HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO, Santa Fe, N. Mex., August 14, 1864.

Honorable J. P. USHER,
Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: Inclosed herewith is the ground plan* of a building for school rooms and for quarters for some sisters and some lay brothers who are coming to this Territory to assist in teaching the Navajo and Apache children how to read, &c. It is proposed to make this building near Fort Summer, on the Navajo and Apache Reservation. There we already have 7,500 of these Indians, and at least 1,000, if not 1,200, children amongst them. I have already expended from quartermaster's funds some $18,000 for a hospital and for store-rooms for grain for these Indians. Those buildings are now nearly, if not quite, completed. If you could give $12,000 toward making this building out of the $100,000 just appropriated we could soon have shelter for the teachers and rooms for the children, and make a commencement in the great work of educating the youth of this interesting people. The $12,000 would be not even half what contractors would charge to put up the building and finish it complete, but that sum would pay for the vigas and the lumber and for doors and windows. We hope to be able to get the Indians themselves to make the adobes and to help lay up the walls. All of the expense of moving, clothing, feeding, and attending the sick of these Indians has thus far been thrown upon the War Department. I suppose the Superintendent of Indian Affairs has no authority to do anything for them. If the $12,000 could at once be put at the disposal of Major John C. McFerran, the chief quartermaster of this department, I believe we could have all the arrangements completed for the school to go into operation before the 1st of next January. I have been encouraged to address this note to you from having seen a letter which you wrote to Bishop Lamy on this subject.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

SLOCUM'S, FOUR MILES BELOW MADELIA, August 14, 1864-3 p. m.

Captain R. C. OLIN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Saint Paul:

CAPTAIN: You have probably received my dispatch dated yesterday morning, from Watonwan, and since I have seen some parties from the settlements I deem it my duty to give you a short statement of facts, as no doubt greatly exaggerated accounts have reached Saint Paul. When I closed my letter yesterday I started to follow Captain Smith, and on reaching a lake sixteen miles west from Watonwan, struck his track, and immediately afterward met part of his men moving back, with the information that the Indians had got away from his the previous evening at about 9 o'clock, before the re-enforcements sent would reach him. Soon afterward Captain Smith nd the party gone with Scout Back, who had struck the same trail, came back and reported to me in full. The particulars will be forwarded to-morrow. Captain Smith had laid in front of the Indians from 2 p. m. till 9 p. m., and, although advancing on them to within forty of fifty paces and fre-

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*Omitted as unimportant.

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