HEADQUARTERS INDIAN BRIGADE,
Fort Gibson, C. N., August 5, 1864.

Brigadier-General THAYER,

Commanding District of the Frontier:

SIR: I have the honor to request that one company of the Second Indian now stationed at Mackey's Saline be relieved and directed to report to me here for duty, believing that two companies is ample to protect that place. The three companies now stationed there are larger than the five that are here. I would respectfully request an answer at your earliest convenience.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

STEPHEN H. WATTLES,

Colonel, Commanding.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE FRONTIER,
Fort Smith, Ark., August 9, 1864.

Respectfully returned.

The troops at Mackey's Lick are a portion of the Indian Brigade and subject to the orders of the brigade commander. The general commanding directs the commander of the Indian Brigade to keep a sufficient force at Mackey's Lick to protect the workmen and tanks. The force required for this purpose can be determined by the brigade commander.

By command of Brigadier-General Thayer:

T. J. ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, August 5,, 1864.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT:

In compliance with your telegram of the [24th of June*], I have carefully examined into the administration and conduct of General E. B. Brown, commanding the Central District, and caused both General Totten and Colonel Du Bois to make tours of inspection through his district. From their reports and the report of General Brown of the operations of his troops during the months of June and July last, which accompany this, I conclude:+

First. That General Brown is a zealous, honest, earnest officer, diligent and painstaking, but not remarkably quick of apprehension, not without some bias against all active innovations on the old order of things. But his strong sense of justice operates to check his bias and has given to his administration on the whole the character of a success for the cause of the nation and the Union. I have no one but General Pleasonton to take this place, and should the call for volunteers, under my late order, be, as I have good reason to think it will, successful I shall which I wish to as far as possible, reorganize and put into the volunteer service, where, free from the curse of the elective system for officers, they grow to usefulness and discipline.

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*See Vol. XXXIV, Part IV, p. 536.

+Fort Brown's report, see p. 290. Totten's report not found as an inclosure, but see extract embodied in Du Bois to Greene, August 10, p. 636.

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