SAN FRANCISCO, August 10, 1864.

Major CHARLES McDERMIT,

Second California Volunteer Cavalry, Fort Churchill:

What is the occassion of sending a company of cavalry to Dayton?

R. C. DRUM,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

FORT CHURCHILL, August 10, 1864-4 p. m.

Colonel R. C. DRUM:

By request of Governor J. W. Nye to suppress a mob. All is quiet now at Dayton, and the troops have returned.

CHAS. McDERMIT,

Commanding.

CAMP BIDWELL,

Near Chico, Cal., August 10, 1864.

Colonel R. C. DRUM, U. S. Army,

Asst. Adjt. General, Dept. of the Pacific, San Francisco, Cal.:

SIR: I have the honor to report that since I arrived with my company at this post, on the 18th of July last, I have made two expeditions in the mountains in the vicinity of this post for the purpose of gaining information in regard to the nature and number of the Indians in this section of the coutry. I left this post on the 26th of last July with twenty-one men, and marched to Cherokee Flat, twenty-five miles, passing through the section of country that the Indians have committed the depredations in heretofore. On making inquiries of the citizens in the vicinity of Chico what tribe usually committed the depredations, they informed me that they are the Deer Creek Indians, which are composed of renegades from all other tribes in this section of country, and number about twenty or twenty-five warriors, and have a roving disposition, but they are generally on Deer, Mill, and Butte Creeks, as area of fifty miles square, which is a mountainous country, covered with brush and rocks, and traversed by ravines, and is about fifty miles from this place. However, on making inquiries concerning them of the people of Mesilla Valley and Cherokee Flat, I find that they blame another tribe of Indians for committing the depredations in the foot-hills between here and Cherokee Flat. The Indians referred to above number about 300 all told, and are located between the North and Middle Forks of Feather River, in the vicinity of Bald Rock and Berry Creek, and about fifty miles to the eastward from here. From the Cherokee Flat I marched twenty miles norhtwest, passing up in the vicinity and paralled with the West Branch of Feather River, through Dogtown to Nimshew, which is near the forks of Butte Creek and Helltown. From Helltown I marched down Butte to Centerville and Diamondville; from there to this camp, arriving on the 29th of July, having marched sixty-five miles. On the 1st day of August I had a detail of twenty-one men, and proceeded up the Chico and Humboldt road in a northeast direction, between Butte Creek on the south and Chico Creek on the north, to Butte Creek, sixty miles from here, over a mountainous country, but a splendid road. At Butte Creek I left the Chico and Humboldt road and marched to Deer Creek Meadows, with the intention of procuring the services of Captain Hiram Good, who is well known here as one of the best Indian hunters in the country, and a man who knows the geography of the country in which