IV. The quartermaster at the Miembres will furnish twenty-eight mules, with pack equipments complete, and six Indian horses, &c., which Company I will take to Fort Bowie.

V. The commanding officer at Camp Miembres will order Juan Arroyes, the Mexican guide at that camp, to accompany Company I, Fifth Infantry California Volunteers, to Fort Bowie, Ariz. Ter.

By order of Colonel George W. Bowie:

CHAS. A. SMITH,

Captain, Fifth Infantry California Vols., Actg. Asst. Adjt. General

OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,

Salem, Oreg., May 2, 1864.

Brigadier General B. ALVORD,

Commanding District of Oregon, Vancouver, Wash. Ter.:

SIR: The only of your letter to Colonel R. F. Maury (dated 8th ultimo) which you were kind enough to furnish for the information of this office reached me after some delay. I intended when at Portland last week to have gone over to Vancouver for the purpose of calling upon you and conferring with reference to Indian affairs, not only east of the Cascade Mountains, but at other points. I do not think at this late day, and a at a time when the demands upon the Treasury are so great, that it will be of any use to attempt to obtain an appropriation for the support of Indians who are now and have long been hostile to the whites, and in a condition of actual war. It is uncertain when they can be brought under control, if indeed the proceess of taming them does not result in their extermination. If, howerver, they are persuaded or whipped into a willingness to submit to the authority of the United States, and, ceasing their savage hostility, will collect on a reservation, I do not know of a loaction more adapted to their wants or less objectionable, when the interests of whites are considered, than the tract reserved for those purposes in the Klamath Lake country. A copy of the notice of this reservation is herewith inclosed, which will acquaint you with its boundaries. The new post, Fort Klamath, is near the northwest corner of the tract. Some provisions could probably be made for their they remove there this summer) until Congress at its session next December could make an appropriation for the purpose. You are probably aware that Congress has at its present session appropriated $20,000 for the purpose of treating with the tribes of Southeastern Oregon, purchasing their lands, &c., and I hope that the operations of the military department will meet with such success that it will be practicable to include the roving bands of Snakes as well as the Klamath and Modoc tribes. The information now in possession of this office in regard to these tribes (which, I may remark, is meager and unsatisfactory) does not correspond with the opinion expressed in your letter to Colonel Maury, "that they have no homes and no country, and cannot by treaty surrender their lands, for they claim none; " but on the contrary indicate that they do claim all the land embraced in Southeastern Oregon together with parts of Idaho, Utah, and perhaps Nevada. The copy of my letter of June 1* last to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs contains the facts now attainable and my opinion of what should be done, and I take the liberty to inclose it herewith for your information. If you obtain from Colonel

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*See Huntington to Drake, June 1, 1863, p. 468.

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