became an important and indispensable auxiliary in the administration of the most difficult affairs of the department. All persons arrested were speedily and thoroughly examined and tried or released. These reforms produced an excellent effect throughout the State. General Orders, Numbers 11, War Department, current series, merged the Department of Kansas into the Department of the Missouri. On the receipt of this order I repaired to Fort Leavenworth. I found that the Indians after the Chivington affair had combined and moved north; had struck the Platte Valley and held the overland route from Julesburg to Junction Station; had captured trains, demolished ranches, murdered men, women, and children; destroyed fifty miles of telegraph lines, &c. I immediately ordered the troops on that line to concentrate and move against these Indians. After several severe engagements the line was retaken, the Indians moving north by way of Pole Creek and Mud Springs, where they met the troops from Fort Laramie, and two or three severe engagements ensued, the Indians still making north to the Black Hills. The telegraph line was immediately rebuilt, the overland mail stages resumed their trips, and although the line has been attacked several times since, we have succeeded in holding it open and have kept up communications. It was my desire to make a campaign against these Indians before spring, but the force on the line was entirely inadequate to the purpose. The three-months' regiments from Denver City had just gone out of service by reason of expiration of term, and their places had to be supplied by militia from Colorado Territory. All the posts were entirely out of subsistence, forage, &c. I found the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry at Fort Riley, and the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth. Not being needed at these stations, I placed them en route for Fort Laramie. Large amounts of subsistence, forage, &c., were forwarded to the plains, and all arrangements were perfected for making a short campaign to the Black Hills before grass started, but from some unaccountable reason, not yet explained, the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry was over two months reaching their destination, and arrived too late to make the campaign designed. My plan in this being disarranged, I placed the troops on our communications and commenced preparations for spring and summer campaigns. Finding every tribe of Indians of any importance from the British Possessions on the north to the Red River on the south engaged in open hostilities, I submitted my plans for operations against them, which was to strike them all at once by moving in seven columns, as follows, to wit: One to move up the Loup Fork, thence to the east base of the Black Hills; a second to move from Fort Laramie directly north to Powder River, and strike the Indians wherever found. Both of these columns were to be placed under Brigadier General P. E. Connor, who, on the assignment of Utah to this department, had been placed in command of the District of the Plains, embracing the Territories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Utah.

Two columns under Brigadier General R. B. Mitchell, commanding the District of Kansas, were to move, one up the Republican Fork of Kansas River to its source, the other up Smoky Hill Fork, crossing to the Arkansas River, and from thence to Denver. The other three columns were under Bvt. Brigadier General James H. Ford, commanding District of Upper Arkansas, one to move south from Cimarron Crossing of the Arkansas River, the second from Fort Larned, and the third from the mouth of Little Arkansas River. These were to make their objective point at or near Fort Cobb. This disposition would enter the heart of the country occupied by the different tribes, and could not fail to meet