SALT LAKE, September 27, 1863.

Colonel R. C. DRUM:

I leave this morning for Soda Springs to hold treaty with Bannock Indians. Will be gone about three weeks. Communication will reach me.

P. E. CONNOR,

Brigadier-General.

FORT WRIGHT, CAL., September 27, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel R. C. DRUM,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Pacific:

COLONEL: I have the honor to respectfully report for the information of the general I commanding the department my recent actions in Indian affairs in this valley. I visited the Nome Cult Indian Reservations this day, and found all the Indians that were sent or brought on the reservation from Chico about ten days ago in an almost dying condition through sickness and gross neglect of duty of the present supervisor. I was also informed that nearly 200 sick Indians are scattered along all the way for forty miles, and that they are dying by tens for want of care and medical treatment and from lack of food. I have therefore deemd it my duty to send a party from here to bring in the Indians to the reservation. I have intrusted James Short (citizen) with this duty, and he is instructed to procure all the mules on the reservation and from this post, and take out sufficent provision from the reservation to enable the Indians to come in. The post surgeon (Doctor Deans, Sixth Infantry California Volunteers) is instructed to send his hospital steward with the medicines for the sick Indians, and Doctor Deans is now doing all that can be done for the sick on the reservation. I have put Mr. Short in charge of the sick Indians for the following reasons: He has been superviso of Indian affairs in this valley before, and consequently the Indians know him, and I find that they have more confidence in him than they have in any other man here. Secondly, he has now with him recommendations from the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Interior to Mr. Steele, superintendent of Indian affairs, to reappoint Mr. Shoirt supervisor of the Nome Cult Indian Reservation. Thirdly, there is not an employe on the reservation competent to discharge the duty properly. I have in all this actually taken on myself the duty of the present supervisor, as he neglected most grossly his duties and the interest of the Government and of the Indians in leaving the reservat a portion of these Indians came in and remaining absent up to date on his own private business; this, too, at a time when his service were most needed in his department, leaving no competent man in his place, but putting his wife in charge of the reservation as supervisor. In consequence of which the Indians have been shamefully neglected and are the sufferers. The supervisor passed several hudred of these suffering Indians both going and returning on the trail (on his recent trip to San Francisco), and I am well informed that he took no means to relieve their sufferings, or even made any suggestions that might be to their advantage.

Very respectfully, &c.,

CHARLES D. DOUGLAS,

Captain, Second Infantry California Volunteers, Commanding Post.