You will have to give Your personal attention to this matter, or designate some entirely careful and reliable officer to attend to it. I may mention to You as showing how much personal care should be given to these matters, that when I took possession of department headquarters here when You left, I found more than twice as many clerks and five times as many orderlies as were in any manner needed. Of course it is the duty of an adjutant-general to regulate these matters, but they don't always do it. I have no doubt You will find at Fort Leavenworth as also at other posts and stations, very many men whose services are not required. Soldiers should be returned to their regiments and citizens discharged. I trust, general, You will give Your earliest attention to these matters. In Your progress to Laramie, please order into Leavenworth all troops not absolutely needed along the line, notifying me by telegraph. It is desirable to get rid of as many cavalry regiments as possible as they are the moist expensive troops on the frontier. Please regulate Your requisitions in view of the reduction of force herein suggested, and send forward no supplies except what are needed for the reduced force. The troops on the expeditions will only need to be supplied until the season is over. Select form Your whole force the regiments of infantry and cavalry here designated, choosing of course the best troops and those having the longest periods to serve. The whole force retained, infantry and cavalry, should not in my judgment exceed 6,900 men. I wish You also to select from the column under Colonel Cole a regiment of infantry 600 strong to report to General Sully at Fort Randall, Fort Sully, or Fort Rice, as may be most convenient, by October 15, to relieve the troops now at those posts whose terms of service will expire in the autumn. At the conclusion of his operations Colonel Cole will be nearest to the l in of posts on the Missouri River and can easily supply the force necessary. Three hundred men (with the colonel of the regiment) are needed at Rice; 200 probably at Sully, and 100 at Randall. General Sully should be notified by telegraph in time via Sioux City when these troops are detached by Colonel Cole and when they may be expected on the Missouri River.

I am, general, respectfully, Your obedient servant,

JOHN POPE,

Major-General, Commanding.

SAINT LOUIS, MO., August 1, 1865.

Major-General DODGE:

Supplies for 2,500 men in Utah will be sufficient.

JOHN POPE,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE UPPER ARKANSAS,
In the Field, Fort Larned, Kans., August 1, 1865.

Major General G. M. DODGE,

Commanding in the Field, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.:

The troops designed for the field are concentrated at this post and at Zarah. Quartermaster and commissary supplies are sufficient. As soon as the ordnance stores arrive I shall cross the river in two columns, one near the mouth of Mulberry Creek and one near this place. Have scouted the country for sixty miles south of Zarah and Cow Creek, and found no signs of Indians. I am anxious to have the