IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. JANUARY 31, 1871.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. SPRAGUE made the following REPORT. [To accompany bill S. No. 1281.] The Committee on Claims, to whom was referred R. Cruikshank's petition for relief, report: The claim is for ten thousand dollars. The petitioner holds militia commissions in the District militia from Presidents Monroe, Jackson, and Lincoln, and their respective Secretaries of War, Calhoun, Eaton, and Cameron. The United States troops occupied the farm (360 acres) in Fairfax County, Virginia. A building, valued at one thousand dollars, and a hay rack, valued at three hundred dollars, were removed from said farm; the lodge transferred to an adjoining farm, (Vanderwerker's,) and abandoned the "lodge" to said farm for damages; that hay, corn, and oats were appropriated; that rent is also due, and, when included, is estimated to be seven hundred dollars; and the committee, excluding all claim for fences taken and damage to farm otherwise, report in favor of giving to claimant two thousand dollars, and submit a bill accordingly. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. FEBRUARY 1, 1871.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. ABBOTT made the following REPORT. [To accompany bill S. No. 734.] The Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of Isaac H. Allen, beg leave to report: That it appears that the said Isaac H. Allen enlisted as a private in the Fourteenth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, on the 13th day of October, 1862, was appointed first sergeant Company I, to rank from the 20th day of October, 1862; afterward to sergeant major of said regiment, to rank from the 1st day of March, 1863; that some time in June, 1864, he was assigned to the command of Company D, Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, (the captain and first lieutenant being on detached duty,) and that a commission was issued to him as second lieutenant of said company and regiment on the 22d day of July, 1864. It further appears that, in consequence of being in active service, and out of reach of mail facilities, and soon thereafter, to wit, on the 3d day of August, 1864, being taken prisoner near Atlanta, Georgia, his commission failed to reach him, so that he could not be regularly mustered into the service as second lieutenant until the 8th day of October, 1864. He therefore asks, and the committee recommend, that he be allowed the full pay and emoluments, including commutation of rations while a prisoner of war, as a second lieutenant from the date on which he actually entered on such duty to the date of his muster-in, deducting therefrom the pay actually received by him for such period. His colonel, Horace Capron, now Commissioner of Agriculture, says, "I fully indorse Lieutenant Allen's statement of his case, * and have to say further that it [the relief asked] should be granted as an act of simple justice to a faithful and honest soldier, who was always at his post of duty." The Indian Territory, proposed to be organized by the bill, is about 350 miles in length by 200 miles in width, with an area, therefore, of about 70,000 square miles. Its soil is fertile, its climate pleasant and healthful, and it is in every way fitted by nature to sustain as large a population as any tract of equal extent in the United States. Missouri, which forms a portion of its eastern border, has a population of 1,700,000: Arkansas, also bordering it upon the east, has a population of 500,000; and Kansas, forming its northern boundary, with scarcely five years of peaceful growth, has already a population of 400,000. The portion of Texas bordering upon the Red River, which forms its southern boundary, is rapidly filling up with agricultural settlers. Two railroads coming from the north, and connecting with the Kansas Pacific, one at Junction City and the other at Kansas City, have already reached the northern boundary of this Territory; a third, completed from St. Louis southwest a distance of 300 miles, and whose route lies through this Territory to the Pacific coast, is now within thirteen miles of the eastern border, and rapidly closing this small gap; a fourth, building from Memphis and Little Rock, will, by next July, have reached the border upon the southeast; and still a fifth, from Galveston, Texas, is rapidly approaching the Red River upon the south. This Territory so surrounded is at present occupied exclusively by tribes of Indians numbering, all told, between fifty and sixty thousand souls. The bulk of this population is made up of the Cherokees having a reservation upon the north, the Choctaws and Chickasaws upon the South, and the Creeks and Seminoles in the central portions, the balance being composed of fragmentary tribes, with populations ranging from fifty to three thousand, occupying a few small tracts in the east, or roaming over large tracts in the west. The principal tribes above mentioned are further advanced in civilization than any others in the United States, having written governmental constitutions, schools, churches, and newspapers, and living chiefly by raising stock and tilling the soil. From the above statement the importance of the proposed legislation is manifest. A country of such extent, capable, from its resources, of sustaining in comfort so large a population; situated in the heart of our republic; surrounded by populous and growing States; and whose borders on all sides already feel the pressure of emigration and American enterprise, certainly merits the most serious attention of the Congress upon which the responsibility of its government rests. In order to determine upon the wisdom of the change of policy recommended, the present status of this Territory and of its inhabitants and |