hostility against us. Whether it was the fault of the white man or the Indian, the fact was patent. They were holding the entire Overland Route from Julesburg to Junction Station, had destroyed the telegraph lines, captured trains, burned ranches, and murdered men, women, and children indiscriminately. I soon stopped these proceedings; opened our broken lines of communication; repaired, so far as possible, the injury done; pushed troops out there, and then tried to effect a settlement with the Indians. On the southern route I found a similar state of affairs existing. The Indians were on the warpath, and I at once started expeditions after them, learning of which Colonel Leavenworth, Indian agent, informed me that the could make peace with them; that we were at fault, &c. I stopped my expeditions on the southern route to give him an opportunity to accomplish this object. He started for their camps; they robbed him, stole his mules, and he hardly escaped with his scalp, and on his return stated that it was useless to attempt to make peace with them. I then, in accordance with the orders of the Secretary of War, started for the Indians again, and had just got my forces under way when the committee, of which Senator Doolittle is a member, reached Fort Larned, and after an interview with Colonel Leavenworth gave orders for the expeditionary movements to stop. The grounds for this action the Senator gives in his letter. I was then aware that the Indians were moving north to attack that line, and was moving two columns in concert with General Ford to intercept and punish them; and I at that time telegraphed that the tribes spoken of by Senator Doolittle were on their way north to attack our trains. They had then driven out all traders, made a treaty with the southern Indians and Texans, and sent me word that they wanted no peace.

Within ten days from the time Senator Doolittle and his party left Fort Larned, and before I had time to countermand their ordroops disposed, the Indians attacked the post and trains all along the line, running off stock, capturing trains, &c., murdering men, and showing conclusively that they were determined on war at all hazards. Our overtures to them, as well as those of the agents sent out by General Carleton, were treated with disdain. From Fort Laramie I sent word to the Sioux, Cheyennes, &c., that if they wanted peace to come in and stop their hostilities. A few of each tribe responded by coming in; the rest refused, and indicated their purposes and feelings by attacking the posts west of Fort Laramie, and on Laramie Plains, murdering, stealing, &c. I undertook to remove the friendly Indians from Fort Laramie to Fort Kearny, in order to get them away from the troubles. When about sixty miles east of Fort Laramie they attacked their guard, killed a captain and four privates, turned upon five of their chiefs who were disposed to be friendly, killed them, and then escaped, leaving their camps, &c., in our hands, so that now we have every Indian tribe capable of mischief, from the British Possessions on the north to the Red River on the south, at war with us, while the whites are backing them up, and, in my opinion, the Mormons are encouraging them. These facts, it appears to me, are a sufficient answer to the letters of Senator Doolittle and Commissioner Dole. That these Indians have been greatly wronged I have no doubt, and I am certain that the agents who have been connected with them are as much to blame as any one else. So far as the Chivington massacre was concerned, it occurred before I assumed command. I condemned it, and I have issued orders that no such acts will to tolerated or allowed; that the Indians on the warpath must be fought wherever and whenever found, but no outrages or barbarities must be committed. I am con-