miles south of Fort Randall, but of course he wont's get any such force. I am not in fear of traveling with my servants, a driver, and my quartermaster to Fort Pierre, but he says General Connor told him it would not be safe. Several bands of Sioux have sent word to me they want to see me and talk. Governor Edmunds, who I suppose has heard this, wants to go with me. I'll try to euchre him, for I don't want him to get the credit of our work. I wish I had 500 more good cavalry. I think I could head off the Platte Indians. I don't think the troops marching up the Platte will be able to over-take them. I don't know this to be so. I have only Indian reports - unreliable, as You know. I will only have 800 or 900 men with me. I don't include about 100 teamsters and quartermasters and commissary of subsistence men, but they are men who have been with me two years. I can depend on them; and although I may not be able to make a big fight and accomplish all, as I have heretofore, yet I can hold my own against any number of Indians.

With respect, Your obedient servant,

ALF. SULLY,

Brevet Major-General.

RUTLAND, VT., June 14, 1865.

Bvt. Major General J. A. RAWLINS,

Chief of Staff of the Armies of the United States, Washington City, D. C.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to put in writing, for the information of the lieutenant-general commanding, some information verbally communicated concerning the propriety of a military force being sent for the permanent defense of Montana Territory. Montana Territory should in terms be attached to some department. The Rocky Mountains as a boundary will not apply, as the Bitter Root Valley, west of those mountains, has been attached to Montana Territory. The boundaries of my late command, the District of Oregon, extended under existing orders to the Rocky Mountains, but it was never in my power to send troops to Bitter Root Valley, so remote from Western Oregon. I recommend that a force be sent from the Northwest to Virginia City, the seat of government for Montana, and two mounted companies be detached for the Flathead Indian Agency in the Bitter Root Valley. The Indian agent there has made frequent application to me for troops, as the whites are crowding in and troops are needed for the protection of the Indians in their reservation against the instructions of the whites, of for no other purpose. I recommend that five companies of infantry and five companies of cavalry be sent to Virginia City, taking the route by the emigrant road via Fort Laramie and the South Pass. On reaching Fort Hall the command should turn north, recross the Rocky Mountains by a pass leading to the mining regions in Montana at the very headwaters of the Missouri River. On reaching Virginia City the officer in command can ascertain the proper for troops to occupy, probably the Big Bend of the Yellowstone. They are needed to protect the settlements from Blackfeet on the north and Crows on the Lower Yellowstone. The Yellowstone may be navigable to the Big Bend. Mr. Choteau, of Saint Louis, has for two summers tried to test it, but they were both seasons of extraordinary low water. General Sully's expedition last year only reached the Lower Yellowstone, where there are no settlements. The mining settlements in Montana require protection, not from Indians west, but from those east and north