Today in History:

899 Series I Volume XLI-II Serial 84 - Price's Missouri Expedition Part II

Page 899 Chapter LIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--UNION.

opposed to the Indians being located at the Bosque Redondo. We all know that such an idea has been started and written upon for effect.

I inclose for your perusal a New Mexican with one of these supposed-to-be-manufactured articles in it. No persons were killed by Indians from the reservation. No stock was run off by them. The stock was run off by the wild, uncaught Apaches, it is thought, from Arizona, and was taken away from them by the troops. See the inclosed gazette. I am sorry to trouble you about such matters, but let me assure you as a gentlemen you are imposed upon by these letters, and the conduct of the military authorities here is not fairly represented. Time will prove all this to you. The proceedings of the board alluded to are in the War Department. I inclose a letter from Colonel Carson in relation to the late raid upon the stock of the people by the Apaches. We have had the Indians to contend with,and after much toil and suffering have brought this formidable tribe to terms. We hardly supposed that an officer of the Government could sit down, and by such an array of mis-statements endeavor to prejudice so high a public functionary as yourself against the only measure that can ever secure peace and prosperity to this impoverished country. I appeal to the proceedings of the board in question, to the archives of the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments, to the Adjutant-General of the Army, to all the principal gentlemen in this country, commencing with the Governor, the Delegate, the chief justice, &c., and to Colonel Carson, who commanded the expedition against the Navajoes, for the exactness of the statements here made. I do not believe that all told there are 1,000 Navajoes left in their country, and these, from the best information as yet ascertained, have fled away beyond the Little Colorado. You will perhaps sometime or other learn the motives which have induced these statements by Dr. Steck. It is a pity, when so much has been accomplished for the country, that any one should come forward with a studied effort to undo it all.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES H. CARLETON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

NOTE.--Contrast the comparative expense between feeding and fighting these Indians, as set forth in Superintendent Steck's letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated September 19, 1863. (See report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1863, p. 107.) And also see the able report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1863, pp. 13, 14, and 15.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.]

SANTA FE, N. MEX., May 28, 1864.

Honorable WILLIAM P. DOLE,

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have been anxiously looking since my arrival in Santa Fe for instructions from your office respecting the Navajoes, based upon your letter to the honorable Secretary of the Interior, dated March 4, 1864. I am informed that representations have been made by the friends of the policy of locating this tribe at Bosque Redondo, upon the Apache Reservation, that most of the tribe are already removed, and that by the mouth of July the whole number be brought in. The facts of the case are, however, widely different from this. The tribe is not subdued. A vast majority of the warriors are still in their own country, and those


Page 899 Chapter LIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--UNION.