You asked me, in August, what was the need of any white troops at all, in the Indian Country; and you said that the few mounted troops, I had, if kept in the Northern part of the Cherokee Country, would have been enough to repel any Federal force that ever would have entered it.  As you and Hindman never allowed any ammunition procured by me, to reach the Indian Country, if you could prevent it, whether I obtained it at Richmond or Corinth, or in Texas, and as you approve of his course in taking out of that country all that was to be found in it, I am entitled to suppose that you regarded ammunition for the Indians as little necessary, as troops to protect them in conformity to the pledge of honor of the Government.  One thing, however, is to be said to the credit of your next in command.  When he has ordered anything to be seized, he has never denied having done so, or tried to cast responsibility on an inferior.  After you had written to me that you had ordered Col.  Darnell to seize, at Dallas, Texas, ammunition furnished by me, you denied to him, I understand, that you had given the order.  Is it so? and did he refuse to trust the order in your hands, or even to let you see it, but would show it to Gen. McCulloch?

Probably you know by this time, if you are capable of learning any thing, whether any white troops are needed in the Indian Country.  The brilliant result of Gen. Hindman’s profound calculations and masterly strategy, and of his long-contemplated invasion of Missouri, is before the country; and the disgraceful rout at Fort Wayne, with the manoeuvres and results on the Arkansas, are pregnant commentaries on the abuse lavished on me, for not taking “the line of the Arkansas,” or making Head Quarters on Spring River, with a force too small to effect any thing any where.

I have not spoken of your Martial Law and Provost Marshals

in the Indian Country, and your seizure of salt-works there, or, in detail, of your seizure of ammunition procured by me in Texas, and on its way to the Indian troops, of the withdrawal of all white troops and artillery from their country, of the retention for other troops of the mountain howitzers procured by me for Col.  Waitie, and the ammunition sent me, for them and for small arms, from Richmond.  This letter is but a part of the indictment I will prefer bye and bye, when the laws are no longer silent, and the constitution and even public opinion no longer lie paralyzed under the brutal heel of Military Power; and when the results of your impolicy and mismanagement shall have been fully developed.