United States

[Before it was sent, this letter was read to and approved by every officer of the regiment who had served through the Santiago campaign.]

[Copy.]

CAMP WIKOFF, September 10, 1898.

TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.

SIR: In answer to the circular issued by command of Major-General Shafter under date of September 8, 1898, containing a request for information by the Adjutant-General of September 7th, I have the honor to report as follows:

[The following is the report of the Associated Press correspondent of the "round-robin" incident. It is literally true in every detail. I was present when he was handed both letters; he was present while they were being written.]

It has been suggested to me that when Bucky O'Neill spoke of the vultures tearing our dead, he was thinking of no modern poet, but of the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "Speak unto every feathered fowl . . . . . ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth."

The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear.

 THE HURON SEMINARY. - MADAME DE LA PELTRIE. - HER PIOUS SCHEMES. - 
 HER SHAM MARRIAGE. - SHE VISITS THE URSULINES OF TOURS. - 
 MARIE DE SAINT BERNARD. - MARIE DE L'INCARNATION. - HER ENTHUSIASM. - 
 HER MYSTICAL MARRIAGE. - HER DEJECTION. - HER MENTAL CONFLICTS. - 

 THE TOBACCO MISSIONS. - ST. JEAN ATTACKED. - DEATH OF GARNIER. - 
 THE JOURNEY OF CHABANEL. - HIS DEATH. - GARREAU AND GRELON.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view, anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit, omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and incoherent superstitions.

 DAUVERSIERE AND THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN. - ABBE OLIER. - THEIR SCHEMES. - 
 THE SOCIETY OF NOTRE-DAME DE MONTREAL. - MAISONNEUVE. - DEVOUT LADIES. - 
 MADEMOISELLE MANCE. - MARGUERITE BOURGEOIS. - THE MONTREALISTS AT QUEBEC. - 
 JEALOUSY. - QUARRELS. - ROMANCE AND DEVOTION. - EMBARKATION. - 
 FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

 FAMINE AND THE TOMAHAWK. - A NEW ASYLUM. - 
 VOYAGE OF THE REFUGEES TO QUEBEC. - MEETING WITH BRESSANI. - 
 DESPERATE COURAGE OF THE IROQUOIS. - INROADS AND BATTLES. - 
 DEATH OF BUTEUX.