first day's march I met three Navajo Indians going to the Bosque, returning from hunting on the Llano Estacado. These Indians told me that all the Indians (Navajoes) out hunting now on the Llano were returning to the Bosque and would all be in two days. They also told me thy had seen Comanche signs some twenty miles from the Estacado, but only tracks of a few. On my arrival at Fort Bascom on the 12th instant I found eleven Navajoes there, who said they had been hunting and would return to Fort Sumner on to-morrow. I requested Major Bergmann, commanding Fort Bascom, to confine them if they did not start for their homes next day, and all others that may come near his post without passes from the commanding officer at Fort Sumner. I then proceeded up the Canadian to the junction of the Concha and followed up the latter stream. Saw a great many herds, but no complaints were made by any one, although Navajoes had been seen daily up to four or five days before my arrival. Some twelve or thirteen were up near the Cero Corazon hunting at this time, but I could not find them. I told some of the herders to tell them from me to return at once to the Bosque, and last night they overtook me and showed me a pass they had permitting them to be absent on the Gallinas, near Hatch's Ranch. I met one William Booth, major-domo for Mr. Hayes, of Las Vegas, who told me that on May 11 he killed a Navajo Indian who was driving off three head of cattle. The Indians wounded him first with a rifle-bullet in the hand. There were four in all, but the others ran off. I then started for the Rio Pecos, and near Gallego's Ranch I found several Navajoes, three men and ten women, whom I brought home. Last night at Alamo Gordo a Navajo chief came to me and told me that on the Rio Salado, about fifty miles from here, there were a great many Navajoes who only were waiting for rain in order to go to Canon de Chelly, and that they had asked him to go with them, and also that a woman came to his camp from mountains this side of Albuquerque (I suppose Sierra Pedernal), who said there were three rancherios in those mountains waiting for the Indians on the Salado and for rain in order to return to their own country.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EMIL FRITZ,

Captain, First California Cavalry.

First Lieutenant B. TAYLOR, Jr.,

Fifth U. S. Infantry, Post Adjutant.

MAY 11-14, 1865. -Expedition from Brazos Santiago, Tex., with skirmishes (12th and 13th) at Palmetto Ranch and (13th) at White's Ranch.

REPORTS.

Numbers 1. -Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, Sixty-second U. S. Colored Troops.

Numbers 2. -Lieutenant Colonel David Branson, Sixty-second U. S. Colored Troops.

Numbers 1. Report of Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, Sixty-second U. S. Colored Troops. HDQRS. THIRD Brigadier, FIRST DIV., 25TH ARMY CORPS, Camp near Brownsville, Tex., August 10, 1865.

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following report of the action at Palmetto Ranch, Tex., May 13, 1865, the last engagement of the war:

On the evening of May 11, 1865, an expedition consisting of 250 men of the Sixty-second U. S. Colored Infantry, properly officered, and fifty