to Fort Seward last winter, and he can undoubtedly give the colonel commanding many particulars in regard to persons there. I respectfully await the instructions of the colonel commanding.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS E. KETCHAM,

Captain, Third Infantry California Volunteers, Commanding Post.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC,
San Francisco, Cal., April 4, 1862.

Adjutant-General THOMAS,

Washington, D. C.:

Your dispatch of the 28th ultimo received, and officers ordered East. I beg leave to respectfully recommend to the Honorable Secretary of War that Colonel Carleton be appointed brigadier. He has a large distriict, with thirty companies of troops, and intrusted with an important expedition.

G. WRIGHT,

Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS HUMBOLDT MILITARY DISTRICT,
Fort Humboldt, April 4, 1862.

Captain WILLIAM M. JOHNS,

Third Infantry California Voluntees, Comdg, at Fort Gaston:

CAPTAIN: The colonel commanding the district desires that you will keep a strict watch in the Indians in Hoopa Valley, and in the event of your perceiving any preparations among them to commence hostilities that you will immediantely report by express to these headquarters. If the case should be so urgent in your opinion as to require re-enforcements to be immediately forwared from San Francisco, you will at the same time telegraph by Weaverville to department headquarters.

By order of Colonel Lippitt:

Very rspectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN HANNA, Jr.,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.