as soon as practicable. I would respectfully suggest they be sent by steamer to the mouth of the Colorado River, on account of it being the most expeditious, besides there being a scarcity of water on the desert. You will please forward the inclosed communication to department headquarters. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, GEO. ANDREWS, Lieutenant-Colonel Sixth Infantry, Commanding Post. Lieut. Col. GEORGE ANDREWS, [Inclosure.] PIMA VILLAGES, August 23, 1861. Sixth Infantry, Commanding Fort Yuma: SIR: Inclosed please find Mesilla papers, containing full accounts of the proceedings of the rebels in Eastern Arizona. You will see that they have possession of the entire Territory. Twenty of their troops are at Tucson now and 100 more expected in a very few days. The following is an extract from a letter received from the mail agent at Tucson: The mail between Tucson and Mesilla will stop for the present, as the country is under martial law. In case of any demonstration in this direction I will promptly forward the earliest information. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. M. WHITE. We are out of postage stamps, or I should send in the mail. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC, Col. GEORGE WRIGHT, Ninth Infty., Comdg. Dist. of Oregon, Fort Vancouver, Wash. Ter.: SIR: The general commanding the department desires that fifteen wagon mules and all the clothing and camp equipage on band at Fort Steilacoom, after deducting a supply for six months for the troops on Puget Sound, to be sent down on the Massachusetts. The Massachusetts will be sent to Fort Vancouver in time to meet the mules ordered down from Walla Walla, which she will take on board and come to this city. All the wagons, wagon mules, and harness at Fort Vancouver not required at the post, and all the clothing and camp equipage not required for the troops at that post and Forts Hoskins aud Yamhill, after deducting a supply at each place for six months, to be sent down in the Massachusetts. All the wagons, wagon mules, and harness at Fort Dalles not required for the post, and all the clothing and camp equipage on hand, after deducting a six months' supply for the troops at that post, will be sent to Vancouver to be forwarded to this city in the Massachusetts. The general hopes to see you here by the return steamer. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, RICHD. C. DRUM, Assistant Adjutant General. SPECIAL ORDERS, HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF OREGON, No. 31. } I. Capt. H. M. Black, Ninth Infantry, with the detachment of U. S. troops under his command stationed at Fort Cascades, will proceed to Fort Vancouver, Wash. Ter., by the steamer thence on Friday, the 30th instant. II. Capt. J. Van Voast, Ninth Infantry, with his company (K), will take post at Fort Cascades, garrisoning both extremities of the line. * * * By order of Colonel Wright: A. C. WILDRICK, First Lieut., Third Artillery, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Brig. Gen. E. V. SUMNER, U. S. Army: I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. SIMON CAMERON, Governor. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., August 28, 1861. Secretary of War: DEAR SIR: Since the arrival of the pony express, with Washington dates of August 16, a rumor has been in circulation that an enlistment of 5,000 additional men from this State has been ordered for service in Texas, to which State they were to proceed with all convenient dispatch, under command of General Sumner. This report has caused the most lively apprehensions of danger in our midst, and so deeply are we impressed that your Department is not sensible of the true condition of affairs upon this coast that we most respectfully ask the rescinding of so much of the order as calls for the withdrawal of the troops to be raised, and that transfers General Sumner to another field of duty, and thereto we present the following reasons: A majority of our present State officers are undisguised and avowed secessionists, and the balance, being bitterly hostile to the Administration, are advocates of a peace policy at any sacrifice, upon terms that would not be rejected even by South Carolina. Every appointment made by our Governor within the past three months unmistakably indicates his entire sympathy and co-operation with those plotting to sever California from her allegiance to the Union, and that, too, at the hazard of civil war. About threeeighths of our citizens are natives of slaveholding States, and almost a unit in this crisis. The hatred and bitterness toward the Union and Union men, manifested so pointedly in the South and so strongly evinced on the field of battle, is no more intense there than here. These men are never without arms, have wholly laid aside their business, and are devoting their time to plotting, scheming, and organizing. Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that there are upward ✓ of 16,000 "Knights of the Golden Circle" in this State, and that they are still organizing even in our most loyal districts. The fruits of so much devotion to the cause of secession and intriguing for its promotion are manifested in the securing of certain timid and ease-loving classes, hailing from free States, styling themselves Union men, but opposed to the war. Thus is secession consummated. Another class, by no means small, powerful through its wealth, has affiliated with the disunionists to avoid and oppose paying a pittance toward maintaining the integrity of the Government in its hour of trial. The native Spanish race have been persuaded that all real-estate complications will meet with prompt adjustment at the hands of another organization, and the unwarranted doubts, difficulties, and delays that have characterized the action of the administrative branch of the Government in the final adjustment of titles under Mexican grants furnish an argument to ignorant men that human ingenuity cannot answer. The squatter and lawless trespasser, having litigated with the landed proprietor for years in his own name and that of his Government, is made to believe that no change can result to his disadvantage; that principles established by the Federal courts will be overturned, and Mexican grants only known in history. Upon these several subjects, which comprise the prominent points of our present position, electioneering pamphlets, resolutions, platforms, speeches, and circulars are distributed with an unflagging industry, and are placed in the hands of every voter in the State. The special object of this extraordinary effort is to carry the State election, which takes place one week from to-day, September the 4th. In this campaign the Union voters are unfortunately divided, and the best-devised plans have failed to unite them. The secessionists, the Douglas party, and the Republicans have each a full ticket in the field, and we are overwhelmed with apprehensions lest the enemies of the country may triumph. Should such be the case, civil strife would be forced upon our loyal population, and the most prosperous State in the Union would be desolated and destroyed. The frightful scenes now transpiring in Missouri would be rivaled by the atrocities enacted upon the Pacific Coast. Loyalty and patriotism embrace within their firm grasp the body of the wealth and intelligence of California, and an attempt at a severance will be contested with inflexible determination. We need not remind you of the vast importance of preserving California to the Union. Its great geographical extent, its mineral and agricultural wealth, the fact that it is our chief seat of empire upon the Pacific, and that its political action will exercise a powerful, if not controlling, influence upon its neighbors at the North, imperatively demand that no precaution should be neglected to insure its fidelity. We need only appeal to the examples furnished by Missouri, and even Virginia, to show that the efforts of a comparatively small number of audacious and unscrupulous men are sufficient to precipitate an unwilling population into disunion, or at least to inaugurate civil war. If, unfortunately, from the causes we have mentioned, the secession minority in this State should obtain control, you will at once perceive with what power for mischief it would be armed, and how imminent is our danger. To retain a State in its allegiance is a thousandfold more easy than to overcome disloyalty affecting to act under State authority. Nothing will more certainly check treasonable attempts than a conviction of their hopelessness. To deprive us of the military support of the Government at this time is to hold out a direct encouragement to traitors. We beg most earnestly to remind you that in our case au "ounce of preventive is worth a pound of cure." Very respectfully yours, Robt. C. Rogers, Macondray & Co., Jno. Sime & Co., J. B. Thomas, W. W. Stow, Horace P. James, Geo. F. Bragg & Co., Flint, Peabody & Co., Wm. B. Johnston, D. O. Mills, H. M. Newhall & Co., Henry Schmildell, Murphy, Grant & Co., Wm. T. Coleman & Co., De Witt Kittle & Co., Richard M. Jessup, Graves, Williams & Buckley, Donohoe, Ralston & Co., H. M. Nuzlee, Geo. C. Shreve & Co., Peter Danahue, Kellogg, Hewston & Co., Moses Ellis & Co., R. D. W. Davis & Co., L. B. Benchley & Co., Wm. A. Dana, Jones, Dixon & Co., J. Y. Halleck & Co., Forbes & Babcock, A. T. Lawton, Geo. J. Brooks & Co., Jno. B. Newton & Co., Chas. W. Brooks & Co., James Patrick & Co., Locke & Montague, Janson, Bond & Co., Jennings & Brewster, Treadwell & Co., William Alvord & Co., Shattuck & Hendley, Randell & Jones, J. B. Weir & Co., B. C. Hand & Co., O. H. Giffin & Bro., Dodge & Shaw, Tubbs & Co., J. Whitney, jr., C. Adolphe Low & Co., Haynes & Lawton, J. D. Farrell, C. E. Hitchcock, Geo. Howes & Co., Sam. Merritt, Jacob Underhill & Co., Morgan, Stone & Co., J. W. Brittan, T. H. & J. S. Bacon, R. B. Swain & Co., Fargo & Co., Nathaniel Page, Stevens, Baker & Co., R. E. Brewster & Co., Tay, Brooks & Backus, Wm. Norris, E. H. Parker. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC, Capt. WILLIAM H. GARDNER, Commanding Navy-Yard, Mare Island, Cal.: CAPTAIN: I have received your letter of yesterday.* You are altogether mistaken in supposing that I wish to dictate to you in anything. I have an impression that you asked me in one of your letters some time since to give you any information I might receive that would be interesting to you. I did receive information, and from what I considered a reliable source, that there were several secessionists in Government employ at the navy-yard, and I certainly thought it was very *Not found. important that you should know of this report; for if it was true, I did not believe you would keep such people for an hour. You misunderstand me entirely. I have not the slightest apprehension that the Government will sustain any loss of property in California. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, E. V. SUMNER, Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC, Col. WASHINGTON SEAWELL, Sixth Regiment of Infantry, Comdg. Benicia Barracks, Cal.: SIR: The general commanding the department desires you to move the company of infantry commanded by Lieutenant Upham, Sixth Infantry, from the ordnance building it now occupies, and place them in camp sufficiently near the arsenal building to give the necessary protection. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, RICHD. C. DRUM, Assistant Adjutant-General. FORT CASCADES, WASH. TER., August 28, 1861. Lieut. A. C. WILDRICK, Third Artillery, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, Hdqrs. District of Oregon, Fort Vancouver, Wash. Ter.: LIEUTENANT: Since my last report on the 26th instant I sent Captain Van Voast with a party to examine an old trail which comes into the river (Oregon side) at Eagle Creek. He started early in the morning, and followed said trail until all signs and traces of it disappeared, when he continued on until it became dangerous for himself and command to climb over the rocks, &c. He reports that he saw no signs of Indians, and thinks that neither white man nor Indian had ever been to the point hereached. I also started with a party the same morning and at the same time to examine the country lying to the north of this post and back of the Portage, on this side of the river. Mr. Jones, late sutler's agent at this post, and Mr. Hamilton kindly volunteered to accompany me, and I found them of great assistance. We followed the military road as far as the bridge; then turned to the left into the woods; followed an old wood road for about a mile, then struck into the woods without a trail, but by the compass nearly north, to strike a lake which lies back of the Upper Cascades, and after a very tiresome march over very high hills, covered with rocks, and through very thick underbrush, we succeeded in our object of reaching this Blue Lake. Saw no Indian signs whatever, and I think I may safely say that we were the first whites who had ever reached that lake, or chain of lakes, so high up from this side or end of the Portage, and it is a question if many, or any, Indians had ever done so. We then struck a trail and came to the river a short distance above Mr. Bradford's store, at the Upper Cascades, and got upon the military road at a lake near the Upper Cascades, thence back to this post. I have nothing further to add to my previous reports. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. M. BLACK, Captain, Ninth Infantry, Commanding U. S. Troops at Cascades, |