FORT LARAMIE, DAK. TER., July 15, 1865.

Major General G. M. DODGE,

Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

Commissary stores ordered from Kearny and Cottonwood will be here in ten days; contractors' train in about fifteen. Will start left column in six days' with what supplies I have. Stagg's brigade will not reach Halleck in less than two weeks; will arrive at Julesburg to-morrow. The Indians on mail route are Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapahoes. Have five companies of Eleventh Kansas on that road, but they are insubordinate and disobedient, caused by Colonel Moonlight telling them that they were entitled to muster out and that I intended to muster them out of service here. Moonlight is at Kearny and refuses to give the commissary of musters the proper data to muster him out. I have ordered commissary to muster him out without it. I can hear nothing of the Indians north; they have the best of it at present. I wish they had Contractor Buckley under their scalping knives.

P. EDW. CONNOR,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS NORTHWEST INDIAN EXPEDITION,
Camp Numbers 22, Fort Rice, Dak. Ter., July 15, 1865.

ASST. ADJT. General, DEPARTMENT OF THE NORTHWEST,

Milwaukee, Wis.:

SIR: I reached here day before yesterday. I have delayed reporting progress in hopes of getting something more positive. There are now here something over 250 lodges of Indians who did belong to the hostile camp. They are Uncapapas, Blackfeet, and Yanktonnais. They report more coming in, but that they have great difficulty in getting away from the camp. The hostile party wish to keep them by force. The jealousies and suspicious of the Indians and the cupidity of some of the half-breeds are the principal troubles I have to counted with. Several principal Indians are anxious I should make certain Indians head chiefs of their tribes. Others think I am showing too much attention to certain chiefs. Then, again, they are fearful that I have some trap fixed for them. The half-breeds are each one anxious to have something to say in hopes they will the name of making peace among the Indians, and thus having a certain influence with them. I mention this to show some of the difficulties I labor under, yet I feel sanguine I shall succeed in getting in quite a large number. As near as I can learn the camps of the Indians are as follows: On the Knife River, about seventy miles south of Berthold, are about 1,000 lodges of hostile Sioux. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes left them a short time ago and moved south to the Little Missouri River with the understanding that they would write as soon as they heard of the movement of any troops toward them. On the east side of the Missouri I am told there are quite a number of Minnesota or Santee Indians, Cut-Heads, and some Yanktonnais on the Mouse River, and that there are several small bands of Santees, camped with bands of half-breeds of the north, hunting near the Maison du Chien Butte and west of Devil's Lake. I can hear of no Indians at Devil's Lake or east of there or on the James. I have conversed with friendly Indians who are just from there. General Sibley in a letter he wrote to me says he thinks of sending the Third Illinois Cavalry to Devil's Lake. If it could be done I would like to join them somewhere there. I could send supplies to Berthold