strictly to purchases made and delivered for Indians, taking no account of supplies that had been purchased for troops and issued to Indians at different posts during this time, which is known to have been a large amount. No account is taken by the board of cost of transportation of Indians and supplies to Sumner, which is also known to be a large item. No account is taken of the buildings erected, yet it is known here that one contract was left for $18,000 for the building of store-houses. This report does not embrace the payment and expense of sixty men employed by the quartermaster's department during the four months mentioned, nor the expenses of about twenty teams employed upon the reservation. If the above item had been taken into the account, and the board required to report upon the actual expenses of the captive Indians at Fort Summer, the amount expended for purchases of supplies, transportation, clothing, &c., would not fall short of &70,000, from the 1st of March to the 13th of June, 1864. The Indians for whom this expenditure is made embraces about 400 Mescalero Apaches and about 6,000 Navajoes, being about half of that tribe. From the above estimate for the past four months for a little over half the Navajo tribe the Commissioner will be enabled to form a fair estimate of what the expenditure will be for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1865, if the whole tribe is removed to Fort Sumner as proposed. As these Indians are still entirely under the control of the military, I submit these facts for your information, supposing that the Interior Department has not the means to carry out a policy so expensive, and that for the present the case of those Indians will be left with the War Department.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

M. STECK,

Superintendent Indian Affairs.

DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO, Santa Fe, N. Mex., August 27, 1864.

Major JOSEPH UPDEGRAFF, U. S. ARMY,

Fort Marcy, N. Mex.:

MAJOR: The commanding genera directs me to say that you will exercise the greatest care while out upon the Cimarron that the Indians do not run off your stock. At night the animals must be tied to a picket-line in camp, and grass cut and hauled into camp during the day and fed to them by night. This will keep things sung. Such articles as you may require to carry this order into execution you will obtain from the depot quartermaster at Fort Union, N. Mex.

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

CYRUS H. DE FORREST,

Aide-de-Camp.

(Same to Captain Edward H. Bergmann, Fort Union, N. Mex.)

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO, Santa Fe, N. Mex., August 27, 1864.

Major EDWARD W. WYNKOOP,

Commanding at Fort Lyon, District of Colorado:

MAJOR: Under the peculiar circumstances in which you are placed with reference to Indian hostilities and a want of arms, the authority given to you by Colonel John C. McFerran, U. S. Army, chief of staff at