by the report that the entire force is distributed so as to guard posts and depots in Idaho, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian country below Kansas. Since the date of that report I have ordered troops from Nebraska and Colorado to move down on the upper Arkansas and into Kansas, and, to compensate for this depletion in Colorado, some of the forces in Idaho, about Fort Laramie, are ordered to occupy posts on the overland routes. I have evidently no troops to spare for the front, but, on the contrary, I think my front, which is quite open to Texas, should be guarded by a line o posts on the Arkansas River, and I should also have a movable force, in the shape of a reserve, stationed and ready in Southern Kansas to repel any raid that would be likely to venture to cross the Arkansas. Such a reserve should be 3,00 strong and the State militia would answer for this necessity.

Second. My means of transportation were so short, when I assumed command, that I ordered an ox train to be immediately improvised to send supplies to the starving Indian troops at Fort Gibson, and since that Indian country has been withdrawn from my command, the cry for bread has induced me to continue to forward provisions from Fort Scott to that region. If the upper Arkansas could be otherwise supplied I would gladly relinquish the trouble, anxiety, and poor trains that have been started in that service. Details in regard to transports will be furnished by my quartermasters, and may show some aggregates which I am not now able to furnish. The vast extent of territory supplied by the depot at this place, and the wide separation of posts that guard the overland route on the Platte and the southwestern route to Santa Fe, must necessarily require a large amount of transportation. We should also have a considerable reserve at the depot to supply accidental losses and extraordinary demands.

Third. There is a great need of cavalry and artillery horses to mount and supply troops in the department, especially cavalry horses for the Sixteenth Kansas and new companies of the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, and therefore [there are] no animals that could be sent to the front. Fort Gibson, not now in my command, should, in my judgment, be the main depot for supplies sufficient for a chain of posts along the upper Arkansas River, and in this view should have a year's supply for 10,000 men concentrated there as soon as possible.

Such a supply requires the combined facilities of water and land communication. The occasional brief period of river navigation on while this navigation continues, it is much more commodious and economical than any other. But it is so precarious, do the very best you can, [that] it is not adequate and cannot be depended upon. There only remains, then, a choice of overland routes: One from Rolla, via Springfield and Fayetteville, through Missouri; the other from this place, through Fort Scott to Fort Gibson. I have campaigned through both lines and greatly prefer the latter, because, first, you have the old military road, smooth and level, instead of the rough, mountainous road through Missouri and Arkansas; second, the Kansas route is through prairie, where you are less liable to bushwhackers than you are through the timber lands of Missouri and Arkansas; third, the greater advantage the Kansas route has is the grass for forage, abounding everywhere and convenient for stock summer and winter, instead of the country supplies that have now been exhausted on the Missouri route, and are not likely to be