Randall has a garrison of five companies of cavalry. It is not built like a post. The buildings are very much scattered. It takes a very great number of sentinels to guard it. At Randall commences the settlements of Dakota. About four or five miles above it, on the edge of the Yankton Reservation, are about two white men, married to squaws, and about half a dozen half-breed families. The section of country marked as the Yankton Agency and Reservations occupied by the Yankton Sioux, a fine body of Indians, who have always been peaceable and deserve the care and protection of the Government. I have part of a company of cavalry stationed at this agency. With the exception of the places I will hereafter mention there are no settlers or settlements in this vast Territory of Dakota, nor do I judge there is much likelihood of there being any for many years to come: One family living sixteen miles northeast of the agency at the mail station, where I have a small body of troops. Bon Homme Island, about twenty miles from this station, is a settlement of about twelve or fifteen families. Yankton, the capitol of Dakota, is the next settlement, about twenty-five miles from Bon Homme, about fifty houses, in on the Missouri River also. James River is about six miles below Yankton. There are about a dozen, maybe fifteen, farms on the banks. I have stationed a company of cavalry on this river and above the farms. The road from Yankton to Vermillion crosses the James about three miles above its mouth, is pretty well settled, is about twenty-two miles long, and has about twenty houses on it or insight of it. The town of Vermillion is a small village of about twenty families, at the mouth of the Vermillion River. I have part of a company stationed here, the rest of the company occupying a point on the Big Sioux River, due east of them.

The part of Dakota south of a line running from Vermillion due east to the Big Sioux is pretty thickly settled, being about the only really good land I have seen in the Territory. I have now mentioned the only settlements in this Territory. There is not a single citizen or civilized being living outside of the places mentioned. There used to be a settlement at the Big Sioux Falls, near the southwest corner of Minnesota, but the Indians drove them all out in 1861. I therefore propose, for the purpose of guarding the settlers, to establish a post of one company at Big Sioux Falls, one at the James near Fire Steel Creek, and a third at Crow Creek Agency, of one company each, the line between these three posts to be constantly patrolled. One of infantry and two companies of cavalry at Randall, pulling down part of the post and making it a fort instead of a village, and one company of cavalry on the road between Yankton Agency and Vermillion would be all the troops required in the Territory, provided the posts established in the Indian country are still kept up. I would also propose that the line that the Indians would be required not to cross should be a line from Fort Wadsworth south to the Big Sioux Falls, and from their west to Crow Creek.

With much respect your obedient servant,

ALF. SULLY,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO,
Santa Fe, N. Mex., February 25, 1865.

MICHAEL STECK, Esq.,

Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sante Fe, N. Mex.:

SIR: Your note of this date I have had the honor to receive. We are not yet at peace with the Kiowas and Comanches. I hope soon to