mouth of Apple River, and 85 miles from the Big Mound.

On the 30th Colonel Crooks with Companies A, I, and K and details of
men from other regiments, proceeded to the Indian crossing, and
destroyed all the wagons and such other property as would be of service
to the Indians, and then returned to camp.

The return march began on the 2nd of August. The 5th and 9th of the
month were spent in camp. Passed to the southward of the outward
journey, shortening the route some thirty miles, and arrived at Camp
Atchison on the 10th. Rested on the 11th. Reached Sheyenne River on the
13th, and camped three miles beyond it.

At this last place the nightly entrenching, commenced on departure from
Camp Pope, was abandoned, the impulse of discontinuance coming from
Company E. It had been the custom, both in the campaign of 1862 and
this, to throw up every evening light exterior mounds and ditches for
defense, a work necessarily irksome and unpopular with men fatigued
with hard marching, and in the presence of an enemy (and some times
not) they neither respected nor feared. The traces of these works,
slight as they were, will be visible for years, and if properly noted
by the surveyors of the public lands as the surveys extend westward,
and by future Pacific Railroad parties, will furnish means for exactly
determining the routes of the two expeditions; certainly as regards
that of 1863, which lay through trackless wastes, over which not even
an odometer passed with this expedition. It is to be regretted that the
commanding officer of the expedition, lavish as were the expenses
attending it, thought fit to negative a proposition made to form a
quasi-topographical force for its use. Such a proposition would have
involved no other expense than that of a few simple instruments for the
use of the surveyor and his assistants (enlisted men) who might be
detailed, and their labors would have furnished valuable material for
the maps which were afterwards ordered to be constructed, besides
contributing to the interests of geographical science in general.

The 16th and 18th of August were spent in camp. Reached Fort
Abercrombie on the 21st and camped on the west side of it; distance
from Camp Atchison about 115 miles. Remained at the fort three days.
Here Klinghammer rejoined. Resumed march on the 25th. Spent the 30th in
camp. Arrived at Sauk Centre on the 2nd of September, and remained
there all the next day. Here Rehse was left behind, sick.