your order (Numbers 53.) of the 1st instant, I dispatched my second lieutenant, Mr. Shepheard, with one sergeant, three corporals, and sixteen privates, to Elk Camp. I have made inquiries and gained some information concerning the place of their destination. Elk Camp is some fifty miles distant from Fort Ter-Waw. The men as they left had to be ferried across the Klamath by Indians in canoes. (We have no canoes of our own, and are dependent upon the Indians for water convenyance.) Provisions, freight, &c., has to be taken down the river likewise in canoes to its mouth. From this point freight either from Ter-Waw or Crescent City has to be packed to the mouth of Redwood Creek, there to be ferried again. From thence the trail is along the coast to within about eighteen miles of Trinidad; from thence to Elk Camp, crossing again Redwood by raft. There is no way of getting pask-mules except from Crescent City, and that only by swimming the animals at the mouth of the Klamath. Can they take the trail? Freight from the mouth of the Klamath to Elk Camp Will be at least 12 cents poer pound and 6 cents from Crescent City, making 18 cents. This is the only course except up the river in canoes, thirty miles, to Capell; from thence twelve miles to Elk Camp. Elk Camp from Ter-Waw in a direct line is about twenty-five miles distant. The route is imparticable, so much so that Indians never travel it. As for Indians working gratuitously, it is out of the question. Theirs is the dearest kind of labor. We cannot get them to do a thing without paying them well for it - their own price. To cross the river they charge 4 [cents] each way. We are hemmed in here in every way, and have no outler except the trail down the river upon the south side to the coast, which I opened a few eeks since, intersecting the trail leading from Haumboldt to Crescent City. All our travel is by canoes and at great expense. The command here now is weak, and I fear too weak. I have now (the detachment having left) no men to send out upon duty. The made have only one night in bed. I sent the best men I have with Lieutenant Shepheard. Crescent City and Smith River country are unprotected, and there appears, from what I can learn, considerable anxiety there relative to the disposition of the troops. Now, I have no means of assisting them and no way of getting to them except by canoes down to the mouth of the Klamath. Then there are twenty-six miles over the worst trail in the country along the coast and through the Redwoods; so to reach them in case of trouble would be difficult. I have now but two sergeants, five corporals, and seventeen privates left for duty, with five general prisoners to guard, besides post duties. I have lost four men by desertion, two of whom we captured. The balance are sick or on daily or extra duty. I had to take five men off extra and daily duty to make the above number for guard duty. I will start on the 14th (Wednesday) of May up the river to Capell; from thence to Elk Camp by trail, and will endeavor to make my way through the woods to the fort (Ter-Waw) if a practicable trail can be cut, and report to the regimental headquarters. I would further state that the people at Crescent City are quite indignant about the withdrawal of troops from this post. Two-thirds of the male population have left Crescent City and vicinity for the northern mines. There are about 150 families left behind, mostly women and children, and only about thirty men to protect them against the Smith River Indians. All they can raise inin Crescent City is about thirty guns, and many of them flintlocks. The people there think hard of the reduction of this command, this post being all Del Norte County has to depend upon. With some 800 Klamath Indians in the south, and a s