crossed the danger-zone before the depredations of the Indians became fla-
grant. But a large body of them was detained at the river through the
summer, waiting for the storm to "blow over." However, at the beginning
of the autumn, a number of these, who thought they could not afford longer
to delay, decided to run the hazards of the journey, most of them traveling
in companies larger than usual. It was only in exceptional instances that
any of these organizations succeeded in getting through without loss, and
some of the weaker were annihilated ; but the total of those slain never was
ascertained. According to an estimate made early in November, about fifty
white persons, mainly wayfarers on the routes to the Missouri River, had
been killed in Colorado by Indians since the preceding spring.
After Black Kettle and his fellow-chieftains returned to Fort Lyon
420 HISTORY OF COLORADO
from the conference at Denver, they proceeded to their encampment in
the Smoky Hill country, where they reported the barren outcome of their
mission. About the middle of October, Left Hand's band of Arapahoes
removed to Fort Lyon, where they turned over to the commandant of the
post some twenty horses and mules, and a small assortment of arms, that
constituted a part of the plunder their young men had acquired in recent
months. After having rationed them for a week or ten days, the comman-
dant told them that he could do so no longer, and advised them to estab-
lish themselves in camp somewhere on Sand Creek, a nortliern affluent of
the Arkansas, and which discharges into that river at a point about eight
miles below Lamar, the present county seat of our Prowers County. Heed-
ing the suggestion, the Arapahoes now went into a locality on Sand Creek,
nearly forty miles northeasterly from Fort Lyon, where they set up their
lodges. Shortly afterward, they were joined there by Black Kettle's band
of Cheyennes, the two groups forming a village having a population of six
or seven hundred men, women, and children, and which was upon the
reservation that had been set apart for the Arapahoes and southern Chey-
ennes several years before. Whether these bands believed they were acting
in accordance with the advice and warning that Governor Evans had pro-
claimed early in the preceding August to Indians inclined to be or to be-
come friendly, and therefore also believed that they were now under the
protection of the garrison of Fort Lyon, or whether this return to the
reservation was intended to be temporary, as well as preparatory to a
renewal of active hostilities by their "young men," never has been certainly
determined. But the trend of probability is that they had assumed that
whatever of wrong for which they were responsible now was to be con-
doned, and that they were to be regarded by the whites as peaceable Indi-
ans. But however this may have been, their movement to Sand Creek was
followed by the most direful tragedy that ever occurred upon Colorado's
soil, or elsewhere during that period of warfare between white men and red.
Appearing to have been governed by General Curtis' announced policy
to make no peace "till Indians suffer more," Colonel Chivington had, since
the fruitless conference at Denver, resolved to give some effect to that
policy, and to this end began late in October to make ready for striking
the blow before the rigors of winter had set in. Having completed his
preparations by the middle of November (1864), he took personal com-
mand of an expedition he had organized to attack the Cheyennes and Ara-
pahoes who were encamped on Sand Creek, and thus give to all hostile
Indians an example of his method of making war upon them, which he had
outlined in his brief address to Black Kettle and the other chiefs at the
Denver meeting.
With the greater part of Colonel Shoup's Third Colorado Cavalry and
several companies of the First Colorado Cavalry, together with two pieces
of artillery, Colonel Chivington left the Tliird's encampment, near the
head of Bijou Creek, and started for Fort Lyon. Proceeding rapidly, but
with the utmost caution, the command marclied southward to the Arkansas
and thence down the left bank of that river to the fort, which was reached
in the morning of November 88th. Chivington appears to have refrained
from imparting his destination and purpose to any person in Colorado —
not even to Colonel Shoup ; he had arrested and detained every one whom he
encountered while on the march, lest information of his force and move-
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 421
nients might reach the Indians through some of these; and his coming to
Fort L3'on was wholly without the knowledge of its commandant. Imme-
diately upon his arrival there, Chivington placed a cordon of his troops
around the fort, with orders to prevent the exit from it of any of its in-
mates, lest someone of its hangers-on. suspecting the object of his expedition,
should make off to the Indian village and warn its people.
In the afternoon of that day, with a reenforcement of 125 men and two
small pieces of artiller}' from the fort, Chivington set out upon his march
to the Arapahoe-Cheyenne encampment, which he surprised at sunrise in
the next morning, when many of the Indians still were in their lodges.
Before leaving Fort Lyon, he had revealed to his officers and men his
intention to make an example of the Indians on Sand Creek, and also told
them that they were not to take any prisoners — that they were not to spare
any red human being in the village.
Fire, both of musketry and artillery, instantly was opened upon the
dismayed occupants of the encampment, and a detachment of First Colorado
men cut off and stampeded the Indians' horses, without which the latter
were placed at a great disadvantage in making resistance. But in their
surprise the fighting-men of the village did not at once attempt a defense,
while some made none thereafter, and most of them at the moment appeared
to believe the attack to be a mistake on the part of the white men — that
the latter had supposed them to be a red-handed war-part}'. A sickening
slaughter now ensued, with upward of one hundred of the warriors fighting
desperately for their lives and those of their dependents, but as they were
overwhelmingly outnumbered, they could not check the onslaught. White
Antelope and several of his men were killed as they were running toward
the troops with their hands high upraised, in token of peaceable intentions,
and shouting "Stop!" "Stop!"; and Left Hand was shot down as he stood
with arms folded and loudly declaring that he would not fight men for
whom he had always had a feeling of strong friendship. Terrified children
and some of the women huddled in groups, which became the targets fof
many guns, and these helpless creatures were despatched in heaps. The
men literally obeyed Chivington's orders to take no prisoners, and there is
no evidence thai any of their officers interposed an attempt to modify, in
behalf of women and children, the revolting inhumanity of the instnictions.
Major Anthony stated afterward that "when the encampment was first ob-
served, the troops, believing that here lay the perpetrators of all the atroci-
ties they had known or read of, the capture of innocent women and children,
and the terrible fates visited upon them; the constant interi-uptions of
communication with the East, and the horrors which had been related by
eye-witnesses, they plunged at once into the fray with the single purpose
of destroying these fiends." Wounded Indians were killed as they lay,
regardless of sex or of age. Scalping and mutilating the bodies of the dead
next followed. Some of the soldiers, after their return from the cam-
paign, said that all were scalped, and that many of the bodies were slashed
or cut into pieces in the most shocking manner, but others were of the
belief that such savagery was exceptional and not the rule. Howev.er, the
burden of testimony is to the effect that the slaughter was attended by some
circumstances almost as horrible as any practised by the Indians in their
most atrocious warfare. For example, in the Federal investigation of the
hideous affair, instituted in the following winter, the old trader, John S.
433 HISTORY OF COLOEADO
Smith, who had been a member of the town companies that founded the
city of Denver, and was in tlie village when it was attacked, testified to
this in these words: "I saw bodies worse mutilated than any I ever saw
before; the women cut all to pieces; scalped; their brains knocked out;
children two or three months old ; all ages lying there, from sucking infants
up to warriors."'"
Before noonday. Black Kettle, with not far from two hundred of his
people, the great majority of whom were men, succeeded in breaking away
and escaping, although they were followed and peppered for some miles by
detachments of their ruthless enemies. A number of smaller parties at-
tempted to do likewise, but most of these were pursued until every member
of them was shot down. The bloody work was continued up to about two
o"clock in the afternoon, when it seemed that there was nothing more within
sight to kill. But it was said that some women and children were found
secreted in lodges when the troops were ransacking the encampment and
were led out and pitilessly dispatched.
Xo one took the trouble definitely to learn the number of Indians
who were killed in this tragic affair; but, as we shall see presently, the
estimates as to the extent of the slaughter varied greatly. Beside the dead
upon the village-ground, the lines of pursuit of the parties that broke away
and fled from it were strewn with other bodies. It seems to have been
the general impression among Chivington's troops that about two-thirds of
the victims were women and children. This is quite probable; for, in such
an assault as this upon a savage community, consisting of both sexes, of all
ages, between those of infants in arms and those that had extended into far-
advanced years, the greater part of the number of the assailed who suc-
ceeded in escaping death certainly would be men.
But the purposes of the attack had not been accomplished without cas-
ualties among Colonel Chivington's men, of whom ten were killed upon
the field, and thirty-eight wounded. Four of the wounded died from their
injuries a few days later, at Fort Lyon.
After having sent his dead and wounded to that post with Major An-
thony's part of the command. Colonel Chivington with his original force
moved to the Arkansas Eiver, below Fort Lyon, to hunt for a band of
Arapahoes and Cheyennes that was understood to be imder the leadership
of Little Eaven, an Arapahoe chieftain of unusual attainments on the
better side, and who, before the outbreak, was noted for his friendliness and
kindness to white men. After a few days of failure by marching and scout-
ing to find Little Eaven and his adherents, who were supposed to be lodged
near the river and in the vicinity of the Kansas border. Colonel Chivington
abandoned this enterprise. As his supplies were insufiicient to a prolonged
outing, and also as the term of the Third Eegiment's enlistment had about
reached its limit, he now turned the course of his march and made his way
back to Denver.
When the particulars of the slaughter at Sand Creek became known,
an outcry of mingled horror and indignation was raised throughout the
northern States. Chivington and his men were denounced as fiends in-
carnate, as more savage than the worst of the Indians, as reproaches to civi-
lization and disgraces to mankind. This was due in part to the belief that
the leaders of these Indians had been cowed in the conference at Denver,
and liad, after their return therefrom to their people, resolved to quit the
HISTOEY OF COLOKADO 423
war-path, return to their reservation, and thereafter remain peaceable;
that they had accepted and followed the advice of Governor Evans, given
some three months before, and voluntarily had placed themselves under his
protection and that of the United States military forces in Colorado in ac-
cordance therewith ; and that the "Battle" of Sand Creek therefore was "a
cold-blooded massacre of helpless people, whose condition was that of pris-
oners.'"' The feeling was intensified by Chivington's exaggeration of the
number of Indians his command had killed in the tragedy. Early in Janu-
ary (1865), Congress, by a resolution, directed that a thorough investiga-
tion be made of "the late attack by Colorado volunteers, under Colonel
Chivington, on a village of the Cheyenne tribe of Indians, near Fort
Lyon."'
In his official report of the expedition, written at Denver on December
16th, "in the flush of his victory," Chivington said that there were "between
five and six hundred Indians left dead upon the field" ; and added that "it
may, perhaps, be unnecessary to state that I captured no prisoners." In
testimony taken during the investigation, when the affair had taken on an
aspect different from that of the "victory on the glorious field of Sand
Creek," there were wide variations of opinion as to the total of the Indian
"losses," which meant "killed," as there was none to be reckoned as
"wounded." One witness said he counted upon the village-ground "four
hundred and fifty warriors dead," to say nothing of old men and women
and children. The lower estimate was that of Major Anthony, who said
he supposed that "about one hundred and twenty-five Indians were killed."
The probability is that the facts are to be represented by figures lying some-
where between 250 and 300.
As to the number of warriors who "returned our fire," estimates again
are at variance, as they range from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-
five. Trader Smith, who, as I have said, was in the village at the time,
testified that the total of its fighting-men was "about two hundred." But,
as I have heretofore mentioned, not all the warriors took part in the re-
sistance.
The uncertainties of "the Sand Creek affair" also extend to the popu-
lation of the village when it was attacked, and to the strength of Cliiving-
ton's command. In his report, to which I have referred above, that officer
said the encampment contained "between 900 and 1,000 Indians." Trader
Smith testified that the village consisted of "one hundred families of Chey-
ennes, and six or eight lodges of Arapahoes — in all, about five hundred
men, women and children." ^lajor Anthony stated that the band of Ara-
pahoes which he had, about the end of October, advised to locate on Sand
Creek, numbered "six hundred and fifty-two" men, women and children,
but testified that when the attack was made there were "about one hun-
dred and thirty lodges of Indians, mostly Cheyennes," in the encampment.
If both Smith and Anthony were anv-where near correctness in their state-
ments, these imply that most of the Arapahoes had gone elsewhere before
the coming of Chivington. However, it seems most probable that on the
day of the attack there were at least six hundred red people in the village,
and that a majority of them were Cheyennes. Chivington said in his report,
of December 16th, that when he struck these Indians "there were in my
command about 500 men of the Third Eegiment, and about 250 of the
First Colorado; Anthony's battalion of the First Colorado, and Lieutenant
4V1 HISTOEY OF COLORADO
Wilson's battalion of the First Colorado; in all, about 1,000 men."' Major
Anthony testified that Chivington's force, when it arrived at Fort Lyon,
"consisted of a portion of the First Begiment of Colorado Cavalry, and' about
sis hundred men of the Third Colorado Cavalry; numbering in all in
the neighborhood of seven hundred men, with two pieces of artillery" ; and
added tliat he "joined them with one hundred and twenty-five men and two
pieces of artillery."
One of the specifications in the denunciations of Chivington charged
him with having ignored a white flag that had been raised by Black Kettle
a few minutes before fire was opened upon the encampment. Trader Smith
testified as follows as to the presence of the white flag :
'•As soon as the troops neve discovered the Indians eommenced flocking to the
lodge of the head chief [Black Kettle] in the part of the camp where I was, when
he ran up his flag. He had had a large American flag presented to him some years
before, and under this he had likewise a small white flag. ' '
In the report of the Congressional Committee it is said that an Ameri-
can flag had been presented to Black Kettle some years before by Indian
Commissioner W. H. Greenwood, together with a small white flag, and
that Greenwood had told the chief to run these up, with the American flag
above the white, in case he should meet American troops. Some other wit-
nesses in the investigation said that they had noticed such flags flying over
a lodge, but most of Chivington's men denied that they were to be seen.
However, assuming the affirmative testimony to be true, and admitting, as a
matter of course, that the white flag should have been respected, for the
moment, at least, some of Black Kettle's braves recently had been engaged
in cruel warfare against the starred and striped banner under which he now
sought to protect them.
Whatever may have been the motives of these Indians in going to
Sand Creek, and whatever the sentiments and purposes of the community
as a whole may have been at the time of the attack, their wrecked village
yielded proof, in the form of scalps, that some of its warriors lately had
taken part in one or more murderous forays. The Surgeon of the Third
Regiment testified that a soldier brought to him, after the last shot had
been fired, "five or six white scalps," which the man had found in a lodge.
"One or two of these white scalps," said the Surgeon, "I think could not
have been taken from the head more than ten days. The skin of the flesh
attached to the hair was quite moist. I examined these scalps closely, my
attention having been called to the fact of their having been recently
taken." The Assistant Surgeon of the same regiment testified that he saw
"many white scalps" in the village. "I have no idea how many," he de-
posed, "though there were a great many. There were some that looked as
if they might have been taken some time ; others not so long, and one that
I saw, not over five to eight days old at farthest." The clerk of the Third
Regiment's Lieutenant-Colonel stated that he had seen a large number of
scalps of white men, women, and children taken from a bundle of buffalo
robes that lay in a lodge. "I saw one scalp in particular," said he, "that
had been entirely cut off the head [that is, all the hair-bearing skin of the
skull] of a white female, all the hair being with it. The hair was a beau-
tiful auburn, and very long and thick. There were two holes in the front
part of the scalp" [evidence that the victim had been killed by a rifle ball].
Many other men of Chivington's command, upon their return to Denver,
HISTORY OF COLORADO 425
told of the plentitude of white scalps in the village. Beside these gruesome
objects, there was found a gi-eat number and variety of tilings that had
been plundered from white people, but of which more or less may have
been spoils taken in depredations before these Indians came to Sand Creek.
It was said by those who approved Chivington's ghastly "example," that
Indians known by all to be actively hostile had visited the Sand Creek en-
campment lately and shared with its people a lot of plunder they had
captured in a recent swoop upon a wagon-train. The troops carried away,
as trophies, many of the Indians" belongings — buffalo robes, blankets, arms,
trinkets, and whatever else struck their fancy.
If the Sand Creek Indians really were not friendly, and meditated an
early resumption of warfare on their part, they were singularly lacking in
wariness. If they still had been in communication and affiliation with
bands of their race that were killing and burning, they should have known
that this soon would come to the ears of the whites; and if they were pre-
paring to rejoin these, it becomes difficult to account for their ignorance of
the movements of Chivington's force, which so plainly meant trouble for
Indians somewhere. Under such circumstances as then existed, it would
seem, were they bent upon going forth again, that they would have been
more cautious upon the one hand and more watchful upon the other. No
great number of effective weapons nor any large quantity of ammunition
were found among the wreckage of their village ; nearly all of such equip-
ment as they had possessed appearing to have been in the hands of those
of their number who had succeeded in escaping.
Colonel Chivington and has troops were given a hearty welcome by the
citizens of Denver upon their return to that city, and the work of their
campaign was a for a time generally approved by the people of the Terri-
tory. The common feeling was one of great relief, as it was believed that
the "moral effect" of the severe punishment that had been inflicted upon
the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes at Sand Creek certainly would deter the
rest of the Indians of the central plains from attempting a concerted descent
upon the Colorado communities, and which, with all the horrors that usu-
ally attended such an inroad, had appeared inevitable. Therefore, "the
Sand Creek affair" for a while was regarded only as an important conflict by
which the redhanded and merciless Indians had been given a lesson they
should not forget, and Chivington and his men were hailed by the great
majority as deliverers of the people from an impending peril. The Terri-
tory's Third Legislative Assembly', as a body, joined in the expressions of
approbation. In a joint resolution, that was approved by Acting Governor
Elbert on February 26, 1865, the Assembly resolved —
' ' That the present eommandant of the District of Colorado, Col. J. M. Chiv-
in;;ton, has discharged the important duties devolving upon him as commandant of
this District, ablv and skillfully, and that the thanks of the people residing -ivithin
this District are due him for the same.
"That the thanks of this Legislative Assembly are hereby tendered to Colonel
Chivington for the able and patriotic manner in which he lias discharged his duties
as commandant of this District, and that the thanks of this Legislative body are
also tendered to the Colorado troops for their zeal in supjiorting the civil officers
of this Territory, and maintaining the honor of the Xational Flag.
"That a copy of these resolutions be sent to Col. J. M. Chivington, commanding
this District, with the request that the same be read to his command, and that the
Secretary of the Territory be requested to forward a copy of the same to Col. J. H.
Ford, to be read in like manner, and also that a copy be furnished to the different
newspapers of the Territory for public'ation. "
4S6 HISTORY OF COLORADO
The conclusions reached by the Congressional Committee on the Con-
duct of the War after its investigation of the "Battle of Sand Creek" were
widely at variance with the prevailing views and sentiments of the Colorado
people and those of their Assembly. This committee, which did not make
its report until the following May, after reciting at length its understanding
of the circumstances that culminated in that tragedy, and dwelling upon
the revolting particulars of the attack, declared that the deeds committed
under Chivington's orders "were such, it is to be hoped, as never before
disgraced the acts of men claiming to be civilized" ; that the bodies of the
slain Indians afforded "evidence of the fiendish malignity and cruelty of the
officers who had so sedulously and carefully plotted the massacre, and of
the soldiers who had so faithfully acted out the spirit of these officers" ; that
"it is difficult to believe that beings in the fonn of men, and disgi-acing the
uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance
the commission of such acts of cruelty and barbarity as are detailed in the
testimony"; and that —
"As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe
his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem
of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military
district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his
keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which
would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his
cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been