Colonel Oscar M. Brown is now out with 100 men for thirty days, and it is hoped, from information which he had received of the whereabouts of a band of Apaches belonging to the White Mountains and Mogollon region, that he will strike a good blow. A train of supplies for Prescott, or rather for Fort Whipple, has left Fort Union, and will be escorted from Fort Wingate by a company of the First Cavalry New Mexico Volunteers, which company will remain at Fort Whipple. The train will take out two mountain howitzers for Fort Whipple. Next spring I will try to send to that point Captain Anderson's company of infantry. With this force at Fort Whipple, and what I hope to be able to effect from other directions against the Apaches of your Territory, we may reasonably expect that those Indians will soon be brought to terms. It is understood here that people of Tucson complain that troops have been recalled from that place. When they understand to what straits I am reduced even to garrison important points and protect our material until other troops come to our help clamors will doubtless cease. I have applied to the War Department for 2,000 more men. If they are scent much can be done toward bringing Indian hostilities in this department to an early conclusion.

I have the honor to be, Your Excellency's obedient servant,

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HDQRS. DIST. OF MINNESOTA, DEPT. OF THE NORTHWEST,
Saint Paul, Minn., October 13, 1864.

Major General JOHN POPE,

Commanding Department of the Northwest, Milwaukee, Wis.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to state that your telegraphic dispatch of 10th instant was received the same date, and your dispatch of that day on the same subject reached me this morning. In the exercise of the discretion as to furnishing an escort to the Missouri Reservation for the Indian Department given me in the telegram I had already ordered an escort of a lieutenant and sixty men of the Second [Minnesota] Cavalry, as you will perceive by copies of my instructions to Lieutenant-Colonel Pfaender, commanding Second Sub-District, and to Lieutenant McGrade, placed in command of the detachment.* My reasons for speedy action are to be found in the fact that the season was to far advanced as to render every day of importance. The train to be dispatched contains annuity goods and provisions for the Indian on the reservation due under existing treaty stipulations, and I am informed that the cause of the delay in forwarding these supplies was the destruction of the first shipment by fire on steamer in Saint Louis, necessitating the sending to this point by express of a duplicate quantity for transportation overland, in consequence of the low stage of water in the Missouri River.

In addition to the necessity of guarding these Government goods, which are of vital importance to the Indians, I was exceedingly anxious to disembarrass the military authorities of this district from the charge and expense of some sixty or seventy stragglers from the reservation who have been held as quasi prisoners for some months, and without a military force these people could not be moved to their own reservation.

I have, however, left it to the judgment of the officer in command of the detachment whether or not to proceed farther than one day's march beyond the James River, the contractors for transportation having stated

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* See October 11, p. 799.

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