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Show • .f I • , I • • REPORT. SAN Louis REY, California , Feb'ruary 5, 1847. SIR: In obedience to army of the west order, No. 33, of October 2d, I returned from La Joya, New Mexico, to Santa Fe, to take command of the Mormon battalion. I arrived there on the 7th October. I found that the paymasters, from whose arrival you anticipated a plentiful resource of money for the quartermaster department, had brought so 1itt1e specie that no payment of troops could be made. The consequen ce was, that Captain Hudson's company of volunteers for California, which you had assigned to my command, could not mount themselves; a~d the quartermaster's department, which scarcely commanded a dollar, could hardly have furnished the transportation. Owing to these difficulties, the captain's nev.r company was broken up by Colonel Doniphan, commanding. A portion of the battalion of Mormons arrived the evening of the 9th October, under Fir.st Lieutenant A. J. Smith, 1st dragoons, who had, in the capacity of acting lieu tenant co I one], directed jts march from Council Grove. The rear of the battalion arrived the evening of the 12th. On the 13th, I assumed command, with the rank of 1 i euten ant col one by virtue of your .appointment. Its aggregate present was 448. I found that their mules were entirely broken down, and that as many as sixty men had, from sickness and other causes, been transported in wagons much of the mr~rch; and that there were twenty-five women, besides many children. The assistant surgeon of the battalion, Dr. Sanderson, and the senior officer of the department, Dr. De Camp, reported on the ~ ·ases of a very large number, as subjects for discharge for disability. But the colonel commanding determined, under all the cir~ umstances, to retain them in service, and ordered them to be sent ~o winter at ''Pueblo," on the Arkansas river, above Bent's fort. There the Mormons have a temporary settlement, and there Mr. Smith had sent, from the crossing of the Arkansas, a party of ten, ;ommanded by Captain Higgins, in c.harge of a large number of fa-milies, which had theretofore been attached to the Mormon batta lion. This detachment had orders to join the battalion at Santa Fe. (They arrive!l after its march, and, I learned, obtained permission to return to the Pueblo.) About this time, I learned that you had }eft your wagons, in consequence of difficulties of the country; and was anxious, for the benefit of a]J, to disen- |