Today in History:

933 Series I Volume L-I Serial 105 - Pacific Part I

Page 933 Chapter LXII. CORRESPONDENCE - UNION AND CONFEDERATE.

is by far the best road if it is put in repair. This road is washed out along the track of the night wheels. The gully thus formed should be filled with stones, and these should be covered with earth. The lefthand road has one short turn cannot be straightened. Here the coupling poles and tongues of wagons are liable to become broken, thus rendering it indispensably necessary that the right-hand road should be fixed at once. The working party may be mustered "on extra duty, quartermaster's department laborers. " Two or three wells should at once be dug at Sackett's Wells. Have this done by the same party. The curbing of the well at Indian Well is broken near the top. The pieces of plank of which this curbing is formed, each piece being about four or five feet in length, are decayed, and some of them have fallen in. I have ordered Captain Moore, assistant quartermaster, U. S. Army, to forward to you 600 feet of plank for the repair of this well. Two wagons with this plank and some barley leave Camp Drum to-day. They are to deliver the plank at Indian Well, and the proced on to Fort Yuma. The before-mentioned party had better proceed with them as far as the scene of its labors. Send the necessary tools, nails, buckets, and ropes, &c., for repairing and cleaning out the wells from Carriso Creek to that point, inclusive. Major Rigg will couse all wells beyond Indian Well to be repaired and cleaned out. Send ten empty barrels to Indian Well, to be left there as water barrels. Order all troops and parties which pass your post to cross the desert to send on ahead to have these filled, if it should be necessary that this should be done, from the number of men and animals in such party, and when that party leaves those wells to have some water left in each barrel that it may not fall to pieces. I understand that Mr. George Williams, who lives at San Felipe, says he will deliver at Carriso Creek, and at Sackett's Wells, and at Indian Well some hay, if required. I wish you to contract with him, or any other responsible party, to put at once fifteen tons of hay at each of those places, if it can be done at what the Overland Mail Company last paid for hay delivered at those points.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Colonel First California Volunteers, Commanding.


HEADQUARTERS CAMP WRIGHT,
Oak Grove, San Diego County, Cal., March 16, 1862.

Lieutenant B. C. CUTLER,

Actg. Asst. Adjt. General, Southern Dist. of California, Los Angeles:

I have the honor to report the receipt of a letter (no date) from Major E. A. Rigg, First Infantry California Volunteers, commanding at Fort Yuma, in which, after referring to certain movements of the enemy which he has no doubt communicated to the colonel commanding the district, he says: "I wish you would forward on without delay Captain Mead's company of cavalry. I will have barley and rations for them at Indian Well on the 16th instant, four days from this post, to meet his command. What I now require is cavalry. " The colonel commanding will not fail to notice this must have been written after Majosed that the balance of Company A, First Cavalry California Volunteers, was en route to his post. I have kept here the ambulance and three of the teams that accompanied the battalion under Major Coult, the first presuming that it was intended to remain here and the


Page 933 Chapter LXII. CORRESPONDENCE - UNION AND CONFEDERATE.