[Endorsement] A true copy.
J. H. Leavenworth Col. 2nd Reg’t C.V.
LEEPER TO PIKE
Washita Agency, L. D., June 26, 1862.
Brig. Gen’l. A. Pike, Com’d’y Ind. Terr’y and Act’g Superintendent.
Sir: Being desirous of keeping you advised of all my official operations, enclosed herewith you will please find a copy of requests made by Capts. Hart & James. I found those officers courteous and prompt, and manifesting an unreserved degree of willingness to aid me in carrying out the designs of the Confederate States of America in sustaining the Reserve and giving satisfaction to the Indians located thereon.
I learn that an annual festival or dance of the Kioways and the wild Comanche bands is expected to be held about this time, which may detain them beyond the 4th of July, and with a view to have reliable information in reference to the matter and ascertain the precise time they may be expected here, three or four days since I dispatched To-sha-hua and Pinahontsama to visit their encampments for the purpose; they will return in about six days. Upon the arrival of the Kioway Chiefs here, I shall have your excellent address carefully interpreted to them and get them to sign the Treaty. If it should be your pleasure they should do so, I apprehend that I can take all the Comanche Chiefs and the Kioway Chiefs to your Head Quarters, which I will cheerfully do, in that event however they would naturally expect in addition to their daily supply of food a few presents in the way of clothing and tobacco.
The present fiscal year is now within a few days of being closed, the employees on the Reserve and the trader from whom small presents have been purchased for the Indians are unpaid, no funds have been furnished for the purpose except fifteen hundred dollars which was handed me by the late Superintendent and was in part used in liquidation of my own Salary and the remainder, say six or seven hundred dollars, in the payment of employees, for the want of funds I have been unable to close my account, they will all be ready, however, on the first of July, and if you should be in possession of funds for the purpose, after the anticipated meeting of the Indians here, if it should meet your approbation, I will take the accounts to your Head Quarters and submit them to your inspection in order that they may be closed, provided it is inconvenient for you to transmit the money to me.
I desire to call your attention particularly to the fact that the present Contract for supplying the Indians with rations on the Reserve will terminate I am told (I have never been favored with a copy) on the 16th of August next, and it therefore would seem proper that a new contract should be let in time for the Contractor to have his supplies in readiness for delivery at that time, and it is but justice to Mr. Chas. B. Johnson, the present Contractor to say that he has complied with his Contract to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, kept ample supplies at all times on hand, and disposed to be pleasant and obliging not only to the Indians, but to all other persons with whom he has had business to transact.
When the Kioways arrive I apprehend they will have many horses and mules in their possession which will be identified by the Texas people here as the property of people living in Texas; the friendly relations and recent social intercourse of these Indians with those of the wild bands has been the cause of introducing here several horses and mules of that description already. My original instructions under the United States Government was to take possession of all such property and have them delivered to their proper owners, but if a course of that kind was now pursued it would at once defeat the Treaty with the wild bands and cause them to recommence their depredations with increased violence and renewed vigor. The 10th Article of the recent Treaty reads thus:
It is distinctly understood by the said four bands of the Ne-um, the State of Texas is one of the Confederate States, and joins in this Convention, and signs it when the Commissioner signs it, and is bound by it; and that all hostilities and enmities between it and them are now ended, and are to be forgotten and forgiven forever on both sides.