MARKLEY, First Lieutenant Twenty-fourth Infantry , Commanding Detachment Seminole Negro Scouts to the Post-Adjutant, February 22, 1875

Lieutenant Markley to the Post-Adjutant.

Post-Adjutant:

Sir: I have the honor to make the following report of a scout: On the forenoon of Thursday, February 18, 1875, I was ordered by the lieutenant-colonel commanding to take my detachment of Seminole negro scouts and five days’ rations, and proceed to the Pendencia, where Indians had appeared, and then use my judgment. I arrived with ten men at Ferry’s ranch, on the Pendencia, that night about 11 o’clock, and next morning consulted with Mr. Ferry, an intelligent man, as to what was best to be done. The result was that I thought they were Mexicans, or Mexicans and Indians, from the neighboring districts of Mexico; so I determined to follow the trail, though sixty hours old, so as to be able to report upon it. The Indians had on Thursday evening, 16th, attacked a Mexican, driving a cart, on the road that I came, about fifteen miles back. I returned to that spot, took up the trail of seven horses leading about south. Owing to the soft ground and the frequent scattering of the Indians I was two days getting to the Rio Grande, about forty-five miles, near Pegauche. From the articles dropped by them I then believed them to be Indians, not Mexicans, and four men from the ranch at that place, known to my men, informed me that they had a fight with these same Indians, drove them off, and they had gone down the river about thirty-five miles to Refugio, when they had a fight with the people there, killing one Mexican, and then had gone off eastward into Texas. The next morning the trail would be four days old. My judgment was that I might as well return to the post, which I did on Sunday, February 21, (thirty miles.)

The Indians abandoned and dropped on their trail a pony and new Mexican saddle-tree, (brought in by me,) and pieces of United States blue kersey clothing, new stockings, and new boots, with legs cut off, and a filthy shirt, sewed with sinews, (mentioned as possible clues to their recognition.)

I inclose a map of the country traveled over by me.

Very respectfully, &c.,