The army rejected that petition, also. But the next year, 1894, it accepted a similar appeal from the same company. 32 By the end of 1894, after most units had completed three years of service, the army furloughed or mustered all of them out save Troop L, 7th Cavalry.33 Troop L, 7th Cavalry was by than a strange amalgam of twenty-four Kiowas and Comanches and forty-three Apache prisoners of war, previously members of Company I, 12th Infantry, that the army had moved from Alabama to Fort Sill in 1894.34 The army did not discharge that troop until May 1897, the adjutant general lamenting that despite the army's best efforts to make soldiers of Indians, it had failed. Only in passing did he note that the "total number of Indian soldiers enlisted and reenlisted since March 1891 was 1,071." 35

Along with the difficulties that the army encountered with Indians, problems inevitably arose in the Interior Department and its subagency, the Indian Bureau. Paradoxically, the bureau may have originally proposed the enlistment experiment.36 Weakened and uncertain of itself after its failure to discipline the Ghost Dancing Sioux without military assistance, the bureau initially acquiesced in the War Department's novel plan. In April 1891 the acting commissioner of Indian affairs instructed his reservation agents to assist army recruiters in every way. 37

Some agents complied.38 Perhaps they be

31 Petition, Co. I, 21st Inf., Sept. 20, 1893, ibid.

32 2d Lt. Samuel Seay, Jr., to post adjutant, Ft. Omaha, Aug. 10, 1894, ibid.

33 Secretary of war, Annual Report 1 (1894): 141.

34 Secretary of war, Annual Report 1 (1895): 189.

35 Secretary of war, Annual Report 1 (1897): 218.

36 John R. Brooke to adjutant general, Feb. 13, 1890; Acting Secretary of War L. A. Grant to secretary of the interior, Apr. 1, 1891, 1222 AGO, 1891, RG 94, NA.

37 R. V. Belt to U. S. Indian agents, Apr. 9, 1891, ibid.; CIA, Annual Report (1891), pp. 37-38.

38 Koops to post adjutant, Ft. Supply, Apr. (?), 1891; Johnston to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of the Platte, Nov. 16, 1891; Newton to adjutant general, Dept. of the Platte, Apr. 26, 1891, 1222 AGO, 1891, RG 94, NA.

lieved army discipline would be a good thing, or perhaps they wanted to rid their agencies and themselves of bothersome dissidents during a time of general unrest.39 But as the program developed, opposition mounted among civilian agents especially. They objected to issuing annuities to Indian soldiers living off the reservations.40 Eventually the Interior Department regretted it had agreed to subsidize the Indian soldiers by permitting them to continue to draw annuities.41 The agents also denounced the policy that allowed Indian troops to buy liquor as freely as white men on or off military posts. They accused the army of debauching Indians and encouraging the notion that agents had no authority over them so long as they were in the army.42

Hal J. Cole was in charge of the Coleville Reservation near Spokane, Washington. In September 1891 he helped Captain Lee recruit sixteen Spokane Indians for Company I, 4th Infantry, to be stationed at Fort Spokane. But by August of the next year he had nothing good to say about the project. What particularly bothered Cole was that Indian soldiers were "permitted to enjoy the unrestricted freedom of the post canteen." Consequently "they have

39 Agent J. George Wright, "Report of the Rosebud Agency," Aug. 27, 1891, CIA, Annual Report (1891), p. 413; Agent Warren D. Robbins, "Report of Nez Percé Agency," Aug. 31, 1892, CIA, Annual Report (1892), p. 237; Agent C. R. A. Scobey, "Report of Fort Peck Agency," ibid., p. 299, Agent E. W. Foster, "Report of Yankton Agency," ibid., P. 476.

40 Agent John Tully, Tongue River Agency, to CIA, Dec. 22, 1891, doc. 283, 1892; Agent Perain P. Palmer, Cheyenne River Agency, to CIA, Aug. 12, 1891, doc. 29378, 1891; Agent John Fosher, Shoshone Agency, to CIA, Apr. 30, 1891, doc. 16403, 1891, Letters Received, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG 75, NA.

41 Proctor, "Views of the Secretary of War on the manner of raising, equipping, and caring for Indian companies provided for by General Order no. 28," May 7, 1891; Belt to Palmer, Aug. 17, 1891; Grant to the secretary of the interior, Sept. 9, 1891; Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble to secretary of war, Sept. 15, 1891; Noble to secretary of war, Mar. 21, 1892; Schwan to major general commanding the army, Mar. 24, 1892, 1222 AGO, 1891, RG 94, NA; Noble to CIA, Sept. 15, 1891, doc. 33627, 1891; Noble to secretary of war, Dec. 4, 1891, doc. 43292, 1891, Letters Received, RG 75, NA.

42 1st Lt. G. W. McDonald to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of Dakota, Aug. 27, 1891; Capt. J. H. Hurst to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of Dakota, Aug. 28, 1891, Burton to adjutant general, Sept. 21, 1891; 1st Lt. Stephen C. Mills to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of Dakota, Dec. 4, 1891, 1222 AGO, 1891, RG 94, NA; 2d Lt. T. A. Marshall to CIA, Mar. 6, 1893, doc. 9304, 1893, Letters Received, RG 75, NA.

squandered every dollar of their salary, are in debt, and are fast becoming addicted to a life of drunkenness." Reservation Indians asked Cole why they could not drink when their soldier friends and brothers could. Cole concluded there was only one thing to do, get rid of the Indian unit.43

Cole's thinking found immediate favor in the Indian Bureau. In his annual report of 1892 the commissioner emphasized how dedicated his department was to suppressing the Indian's use of alcohol. He regretted, however, the pernicious example set by drinking Indian soldiers. And he suggested that Indians had the "impression that enlistment in the Army means an opportunity to indulge in a practice which is strictly prohibited on the reservation." When the Indian soldier returned home "with the habit of drink" he was a "source of evil to his tribe." The commissioner declared that the enlistment project was a disaster.44 His report differed markedly from the happy conclusions the adjutant general reached that same year.

43 Hal J. Cole, "Report of the Coleville Agency," Aug. 26, 1892, CIA, Annual Report (1892), p. 489.

The army disputed Cole's claims and implicitly the commissioner's report. It also denied a later charge by the agent that the Spokane Indian soldiers were supplying their reservation friends with whiskey.45 But the Indian Bureau refused to let the issue die. In 1893 the commissioner pointed to Lieutenant Byron's request for additional authority as further evidence that Indian soldiers were guilty of such excessive drinking that it had proved an embarrassment even to the army.46

If Cole's charges did not provoke a positive military response, the accusations of a more powerful agent did. In 1893 James McLaughlin, longtime agent at Standing Rock Agency, South Dakota, denounced to the commissioner of Indian affairs "the evils wrought by the enlistment of married Indians" into Company I, 22d Infantry, at nearby Fort Yates. He complained that the Indian soldiers obtained all the whiskey they could pay for "from a small hamlet across the Missouri River." The soldiers were "fast becoming depraved and are contaminating other Indians on the Reservation."

45 Grant to secretary of the interior, Mar. 8, 1893, doc. 9077, 1893, Letters Received, RG 75, NA.

46 CIA, Annual Report (1893), pp. 57-59.

Something must be done immediately "else demoralization of all the Indians will result." The Indian drunkenness was not McLaughlin's only concern. He summed up agent unhappiness, stating that with few exceptions enlisted Indians were "the most worthless of the Reservation, receiving rations, annuities, etc." And those Indians boasted "that the Agent has no control over them nor their actions." 47

McLaughlin's comments sped through channels from the Interior Department to the War Department. They led to an order to move the company away from Fort Yates. The army gave the married members the option of going with the company without their wives or receiving discharges. All twenty-seven chose to be discharged. 48

The Indian soldier experiment suggests that the army did not rush away from Indian affairs after 1891 even though its role declined sharply

47 Quoted in T. J. Morgan to secretary of the interior, Feb. 6, 1893, 1222 AGO, 1891, RG 94, NA.

48 Adjutant general, memo, Mar. 23, 1893; Pvt. First Born to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of Dakota, Apr. 12, 1893; petition, Co. I, 22d Inf., to assistant adjutant general, Dept. of Dakota, Apr. 13, 1893; Dept. of Dakota, Special Order no. 54, Apr. 25, 1893, ibid.

49 For passing mention of the Indian soldier business in historical literature, see Elaine Goodale Eastman, Pratt, the Red Man's Moses (Norman, 1935), p. 256; William T. Hagan, American Indians (Chicago, 1961), p. 148; Francis E Leupp, The Indian and His Problem (New York, 1910), pp. 167-168; John M. Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army (New York, 1897), pp. 488-489; Hugh Lenox Scott, Some Memories of a Soldier (New York, 1928), pp. 168-171; Flora W. Seymour, Indian Agents of the Old Frontier (New York, 1941), pp. 351352; Utley, "A Chained Dog: The Indian Fighting_Army," American West (July 1973), p. 24.

The administrator of general services is authorized by law to accept for accessioning as part of the National Archives of the United States the records of a federal agency or the Congress that the archivist of the United States judges to have sufficient historical or other value to warrant their continued preservation by the U.S. government. In addition, certain personal papers and privately produced audiovisual materials that relate to federal activities may also be accepted. Normally, only records at least twenty years old are considered for transfer; the chief exceptions are essential documentary sources of federal actions and the records of terminated agencies.

Excluded from the recent accessions described below are those that merely fill minor gaps or extend the date span of records already in the custody of the National Archives and Records Service.

CIVIL ARCHIVES DIVISION

DIPLOMATIC BRANCH

Office files of Alger Hiss, director of the Office of Special Political Affairs in the Department of State, 1944-46, have been accessioned, 13 cubic feet. They relate primarily to the establishment of the United Nations and to Hiss's role at the San Francisco conference on international organization.

The branch has also accessioned budget files, 43 cubic feet, of the Department of State, 1907-49. They document the department's budget process, including preparing estimates of expenses, submitting them to the Bureau of the Budget and to Congress, and apportioning and controlling the funds appropriated.

NATURAL RESOURCES BRANCH

Selected case files of the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Board of Contract Appeals, Department of the Interior, were accessioned, 2

cubic feet. They document procedures in handling contract administration appeals.

Also accessioned was the "Compilation of Agency Submissions for the Third Annual Report of the President to the Congress on Federal Advisory Committees." This material, covering all advisory committee activities during 1974, has been microfilmed and will be available for viewing in the central and regional archives. It may be purchased from the Publications Sales Branch.

INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL BRANCH

The branch has acquired department-level records from the Department of Transportation. The accession, 128 cubic feet, which covers the years from 1967, when the department was established, to 1972, consists of files of Secretaries Alan Boyd and John A. Volpe; Under Secretaries Everett Hutchinson, John Robson, and James Beggs; and the executive secretariat.

The Historical Files of the Public Housing Administration for 1934-48 were accessioned, 35 cubic feet. They consist of correspondence, reports, publications, and other material that supplements the 114 cubic feet of PHA records already accessioned.

Received from the Census Bureau were 36 cubic feet of records for 1920-68. In addition to files of A. Ross Eckler, director of the bureau from 1965 to 1969, there are records of the divisions of population and foreign trade and the files of commodity specialists and research and methodology staffs on such subjects as censuses, annual surveys of manufactures, and determination of standard metropolitan areas. The branch will retain sample docketed case files of common carriers who sought relief from the "long haul-short haul" section of the Interstate Commerce Act, with so-called fourth section applications. The initial transfer of 4 cubic feet spans 1910-55. The files reflect the Interstate Commerce Commission's proce

dures in granting exemptions, and economic conditions that supported the fourth section applications.

MILITARY ARCHIVES DIVISION

Some security-classified files, 5 cubic feet, of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy were accessioned, consisting of correspondence of James V. Forrestal, 1946, John L. Sullivan, 194749, and Francis P. Matthews, 1949-50.

The family of Lt. Gen. Leslie R. Groves donated his personal papers, 20 cubic feet, dating mostly from 1940 to 1970, to the National Archives. They include records relating to the Manhattan Engineer District, the Panama Canal, and construction of the Pentagon.

Volumes I and III of the "Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident" were accessioned. Volume I, The Report of the Investigation, contains Lt. Gen. William R. Peers's report of March 14, 1970, to the secretary of the army and the chief of staff, U. S. Army. Volume III, Exhibits, contains reproductions of documents, photographs, and maps collected during the investigation. Part of volume III is still classified and has been retained by the Department of the Army.

The Military Archives Division has also accessioned records, 2 cubic feet, from the Land Title Division of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Department of the Army. Dating from 1840 to 1920, the records relate to disposal of abandoned military reservations and to licenses or leases to use military real estate.

GENERAL ARCHIVES DIVISION

Records, 105 cubic feet, of the American Battle Monuments Commission were accessioned. They are chiefly planning and operating files for American military cemeteries and battle monuments abroad, 1921-62. "List of Missing" files will be of special interest to genealogists and military historians.

CARTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES DIVISION

The division recently acquired from the Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center approximately 650 Japanese and French

manuscript hydrographic survey charts made during the period 1925-45. Many of these charts cover parts of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean that were controlled by the Japanese before World War II. The charts were acquired by the U.S. Hydrographic Office as a result of the war. Much of the information in the charts has never been published; and, because of their large scale and the obscurity of the locations, the charts of certain islands are probably the most accurate ones existing.

REGIONAL ACCESSIONS

ARCHIVES BRANCH, BOSTON FEDERAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS CENTER

The branch recently accessioned over 200 feet of records of the U. S. Customs districts of New London and Stonington, Connecticut. They describe the operation of the two ports from 1789 to 1935, though most are from the nineteenth century.

The collection district of New London was established in 1789 and included the port of Stonington; however, because of its increasing activity, Stonington was removed from the district of New London in 1842 and combined with Westerly, Rhode Island, to form a separate district. The records include registers, enrollments, and licenses of vessels, vessel dimensions, impost books, abstracts of imports and exports, manifests, crew lists, registers of entrance and clearance of vessels, records documenting the registration and protection of seamen, and records relating to operation of lighthouses, revenue cutters, and marine hospitals.

New London was important in the American whaling industry and during the midnineteenth century was second only to New Bedford in the size of its fleet. Stonington vessels also engaged in whaling but were better known for sealing. On a sealing voyage in 1820 Nathaniel B. Palmer, captain of the 44ton Stonington sloop Hero, first sighted the Antarctic continent.

Included in the records are quarterly and annual statements showing the names of vessels employed in whaling and sealing and abstracts of the amount and value of whale products brought into ports.