which properly pertain to the War Department.  Orders granting leaves of absence to officers, transfers, discharges of soldiers for favor, and all the old abuses, which had embittered the life of General Scott in the days of Secretaries of War Marcy and Davis, were renewed.  I called his attention to these facts, but without sensible effect.  My office was under his in the old War Department, and one day I sent my aide-de-camp, Colonel Audenried, up to him with some message, and when he returned red as a beet, very much agitated, he asked me as a personal favor never again to send him to General Belknap.  I inquired his reason, and he explained that he had been treated with a rudeness and discourtesy he had never seen displayed by any officer to a soldier.  Colonel Audenried was one of the most polished gentlemen in the army, noted for his personal bearing and deportment, and I had some trouble to impress on him the patience necessary for the occasion, but I promised on future occasions to send some other or go myself.  Things went on from bad to worse, till in 1870 I received from Mr. Hugh Campbell, of St. Louis, a personal friend and an honorable gentleman, a telegraphic message complaining that I had removed from his position Mr. Ward, post trader at Fort Laramie, with only a month in which to dispose of his large stock of goods, to make room for his successor.

It so happened that we of the Indian Peace Commission had been much indebted to this same trader, Ward, for advances of flour, sugar, and coffee, to provide for the Crow Indians, who had come down from their reservation on the Yellowstone to meet us in 1868, before our own supplies had been received.  For a time I could not-comprehend the nature of Mr. Campbell’s complaint, so I telegraphed to the department commander, General C. C. Augur, at Omaha, to know if any such occurrence had happened, and the reasons therefor.  I received a prompt answer that it was substantially true, and had been ordered by The Secretary of War.  It so happened that during General Grant’s command of the army Congress had given to the general of the army the appointment of “post-traders.”  He had naturally devolved it on the subordinate division and department commanders, but the legal power remained with the general of the army.  I went up to the Secretary of War, showed him the telegraphic correspondence, and pointed out the existing law in the Revised Statutes.  General Belknap was visibly taken aback, and explained that he had supposed the right of appointment rested with him, that Ward was an old rebel Democrat, etc.; whereas Ward had been in fact the sutler of Fort Laramie, a United States military post, throughout the civil war.  I told him that I should revoke his orders, and leave the matter where it belonged, to the local council of administration and commanding officers.  Ward was unanimously reelected and reinstated.  He remained the trader of the post until Congress