HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO,
Santa Fe. N. Mex., September 15, 1865.

Colonel RICHARD C. DRUM,

Assistant Adjutant-General, San Francisco, Cal.:

COLONEL: I have had the honor to receive General Orders, Numbers 1, from the headquarters of the Department of California, and herewith inclose General Orders, No. 1, abolishing the Department of New Mexico, now become the District of New Mexico. In anticipation of General McDowell's order I sent a dispatch to Washington on the 5th ultimo, of which the following is a copy:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO,
Santa Fe, N. Mex., August 5, 1865.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL, U. S. ARMY,

Washington, D. C.:

Have seen in newspapers General Orders, Numbers 118, assigning New Mexico to Department of California. The official order itself will doubtless come by next mail in twelve days. Between the date of receipt by me of the official order and the date when instructions will be received from General McDowell there will be an hiatus of uncertain duration. In that hiatus this will be no department. What will it be? I see dilemmas with reference to approving contracts, estimated for money, discharges of soldiers, accepting resignations, action with reference to courts-martial, military commissions, &c. I wish to act authoritatively. Please instruct me by telegraph. Expressemen will wait at Denver for reply. Please consider the status of North western Texas now under my command.

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

To which I received this reply:

WASHINGTON, August 14, 1865.

(Via Denver.)

Brigadier General J. H. CARLETON,

Santa Fe:

Until Your communications are fixed as commander of the District of New Mexico You should continue in Your present functions, proceeding in all respects as heretofore. The whole of the State of Texas will be under General H. G. Wright as soon as he can arrive and take command. Meantime You must allow the service there to suffer no detriment.

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

These dispatches will explain to the general commanding the reasons and authority for still retaining a part of Texas in this district. Inclosed herewith please find a map* of what was the Department of New Mexico, It is a photographic copy of a map made by Colonel Allen L. Anderson, Eighth Infantry California Volunteers, and will be found to be much more correct than any other map of this country hitherto published. I send it not only for future reference by the general commanding the Department of California, but to enable him to understand the positions of the posts and stations of the troops in this district as named on the inclosed return:

First. Fort Union is near the western limits of the great plains, which extend uninterruptedly from Fort Leavenworth to the Rocky Mountains. Here there is a defensive earth-work with temporary quarters in the demi-lunes for some eight companies. There are but five companies of infantry at present at Fort Union. The depot for quartermaster's stores and the depot of subsistence stores are building by order of the War Department at Fort Union, and new and permanent quarters for four companies are also in process of erection at that post. When the latter are completed the temporary quarters in the demi lunes will be abandoned and the materials of which they are constructed

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* See Plate 98, Map 1, of the Atlas.

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