live in shelter-tents, and lumber cannot be procured at any price. I therefore respectfully ask that you approved the issue. Inclosed please find copy of order proclaiming martial law and calling for troops.

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

T. MOONLIGHT,

Colonel Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, Commanding.

SAINT LOUIS, February 24, 1865.

Brigadier General P. E. CONNOR,

Salt Lake City:

The following order is sent for your information. +

* * * * *

Send your reports and communications to these headquarters. What troops are in your district?

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General.

HDQRS. DIST. OF MINNESOTA, DEPT. OF THE NORTHWEST,
Saint Paul, Minn., February 24, 1865.

Major General S. R. CURTIS,

Commanding Department of the Northwest, Milwaukee, Wis.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch of 20th instant, replying to that addressed by me to Major-General Pope on 7th instant, and to state that I do not propose to increase the number of small stations now garrisoned by the troops in this district, but simply to extend the line farther westward so as to cover the remote settlements. You are doubtless correct in your views that the settlers under ordinary circumstances should rely mainly upon themselves for protection against petty raids of the hostile savages, but the frontiers of Northwestern Iowa and Minnesota have suffered so terribly since the outbreak of 1862, and are now so denuded of men who have gone into the service at the South, that a mere intimation of the intended withdrawal of the troops stationed for their defense would be followed by an extensive if not universal stamped from the border counties. As I had the honor to state in my dispatch of the 7th instant, there is a very considerable body of hostile Sioux warriors encamped near the British boundary line, who will no doubt attempt to renew their incursions for purposes of murder and pillage so soon as the spring opens, and I am making every preparation to frustrate and punish any parties engaged in them, and at the same time to cut off the retreat of the main body, should their camp be established as far within U. S. territory as it was last year. You are doubtless aware, general, that in my field operations against the hostile Indians in this district I have received the most stringent instructions from the War Department through department headquarters not to pursue the Indians across the line into the British possessions, and the consequence is that there murdering bands can take refuge there when followed, and send their warriors in detachments more or less formidable to harass our borders. If permitted to follow these refugees wherever they might choose to go this

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*See p. 763.

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