Rock by Brigadier General John S. Roane, and no receipt whatever sent me. General Roane did, however, advise me by letter that he had taken them.

General Van Dorn had endeavored in March to send all my supplies from Fort Smith to Little Rock. Fragments of them were received, but I lost the caissons of twelve Parrott guns, every ounce of my cannon powder (3,000 pounds), and nearly all the clothing, shoes, and tents provided me for the Indian troops. My whole supply of medicines would have gone but for General Price, and all my powder for small-arms, but for the rescue of it by my assistant adjutant-general. A battery of bronze guns at Little Rock was taken and sent to Memphis, and a large quantity of small-arms, including three hundred and eleven purchased with money furnished by me in North Carolina, and those purchased by Major N. B. Pearce with $3,000 placed by me in his hands, with others purchased by Colonel Dawson, and eighty shot-guns receipted for by me to the military store-keeper at Little Rock, have been taken and distributed at Fort Smith and Little Rock.

As there seems to be no probability that this system of despoiling this command will ever end, I beg to be informed whether other officers have a right, with or without even a notice to me and always without forwarding receipts, to seize upon and appropriate arms, ammunition, and supplies procured by me on my requisitions and receipts, and even purchased with moneys drawn by me from the Treasury and for which I must account.

I am particularly desirous to know this, because in March no small quantity of my own private stores and property failed to reach me, disappearing in the general scramble, and of which I am sadly in want.

I may also add that two boxes of stationery, purchased by me in Richmond for the brigade quartermaster; a box of stationery, &c., purchased by Captain Fitzhugh, Engineer Corps; a box of quartermasters' blanks and a box of commissary blanks were forwarded from Richmond in December by freight train and express consigned to Major George W. Clark at Fort Smith, and have never reached this command, leaving us wholly without supplies of that kind. I suppose they inured also to the benefit of some other command.

It seems to me that this mode of availing one's self of the fruits or another's labor and pains and prudent forethought is simply intolerable and indecent. I know that it is exceedingly unjust, and that it has sadly crippled this command, and made it and the Government contemptible in the eyes of the Indians, thus robbed of the supplies intended for them. I do not know what remedy there is for it.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

[ALBERT PIKE,]

Brigadier-General, Commanding Department of Indian Territory.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,
Fort McCulloch, June 28, 1862.

Honorable GEORGE W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Samuel A. Roberts, esq., of Bonham, Tex., who was authorized to raise a brigade of infantry, failed to do so, and has only three companies. Captain T. J. Mackey, Engineer Corps, writes me of date 26th instant: "General Roberts concurs with me in the suggestion that upon