to eat the beef and deprecate upon the people, thus entailing double expense upon the Government, and inflicting wrongs upon the inhabitants which are fast producing alienation of their regard for the Confederate States Government and the Southern cause. All this in order that certain parties in Texas may monopolize the beef business of this district.

Respectfully,

DOUGLAS H. COOPER,

Brigadier-General, Commanding District of Indian Territory.

CONFIDENTIAL.] FORT WASHITA, C. N., May 15, 1865.

Colonel S. S. ANDERSON,

Asst. Adjt. General, Trans-Mississippi Department, Shreveport, La.:

COLONEL: The council at North Fork between the allied Indian nations, the Indians of the plains, and the commissioners of the Confederate States meets to-day. In a preliminary council at this place, it was agreed between General Throckmorton and Colonel Reagan and the delegates from the allied nations that on their arrival at Council Grove there should first be a council between the representatives of the allied nations and the delegates from the Indians of the plains, to whom the tobacco and wampum had been sent inviting them to council, with a view of a general peace and treaty of friendship among all the Indians. After they shall have made "peace" among themselves, and washed out all the "red spots" and made the "paths" between them "white," the representatives of the Confederate States should be introduced and if desired by the Indians a tripartite treaty be made in writing. the Indian league or treaty according to their custom being made with the tobacco, the pipe, and the wampum, and unwritten. I am informed the Indians who will attend the council are thirsting for revenge on the frontier of Kansas, and if assisted will at once attack the frontier of Kansas, and even operate farther north simultaneously. Now I desire instructions whether under existing circumstances it would be proper or politic to turn loose these savages upon the Federal settlements on their frontier; and if so, request to be informed as to the time when the attack should be made. If there is any movement against Missouri in contemplation, the expedition against Kansas and the frontier generally, by the Indians and troops of this district, should of course be so timed that the two columns would support each other and create a diversion mutually advantageous. It is important that the commanding general's instructions should reach me with the least delay possible, inasmuch as the scarcity of provisions and the unruly and uncontrollable character of the material with which I have to operate render it highly desirable to get the expedition off soon, if it be proper to send it at all.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, Your obedient servant,

D. H. COOPER,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS CHURCHILL'S DIVISION,
Marshall, May 15, 1865.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gallaher,

Asst. Adjt. General, District of Arkansas and West Louisiana:

COLONEL: Repeated applications are being made to me for furloughs to go home and cut the growing wheat crop. The families of many of