accordance with sentences of military commissions held in 1862. The terms of confinement of some of these prisoners are beginning to expire, and already one or two of them have been ordered to be discharged from custody by the Commissary-General of Prisoners. It is not practicable nor humane to release a wild Indian from custody far from his home and tribe and turn him loose in the streets of Davenport without means of subsistence or any power to return to his people. Aside from the inhumanity of such a proceeding, the people and civil authorities of Iowa very naturally object to being encumbered with released paupers of this description. Some disposition of these released Indians should be ordered, but as I have no authority to send them anywhere, nor to provide for their wants when released, I don't know how to act. I have called the attention of the superintendent of Indian affairs in this region to these cases, but although he says he will attend to it he has not done so. By sending these released Sioux back to their own country and there releasing them we should only be re-enforcing the bands of hostile Indians now in arms against the United States. Some system of disposing of these Indians should be adopted, and I have the honor, therefore, to ask instructions on the subject.

I am, general, respectfully, your obedient servant,

JNO. POPE,

Major-General, Commanding.

HDQRS. DIST. OF MINNESOTA, DEPT. OF THE NORTHWEST,
Saint Paul, Minn., September 1, 1864.

Major General JOHN POPE,

Commanding Department of the Northwest, Milwaukee, Wis.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to state official dispatches report the murder by twenty-one Sioux Indians of two men outright and of a third, who lived only a few hours, named Brisse, Lusta, and Dean, who were on their way with two teams from Georgetown to Fort Abercrombie. The affair took place about twenty-eight miles from the latter post, at 2 p. m. on 23rd ultimo, the savages being in ambush in the woods of the Red River. One man, who drove the leading team, escaped with his team, and the other team followed at full speed with one of the dead men and the wounded man remaining in the wagon, so that the Indians got no horses or other plunder. Major Adams received intelligence of the murders about 7.30 the same evening, and immediately proceeded with forty mounted men to the scene of the outrage, which he reached early in the morning. After burying two of the men, one of whom was frightfully mutilated, the trail of the Indians was taken, which led to the Cheyenne River and up that stream, but the murderers had too long a start to be overtaken. They evidently came from the camp of desperadoes on the Missouri Coteau, west of Devil's Lake, from which all of these parties, in my opinion, have sprung. This large camp of about 400 lodges is composed of the most desperate villains from all the various bands of Sioux, and I am not without hope that Colonel Thomas may be enabled to attend to them after recrossing the Missouri River. It would be well worth the effort, for the extermination of the whole gang of 700 or 800 warriors in that camp would extinguish the great element of mischief and danger on this frontier.

One of the party who was concerned in the Blue Earth raid has been captured by my scouts near Fort Wadsworth while he was trying to steal some of their horses. It is not probable he will be allowed an