[Inclosure.]

SHALL WE HAVE PEACE WITH THE INDIANS.

We learn that the Cheyenne and Arrapahoe Indians are now at Fort Lyon negotiating for peace and re-enacting the disgraceful scenes which took place at Ford Larned a year ago. For six months these savages have reveled in blood, and rioted over the bleeding and mutilated remains of their victims; the scalps of men, women, and children make hideous their wigwams, and they exult in the full tide of their unparalleled success in atrocities. In the main they have gained the advantage over our troops in every engagement throughout the campaign, and by successful strategy have dismounted hundreds of our cavalry, thereby paralyzing our movements against them. They have plundered immense trains of valuable stores; have driven off thousands of cattle, mules, and horses; destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property, and retarded the immense commerce of the plains, causing incalculable loss to the country, and now, flushed with victory, glorifying in success, riding horses which they have stolen from soldiers, pointing with pride to the scalps at their belts, enjoying the fruits of their spoils, and, speaking contemptuously of the efforts of the white man to subdue them, they came to Fort Lyon and insolently demand peace; demand peace and rations. Shall they have it now? We say no! And we believe we echo the sentiment of the people of Western Kansas who have suffered most at their hands. A peace with these savages at this time is an illusion. It is only made by them to be broken in the spring. Unable to live on their own resources during the winter, they seek to patch up a peace which will enable them to lie at our forts where they can draw rations and trade for powder and ball with which to murder our citizens another season. Make peace with them,and they will be ready in the spring for another round of butchery and desolation, and they will enact it. We can only have a lasting and permanent peace with these red devils after we have completely whipped them and taught them the power of the Government. Then will we have peace and quiet upon our border, and not before. Let them smoke ever so many pipes of peace at Fort Lyon this fall, we protest against peace.

HDQRS. DIST. OF WISCONSIN, DEPT. OF THE NORTHWEST,
Milwaukee, Wis., November 19, 1864.

Major-General POPE,

Commanding Department of the Northwest, Milwaukee, Wis.:

GENERAL: Your letter of the 3rd instant was received at Keokuk, when I was making arrangements to return here, and I, therefore, deferred its answer till I should reach Milwaukee. I presume I did not make my views sufficiently clear in my first letters. I did not design to post troops or make any other arrangements that would be noticeable or permanent, and I think the temper of the people in that section is such that to change such arrangements as i proposed would caused little comment or complaint. Against such raids as that on the 7th instant in Davis County and other previous ones, when bushwhackers pass the mounted patrol on the borders in twos and threes (in citizen's dress) and then assemble to rob and murder, the best protection is to ferret out by detectives the men who harbor or give information to these outlaws. The detectives from Saint Louis I employed in investi-