making the slightest distinction between their rights as such and white officers. I unhesiutatigly desire that the senior officer present of any expedition is entitled to the command. * * *

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. B. MAXEY,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Indorsement.]

POST OAK GROVE, July 3, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded, for General Cooper's information. The original sent through district headquarters to headquarters Trans-Mississippi Department.

CHARLES DE MORSE,

Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

[Note.]

OCTOBER, 1864.

No decision from department headquarters has as yet been communicated. It will be observed that Colonel De Morse asserts that it is understood "General Smith" decided last winter adversely to my decision, which is sustained by General Maxey. The question was raised by Colonel Martin and referred through General Steele, whom I requested to put Colonel Martin in arrest for refusal to obey my order requiring him to report to Colonel Walker. Colonel Martin was not arrested, General Steele only informing me that the papers had been referred to General Smith, from I have never heard officially on the subject.

D. H. COOPER,

Brigadier-General.

Respectfully forwarded, thought district headquarters, and the decision of General E. Kirby Smith, commanding Trans-Mississippi Department, requested. The issue made by Brigadier-General Cooper, and decided by Major-General Maxey, brings up in practical from the old question of the relative grade of races, upon which there is now being waged sanguinary war between the North and the South of the old Union. The Indian is physiologically recognized as an inferior race, and I respectfully protest against the decision of the major-general commanding this district as one to which no white officer, with a proper respect for the natural dignity if his race, can submit. Asides from the fact, well known to those who have had the experience of the precious year in this district, that no Indian commander is qualified by attainments for such duty as the regulations of the army call for, is separated the well-known mantel incapacity of that people to direct operations which require promptness and concentration of mind.

It is, too, an obvious train of the Indian character that those people are naturally indisposed, as well as unfitted, to lead, and of their own impulses always prefer to be led, and to repose upon the judgment and superior mental acuteness of the white man. It is understood that this question was last year decided by the general commanding the department adverse to the late decision by the district commander; and it is presumed that it will be again so decided. If otherwise, and it is expected that the white man will bare subordinate to the Indian, I ask respectfully to be immediately relieved from duty i this district, as I shall not, under any conceivable circumstances, renounce the self-respect of a gentleman, and