Unknown to C. S. Lovell, May 31, 1861

Capt. C. S. LOVELL, Sixth Infantry, U. S. Army, Comdg. Fort Humboldt, Oal. : CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report that there are several parties of citizens now engaged in stealing or taking by force Indian children from the district in which I have been ordered to operate against the Indians. I am reliably informed that as many as forty or fifty Indian children have been taken through Long Valley within the last few months and sold both in and out of the county. The parties, I am told, at least some of them, make no secret of it, but boldly assert that they will continue to do so and that the law cannot reach them. It is pretended, I believe, that the children are purchased from their parents, but all who know these Indians can fully appreciate the value of this assertion. It is needless to say that this brutal trade is calculated to produce retaliatory depredations on the part of the Indians and exasperate them to a high degree, as well as to interfere materially with our efforts to find and chastise those Indians that deserve punishment, for these men keep the Indians constantly on the alert, attacking and chasing them before us and following in our wake for the purpose of obtaining children.

Very respectfully, your most obedient,