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  I am glad to hear that you keep up communication with Mr. Brunot.  He and his Commission are a power at Washington now, in their line of business, and they ought to be.
    Eastern papers have lately a long dispatch from St. Louis announcing the arrival in that city of "Gen'l. Hazen, Commander of the Department of the Arkianas [strike] Arkansas", and giving his version of Indian affairs.   The substance of the whole is that the Kiowa, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Apaches and Comanches recently held a grand council at Antelope Hills and decided upon commencing a desperate  war of extermination upon the whites early in the Spring, but that owing to the special and efficient efforts of the said commander of the said department, the Indians have been got back to their reservations, put well under guard, and the country is safe."
  How often Hazen "happens in" at St. Louis, and as a general thing Ohio cannot complain of his long absence.
   Feeling it to be a very awkward and unnecessarily round-about way of doing business, for us to communicate with the North America Life Insurance Co. at New York through [underline] Mr. Buddington at Greenfield, I called at the office of the company in N. Y. in January (corner Broadway & Barclay St. H. C. Morgan, Sec'y) and was informed that with all their army policy holders they much preferred to transact all business direct [underline].  I am going to do so hereafter, and if you will simply address the Secretary stating your desire to do so, and requesting that timely notice of all