As soon as the two expeditions spoken of in your letter return, and you have accomplished all the good that can be done with your present force, you will return with you entire command to jacksonport for the purpose of resting and organizing your command, recruiting your stock, collecting your absentees,a nd preparing everything for a movement either north or south, as circumstances may require. Should you need Major McDaniel for any purpose while on your present expedition you will use him and his command.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. P. CLENDENIN,

Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR.] HDQRS. DISTRICT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,

Fort Towson, C. N., August 7, 1864.

The subjoined address of Brigadier General Sand Watie, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, to the National Committee and Council of that Nation in General Council convened, is hereby published for the information of all concerned.

By order of Major-General Maxey:

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Cherokee Nation, July 11, 1864.

Under favor of Divine Providence, to whom is due our humble and grateful submission, you, the representatives ofthe Cherokee people, are enabled to meet in general council, to promote, as far as may lay in your power, their best interests. In undertaking the work before us it is proper that we implore that wisdom and guidance without which human efforts are powerless and human calculations vain.

Since the organization ofthe present government our people have been subjected to changes of condition consequent upon the war in which the nation has been engaged. Soon after the general mass convention, held by that intelligent portion ofthe Cherokee people who could not be infected with the deliberate treachery of their principal rulers, confederate forces of this district made an advance northward, the enemy was expelled from our borders, and our prospect was fair for a continued possession of our country. The campaign upon the whole however, proved disastrous to the common cause. All that portion of our country lying north of Arkansas River was wrested from us by overwhelming numbers,and our women and children forced to flee from the merciless traitors who had sworn with ourselves to protect them from the common enemy. The next spring saw the enemy strongly intrenched at Fort Gibson,a nd at the close of the following summer Fort Smith, the key of Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, passed out of Southern possession. No efforts that could then be made by brave and zealous soldiers under truly able commanders could prevent or did prevent the whole navigable portion of Arkansas River with its contingent territory from falling into Federal hands. It was, we can suppose, the policy of our bale commander- in - chief at Shreveport not to exhaust or expose the resources ofthe country by premature attempts to regain what had been lost, at all events the inhabitants