reference to Indian troubles. I have ordered one company of infantry to Fort Lyon and another to Gray's ranch,on the Purgatory River. Have ordered fifty cavalry and fifty infantry to the crossing of the Arkansas by the Cimarron route; fifty and fifty infantry to the Lower Cimarron Springs, and fifty cavalry and thirty infantry to the Upper Cimarron Springs, to give all the help they can. You are aware that there are not enough troops here to guard properly the road. If you will give me 2,000 efficient men from the States, Ford's Second Colorado Regiment as part of them, and give me authority to employ our Utes, Apaches, and Navajoes, I feel quite sure that the Kiowas and Comanches, to say the last, can be so roughly handled as to make, them refrain from these depredations for some years to come. The season is rapidly advancing, and unless the troops arrive here by the end of October their stock will be unfit for service this fall and winter. They should be ordered to guard trains en route. Once we can get all our supplies in, and get the merchants' trains off the road,we can commence upon the Indians in earnest. Our first care should be the defensive, the preservation of the trains. When they are secure, the offensive may be begun in earnest.

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

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

CHIEF QUARTERMASTER'S OFFICE, Santa Fe., N. Mex., August 28, 1864.

Brigadier General JAMES H. CARLETON,

Commanding Department of New Mexico, Santa Fe, N. Mex.:

GENERAL: Having just passed over the mail route from Kansas City, Mo., to this place, I deem it my duty to call your particular attention to its unprotected and exceedingly insecure condition, both to our mails and the transportation of our annual supplies now passing over it, not to mention the millions of dollars worth of private merchandise and other property en route to this territory and Arizona. Both life and property on this route is almost at the mercy of the Indians. Every tribe that frequents the plains is engaged in daily depredations on trains,and immense losses to the Government and individuals have occurred, and many lives have already been lost. Several persons were killed and large numbers of animals run off during my trip of fourteen days from Kansas City to this place. Many contractors and private trains are now corralled and unable to move from their camps for fear of Indians, and other trains have had their entire stock run off,and cannot move until other animals can be had. This evil is on the increase,and the number of troops on the route is so small that they are unable to securely protect the public property at their respective stations. They have in several instances lost a large number of public horses and other animals, run off by these Indians, within a few hundred yards of their posts. Soldiers and citizens been killed within sight of a large number of troops. You cannot imagine a worse state of things than exists now on this route. Women and children have been taken prisoners to suffer treatment worse than death. From the best information I could get this state of things will grow worse unless the most prompt and decided steps be taken to chastise these savages. The Comanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Apaches of the plains are all combined in these most brutal outrages. I would respectfully