38 WESTERN INCIDENTS. —

command. His kindness to our party, while resting here for a day, is
unbounded.

From this point we expect to return over another experimental sur-
vey, crossing the Black Hills further north at Evans’ Pass, and thence
to Crow Creek and Lodge Pole Creek—branches of the South Platte,
In that section the Indians indulge in mule stealing (and sometimes
in scalping their owners), having recently taken seventy mules from
a transportation train. General Dodge has been furnished by order
of the Department Commander, with an escort of twenty soldiers,
ten of whom are mounted.

Major-General Dodge, before the war, was a civil engineer on
the railroads of Illinois and Iowa, and had explored, extensively,
these plains and mountains. Until recently, he was in command of
this military department; and by all these opportunities has ac-
quired much knowledge of the topography of this region. His
services in the location of the Pacific Railroad will be valuable, as,
in the late war, they were eminently distinguished in the high
commands which he held in the Union army. But the people of
the Council Bluff district, in Iowa, are about to lay violent hands
on him, and, without any effort on his part,make him a member of
the Fortieth Congress.

J. L. WILLIAMS.

I desire to add my testimony to that of Mr. Williams,
in relation to the perseverance and skill which General
Dodge has brought to bear in directing the surveys during
the past year, through this difficult and mountainous
country. And, also, to the intelligence manifested by
Mr. Evans, in all the important details of topography
connected with the extensive surveys and reconnoissances
made by him for the Railroad Company, during the past
three years, upon this and other portions of the line.

Captain McCleary, the very accomplished and gentle-
manly officer second in command at the Fort, returned in
the evening from a hunting excursion on horseback, with
his horse and that of his orderly literally laden with wild
geese and ducks, which he had slaughtered during the
day. on the Laramie River, within a few miles of the Fort.