Js He. O to W. Scott Ketchum, October 28, 1861

Maj. W. Scott KETCHUM, Commanding Camp near San Pedro, Cal. :

MAJOR: I have received your note of this date. Lieut. Lafayette Hammond, regimental quartermaster First Infantry California Volunteers and acting commissary of subsistence, is instructed to send at once Mr. Hanson, the quartermaster’s agent, to New San Pedro to issue such subsistence stores now on hand there as you may require. By Special Orders, No. 5, current series, the command of New San Pedro is made independent of that of the District of Southern California. It follows that Lieutenant-Colonel Buchanan’s instructions about hard bread and pork for your voyage east do not reach these headquarters. If these stores are on hand at New San Pedro, you shall have them. lf they are to be shipped from San Francisco exclusively for the use of a command not included in this district, perhaps it would be well for the commissary of that command to telegraph to San Francisco for the subsistence stores he requires to have on shipboard. I say this, not from a disinclination to do all in my power to oblige the command at San Pedro, but because I fear it might be indelicate for me to order supplies for the command of another. I ordered four teams and an ambulance to proceed to San Bernardino, to be a part of the transportation of your command to New San Pedro. I supposed, of course, the ambulance went until I got your letter.

very respectfully, your obedient servant,