John Pope to Henry H. Sibley, September 2, 1864

Brig. Gen. H. H. SIBLEY, Commanding District of Minnesota, Saint Paul:

GENERAL: Your dispatch of yesterday has been received and answered by telegraph. I suppose from its contents that the two companies to which it refers belong to Hatch’s battalion and are designed to join and serve in the department, otherwise I would not in any manner interfere with them. If Governor Miller thinks more troops necessary in Minnesota he can himself telegraph the facts to the Secretary of zens of this region to the War Department, setting forth that a large force is unnecessarily kept in this department, and the inspections that have been made, based on these statements, it will not be proper for me to apply for more troops nor interfere with any being raised in this department for service elsewhere. Many of the newspapers in the department, and especially those in your district, have constantly asserted that the fear of Indians was humbug, and these Indian expeditions a fraud upon the Government. For any consequences which result from the course they have pursued they must be responsible to the people of Minnesota. As soon as I can procure copies of the written statements referred to as having been made to the War Department I will forward them to you for publication, so that the people of the Northwest may know to whom they are indebted among their own citizens for the weak force on the frontier and the Indian raids to which they have been subjected in consequence.

respectfully, your obedient servant,