[403]
General Sully, commanding District of Iowa and the Indian expedition; General Sibley, commanding District of Minnesota, and General T. C. H. Smith, commanding District of Wisconsin, are entitled to my warmest thanks for their valuable services and the cordial good feeling which they have manifested during their entire term of service in this department.
To General Sully I particularly desire to invite the favorable consideration of the War Department.
His arduous and distinguished services in organizing and conducting the Indian expedition and beating and dispersing the combined tribes of Indians in two considerable battles, at such remote points and in so difficult a country, and in thus bringing the Indians to the necessity of asking peace from the Government, entitle him to peculiar consideration, and make it proper for me to renew the application heretofore transmitted for his promotion.
He has earned it fairly, and I trust and believe that the Government will not hesitate to confer it upon him.
To the reports of Generals Sully and Sibley, and to those of their subordinate commanders, I refer for details of the various military operations herein sketched, and for a proper representation of the distinguished conduct of the several officers and of the troops under their command.
I cheerfully endorse their recommendations in behalf of the officers and soldiers in question.
I am, General, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
John Pope, Major-General Commanding. Major-General H. W. Halleck, Chief of Staff of the Army, Washington, D. C.
