ron, are willing and anxious to go out on the plains and attack the Kiowas and other Indians now depredating upon our trains and killing our people who are en route to and from the States and New Mexico, provided that they, the Utes, can be furnished with some rations, ammunition, perhaps a blanket apiece, and provided they may have whatever stock or other property they may be able to capture from the hostile Indians alluded to. I desire that you proceed without delay to Mr. Maxwell's, and if a strong party of these Utes, say 200 are willing to go on the service alluded to under your directions and command, I wish them to do so on the terms above indicates, except that if they capture from the Indians of the plains any stock belonging to the United States or to the citizens such stock shall be restored to the rightful owners on the owners paying to the Utes a fair sum for the recovery of the animals, which sum per head must be agreed upon between yourself and the said Utes before they start upon the expedition. All stock belonging to the hostile Indians themselves, and which has not been captured from the U. S. troops or trains, or from citizens, the Utes shall receive as their own in case they can take it from the said hostile Indians. It is important to have these Utes start at once in case they go at all, and I desire that you should lead them. There are fifty cavalry and thirty infantry at or near Cold Spring under Captain Bergmann, and fifty cavalry and fifty infantry at the Lower Cimarron Springs under Major Updegraff, and a like force at the crossing of the Arkansas under Captain Davis. There is also a company of infantry on the road near Gray's Ranch. Any one of these parties will co-operate with you on showing this authority to its commander. In case the Utes will go you will proceed to Fort Union and report to me the number and the length of time for which they should draw subsistence, &c. It is important that there be no unnecessary delay in this matter. It is believed that a demonstration of this kind, made at this time, will be productive of good results. The main object is to have the Utes commit themselves in hostility to the Indians of the plains, that there may be less chance for them to join in any league which the latter Indians may attempt to make for a general war by all the Indians between the mountains and the Missouri upon the whites. Your knowledge of the haunts of the Indians of the plains, and the great confidence the Ute Indians have in you as a friend and as a leader, point to yourself as the most fitting person to organize, direct, and bring this enterprise to a successful issue.

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

JAMES H. CALRETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO,
Santa Fe, N. Mex., September 18, 1864.

Mr. LUCIEN B. MAXWELL,

At Maxwell's Ranch, N. Mex.:

DEAR SIR: I have received a message from you, through General Crocker, that some 200 or more Ute Indians are willing and ready to go out and attack the Indians on the plains who are killing people and molesting trains between New Mexico and the States. I have this day sent a letter to Colonel Carson, at Taos, to go over to your place and have a talk with the Utes, and if they will go on conditions which he is authorized to make for them to go at once under colonel Carson's lead, the