Stanton, N. Mex., I left Sumner on the 6th instant, with forty-three enlisted men of my company (L), First New Mexico Cavalry, and six Navajo Indians, as spies and guides, to pursue and chastise a war party of Apaches who had lately committed various murders and robberies in the neighborhood of Chaperito. On reporting to Colonel Carson, acting Indian superintendent at Fort Sumner, I was instructed by him to march to Fort Stanton, and after obtaining provisions and other supplies at that post to proceed to find the Indian trail, and follow it to the village. The colonel likewise advised me to go to Tularosa, and if possible to employ competent guides and a small company of citizens at that place, and from there proceed to Dog Canon, where he supposed the Indians would be found with their plunder. I started accordingly, and on the 11th instant I reached Fort Stanton, where I was advised that the same body of Indians had attacked Mr. Parker's train near Gallinas Springs and run off all his mules. I could find no guide here, but on the morning of the 12th, as I was ready to start, Lieutenant H. W. Gilbert, First Cavalry New Mexico Volunteers, and eight men, who had been sent to pursue the Indians, returned with the information that he had followed their train until he overtook them at a point on the Sierra Oscura, and that he judged their village was but a short distance from that point. Lieutenant Gilbert started that he returned for re-enforcements to attack the rancheria. I accordingly started that afternoon with Lieutenant Gilbert and his party of eight men, attached to mine. After marching all night I halted at a point thirty-six miles north of the Sierra Blanca Mountains. At 12 o'clock on the 13th I left camp and marched until sundown, when I halted at a rain-water hole about eight miles east of the Mal Pais. Here I was informed by one of my Navajo guides that he knew where the Apache village lay, and that by marching all next day he could reach it. I accordingly marched at daylight and crossed the Mal Pais, which being a belt of broken and disrupted rocks with no know trail, the passage was exceedingly difficult and many of my horses and mules were badly cut by the sharp projecting rocks. I reached the Ojo del Llano, a spring in the deserter between the Sierra Blanca and Sierra Oscura ranges, at 2 p. m., and having watered and unsaddled my animals I sent forward the Indian to reconnoiter the Apache village. he returned at dark, stating that it was five or six leagues off. I then marched next day to the point where Lieutenant Gilbert reported having seen the apaches, and after passing through many difficult canons I reached it at 3 p. m. The Indian guide pronounced the trail to be eight or ten days old. I started same evening and followed it until dark, when I was obliged to halt for the night. At daylight the next morning my Navajo guide informed me that the trail passed over a spur of the Oscura Mountains to the village. We marched to this place and reached it at noon, but found that it had not been occupied by Indians recently. I returned same day and encamped at a hole of water in the rocks, and at daylight next morning resumed the search for the trail, which was found running in a westerly direction along the base of the Sierra Oscura. I marched all that day and all night, passing a deep canyon in the mountain twenty miles long which opens on the Jornada del Muerte. The night march was conducted in a severe thunder-storm which lasted several hours.

Having halted at daylight, I rested until 12 m. and marched again on the trail, which took a direction south, entering the mountain again. At 6 p. m. I halted in a fine valley where grass was abundant but no