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796 Series I Volume XLVIII-I Serial 101 - Powder River Expedition Part I

Page 796 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LX.

[First indorsement.]


HEADQUARTERS, Post Fort Riley, February 11, 1865.

Respectfully referred to Colonel James H. Ford, commanding District of Upper Arkansas, as the Eleventh Kansas are not on duty at this post.

J. L. PRITCHARD,
Major, Commanding Post.

[Second indorsement.]


HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF UPPER ARKANSAS, Fort Riley, February 11, 1865.

Respectfully returned, and would state for the information of the general commanding that I have relieved the Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, now on duty in this district (864 men), and ordered them to Fort Kearny, Nebr. Ter. They are poorly mounted, and as I have no other cavalry here to dismount it will be impossible for me to comply fully with the requirements of the order.

JAS. J. FORD,
Colonel Second Colorado Cavalry, Commanding Dist. of Upper Arkansas.


HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF UPPER ARKANSAS, Fort Riley, Kans., February 9, 1865.

Major S. C. CHARLOT,

Asst. Adjt. General, Department of Kansas, Fort Leavenworth:

MAJOR: I have the honor to state for the information of the general commanding that since my last communication, of the 28th of January, up to the present date all is quiet throughout the district. No large parties of Indians have been discovered by our scouts along the line of the Arkansas River, and, with the exception of an attack upon a fatigue party chopping wood one line from Fort Zarah, no casualties have occurred. On the morning of the 1st of February a fatigue party of eight men chopping wood on the Arkansas, one mile from Fort Zarah, were fired upon by Indians; one man mortally wounded. Lieutenant Coy, Company G, Second Colorado Cavalry, immediately started in pursuit. The morning being extremely foggy, enabling the Indians to advance under its cover, also concealed their retreat. All that the party sent in pursuit were able to discover was a few moccasin tracks on the sand-bar in the River. On the 6th of February a report was received at these headquarters from Jesse H. Leavenworth, Indian agent now at Council Grove, that Company D, Sixteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, at that place, was in a partial state of mutiny, having shot the lieutenant of their company (mortally wounding him), and had it not been for ten men of Company D, Second Colorado Cavalry, would have carried into effect their threat of burning the town. Immediately upon receipt of this, Lieutenant Wise, Company D, Second Colorado Cavalry, with the available men of his company, proceeded to Council Grove (acting under instructions from these headquarters) to investigate the affair, arrest all the guilty parties, and send them to Fort Riley, Kans., for trial. The report having implicated the captain of the company, he was directed to arrest him (and the whole company if necessary). Owing to the messenger not being sent in time, he company had left the Grove some six hours before the lieutenant arrived


Page 796 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LX.