to have justice done your people in exile on the Yakima Reservation.
All the papers sent will, I think, show that the army have tried to be just to you and yours.
I am very truly your most obedient servant,
Major-General retired, late commander of Div. Pacific and Dept. Cal.
That Gen. McDowell did his best “to be just to” my people, may be seen by the following extracts from the army reports he sent me with the above letter, with marginal notes in his own handwriting.
“Before relinquishing the command I now hold, I am constrained to ask the attention of the war and interior departments to the case of certain Piutes who were taken away from their tribes and homes in California, and carried to an Indian reservation among a strange people north of the Columbia River. Their case is fully set forth in the accompanying papers,” and he says in a marginal note in his own handwriting, that these “accompanying papers he alludes to were left out of the printed report, no reason being given.” He continues: “It will be seen, as it appears to me, that the reasons which caused the refusal of my application to have these innocent and suffering people sent back to their tribe and homes, have been mere questions of administration, of convenience and economy, while I submit their return is a matter of good faith and mercy. The Indians in question (and a list of them is herewith) were not hostile. They had done nothing meriting punishment. During the war they were carried away from their homes, because it was easier to move them during hostilities than to have a force to protect them at their homes. They are held in exile again
