organizations to which they belong, but not enough to make, under existing orders, any regiment a veteran regiment. Enlistments in the regiments raised on this coast having been made as in the regular service. The troops are widely scattered, and are frequently in small detachments, and the existing orders for mustering out and mustering in hardly apply. Under these circumstances, and in view of the current and prospective wants of the service, we request the following authority be granted: First, to make such consolidation of the old regiments, and to retain such officers thereof as the Governor of the State and general commanding the department may find best for the interest of the service. Second, to raise successively such new regiments as shall make the total number from California amount to eight regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, in addition to the four companies of Native Cavalry and the six companies of Mountaineers.

FREDK. F. LOW,

Governor of California.

IRVIN McDOWELL,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC,
San Francisco, August 17, 1864.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE ARMY,

War Department, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have to report as follows concerning the state of the department for month of July: In the District of Oregon there have been some small parties of troops sent out to guard emigrant routes, and there is a difficulty existing with the Quilliute tribe of Indians, who refuse to surrender the murderers of Cook. The district commander proposes to send an expedition to force them to do so. In the District of Humboldt Indian difficulties are now quieted, and the superintendent of Indian affairs has gone up to make arrangements for establishing an Indian reservation on the Trinity River at Fort Gaston. It was the intention of my predecesser to remove the Indians in this section to Catalina Island, and he had for this purpose taken possession of the island. But the Indian Department has refused to have the Indians removed, and requires them to be kept in the section in which they now live. In the expeditions made after hostile Indians many are taken as prisoners, and as in the case in the Humboldt District, sometimes several hundred have to be fed from the military supplies. The Commissary Department at Washington refuses to allow their officers to issue subsistence to Indians, save in small quartities when visiting military posts, and refuses to permit any regular daily or periodical issues. This they urge is the duty of the Indian Department. On the other hand the Indian Department decide that they cannot feed Indians who are prisoners in the hands of the military; that the military have always fed their own prisoners; that they cannot refund money disbursed by officers over whom they have no control; that if Indians are turned over to them at their reservations they will be provided for, &c. These clashing routine decisions of these departments tend to enbarrass the service, which requires a course not provided for by the Regulations. We have now several hundred Indians in our custody. Some were brought in; some came in.