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While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
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At the commencement of the war the
General Government, taxed to the utmost in
subduing the rebellion, was unable to help
us, and it became necessary to look to our
own citizens for protection. They everywhere
responded with patriotism and alacrity.
Militia companies were organized in the
frontier counties and secured local
protection. Much credit is due to Captain
Tyler's company of militia for the important
service they rendered in opening and
protecting our line of communication with
the States.
In response to the call of the governor for
a regiment of cavalry for one hundred day
service, over a thousand of our
citizens--the large majority of them leaving
lucrative employment-rapidly volunteered,
and in that short time, despite the greatest
difficulties in securing proper equipments,
organized, armed, made a long and severe
campaign amid the snows and storms of
winter, and visited upon these merciless
murderers of the plains a chastisement
smiting and deserved. The gratitude of the
country is due to the men who thus
sacrificed so largely their personal
interests for the public good, and rendered
such important service to the Territory; and
their work, if it can be followed up with a
vigorous winter campaign, would result in a
permanent peace.
The necessity of such a campaign, and the
imperative demand for immediate and complete
protection for our line of communication
with the States has been, and is now being,
earnestly urged on the Government at
Washington, and with a prospect of success.
These efforts should be seconded by your
honorable body with whatever influence there
may be in resolution or memorial, setting
forth the facts and necessities of our
situation.
The testimony of Governor Evans, Major
Anthony, Colonel Chivington, Colonel Shoup,
and Acting Governor Elbert covers every
phase of the matter in controversy. Governor
Evans's statement proves beyond question
that the Cheyenne and Arapaho were viciously
hostile during the entire summer preceding
the battle of Sand Creek, and this was
admitted by Black Kettle in his letter to
Major Colley, the Indian agent, and by the
other chiefs in the council at Denver.
Governor Evans also makes it plain that he
refused to consider the question of making
peace, and turned the Indians over to the
military. The telegram of General Curtis,
commander of the Military Department, sent
at the time the council was being held,
says, "No peace must be made without my
direction." And peace had not been made when
the battle was fought. Major Anthony,
commander of the military post of Fort Lyon,
near the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indian
agency, says that the Indians attacked were
hostile and not under his protection, and
that he would have punished them had his
force been strong enough to fight also the
large band on the Smoky Hill River. Colonel
Chivington's testimony confirms the
statement of Governor Evans as to the
hostility of both Cheyenne and Arapaho, and
both he and Colonel Shoup say that this was
corroborated by Major Anthony, and Major
Colley, the Indian agent, each of whom told
them, while at Fort Lyon prior to the
battle, that the Indians camped on Sand
Creek were hostile and should be punished.
Major Anthony admits that there were Arapaho
camped near the Fort when he assumed
command, and that, in compliance with his
demand, they surrendered twenty head of
stock, stolen from the whites, and a few
worthless guns; and added that a week or two
later he returned the guns, and told the
Indians that he could no longer feed them
and ordered them to go out on the plains,
where they could kill buffalo for food;
whereupon they left.
The only Arapaho that by any stretch of the
imagination could be said to have been under
the protection of the military were the
small part of the tribe under the control of
Left Hand, a sub-chief; while there is no
doubt whatever as to the hostility of the
head chief Raven and his followers, who
constituted a large majority of the tribe.
It is generally conceded that the chief Left
Hand and a few of his adherents were
peaceably inclined. But, unfortunately, he
and the occupants of six or eight lodges of
his people, about forty persons in all,
including women and children, were in the
camp of the hostile Cheyenne and Arapaho at
the time the attack was made, and suffered
accordingly. Left Hand knew that the
Cheyenne and a very large part of his own
people were at war with the whites, and of
the chance he was taking in being in company
with the hostiles. If it resulted
disastrously, he had no one but himself to
blame. It was utterly impossible to
discriminate between Indians in the midst of
the battle. In those days, Indians seldom
permitted themselves to be taken prisoners
in battle, and an attempt to do so, even if
the Indian was badly wounded, was a
dangerous undertaking. This was the reason
that no prisoners were taken at Sand Creek.
Major Anthony, who was not friendly to
Colonel Chivington, says that while in some
instances the Indians killed at Sand, Creek
were mutilated, he saw nothing to the extent
since stated.
Colonel Chivington's statement concerning
the matter is:
Officers who passed over the
field by my orders after the
battle, for the purpose of
ascertaining the number of
Indians killed, report that they
saw but few women and children
dead; no more than would
certainly fall in an attack upon
a camp in which they were. I
my-self passed over some
portions of the field after the
fight, and saw but one woman who
had been killed and one who had
hanged herself. I saw no dead
children.
In this connection, I wish to refer back
to my own statement concerning the matter,
as Colonel Chivington's observations were
identical with mine.
All this shows that the charge that the
battle was merely a massacre is as
untruthful as are most of the other
statements made by the coterie of
disgruntled army officers, Indian agents,
traders, interpreters, and half-breeds. Much
of the testimony given at the Congressional
and military hearings was hearsay evidence
of statements said to have been made by
persons who claimed to have been in the
battle. Possibly, some such statements may
have been made by irresponsible braggarts
belonging to the two regiments that formed
the command, for in every regiment during
the Rebellion, Eastern as well as Western,
there were a few men who were no credit to
their comrades, and who have since told of
many fictitious happenings, or those having
only the slightest basis of truth.
Statements of this character may, perhaps,
have been made by irresponsible members of
the First and Third Colorado regiments.
It is inconceivable to any one who knew the
members of the latter regiment that either
its officers or enlisted men, with possibly
a rare exception, would have approved of,
and much less have participated in, the
wanton acts of cruelty claimed to have been
perpetrated. No unprejudiced person can
believe a charge of such a character against
Colonel Shoup, afterwards for many years an
honored United States Senator from the State
of Idaho; or of Major Hal Sayre, one of
Colorado's most respected mining engineers;
or of Captain Harper Orahood, who, later,
was for many years a law partner of Senator
H. M. Teller; or of Captain Baxter of
Pueblo, or Captain Nichols of Boulder, both
afterwards members of the Legislature of
Colorado and honored citizens in the
community in which they lived; or in fact
against any of the officers of the Third
Colorado, as practically all of them were
men of high standing in their respective
communities.
I was on the battlefield within fifteen
minutes after the fight began, and during
the day, with a part of our company, I went
along the south side of Sand Creek from the
scene of one engagement to another, until I
had covered the full length of the
battle-field on that side of the creek. We
then crossed over to the north side and
followed up the creek as far as the
engagement had extended. On our return to
camp, we went over the entire length of the
scene of the fighting on the north side of
the creek, thus covering almost the entire
battle-field, as after the first half-hour
in the morning there was but little fighting
except near the banks of the creek. During
that time I saw much of the battle, but not
once did I see any one shoot at a squaw or a
child, nor did I see any one take a scalp,
although it is true that scalps were taken,
for as I returned to camp I saw a number of
dead Indians whose scalps had been taken,
and among them a few squaws. They had
probably been scalped by some of the
reckless persons referred to, or possibly by
some of the many men in the regiment whose
relatives or friends had been killed and
brutally mutilated by the savages during the
preceding summer. I am not apologizing for
the acts of these people, but every
fair-minded person must admit that there may
have been extenuating circumstances
connected with the offense, and no one
unfamiliar with the horrors of savage
warfare can appreciate the feelings of those
who have suffered from their attacks. I did
not see a dead or wounded child, and it is
inconceivable that any were killed during
the fight except accidentally. The incident
of the child who wished me to take it up as
I was returning to the camp indicates the
sympathetic attitude of our men towards the
innocent non-combatants.
I think the proof I have presented shows
conclusively that every one of the charges
made by the enemies of Colonel Chivington
was untrue; that, on the contrary, the
Indians attacked at Sand -Creek were, and
had been during the previous summer,
viciously hostile to the whites; that they
were not under the protection of the
military authorities at Fort Lyon, and that
the battle was not a wanton massacre.
The adverse criticism of this whole affair
was but one of the many acts of injustice
experienced by the frontier settlers. From
the formation of the Government, up to the
time when the Indians were finally placed
upon reservations, the frontier settlements,
in addition to defending themselves from the
savages, always had to contend with the
sentimental feeling in favor of the Indians
that prevailed in the East. The people of
the East had apparently forgotten the
atrocities perpetrated on their ancestors by
the savages, and, resting secure in the
safety of their own homes,- they could not
realize the privations and dangers that
those who were opening up the regions of the
West had to endure. And to add to the
difficulties of the situation, the Indian
Department was usually dominated by
sentimental people who apparently never had
any conception of a proper and humane method
of dealing with the Indians.
The Government continued to recognize each
one of the tribes as a separate nation, and
entered into treaties with them, as though
they had the standing of an independent and
responsible power. Broken down and often
corrupt men were appointed as agents to
represent the Government. The salaries
received by the agents were so small that no
one could afford to take the position unless
he intended to increase his remuneration by
corrupt methods. As a part of this machinery
for dealing with the Indians, disreputable
white men were employed as interpreters,
who, often by reason of some crime committed
in the States, had for safety's sake exiled
themselves among the Indians, had married
squaws, and, virtually, had become Indians
in habits and sympathy. The result was that
when the Government made treaties with the
Indians, accompanied by an issue of
annuities, it frequently happened that the
agent and the interpreter would apply a
considerable portion of such annuities to
their own use. The Indians, knowing this,
would become angry and take vengeance upon
the white settler.
No effort seems to have been made to
study the nature and character of the
Indian, nor the inherited traits that
governed him in his dealings with others.
The nomadic Indian of the central and
western part ' of the United States was, in
most matters, merely a child. His sole
occupation from youth to old age was
following the chase and fighting his
enemies. Almost the sole topic of
conversation in their tents and around their
campfires was the details of their hunting
expeditions and of their battles; and from
his earliest days, every Indian boy was
taught that his one hope of glory and the
making of a reputation depended upon his
ability to kill other human beings. Every
tribe had its hereditary enemies with whom
it was in a state of continuous warfare.
During the summer-time, it was one
continuous round of war-parties going out to
attack their enemies, and parties returning,
bringing with them the scalps of those they
had killed, together with squaws and
children they had captured, and frequently
with large herds of horses they had stolen.
If the raids were against the whites, they
would return with all sorts of plunder taken
from wagon-trains and ranch houses, and
oftentimes with captive white women and
children. It must be understood that no
white man who understood the character of
the Indian would ever permit himself to be
taken a prisoner, for that meant torture of
the most horrible character. For that
reason, white men, engaged in battle with
the Indians, seldom failed to reserve one
last shot in their revolvers, with which to
end their lives if capture was imminent, and
in many instances men have shot their wives
and children rather than allow them to fall
into the hands of the Indians. The fate of
the women captured by the Indians is
indescribable.
After a successful raid, there would ensue a
series of scalp dances, accompanied by a
period of frenzied rejoicing, in which
unspeakable cruelties were perpetrated upon
their captive victims. The fiendishness of
these cruelties it is almost impossible to
describe. In these orgies the squaws always
participated, and as a rule were even more
diabolical than the warriors. With such
examples and with such mothers, how could an
Indian child grow up to be anything but
fiendish? The Indians had no conception of
such a thing as mercy, compassion, or humane
treatment of their enemies. Any exhibition
of sentiment of that sort would have been
considered an evidence of weakness, and any
act of forbearance shown toward them by the
whites served only to make them more
difficult to control thereafter. They gave
no quarter and they asked no quarter.
As showing their contempt for the army, I
saw upon more than one of the Indian tents
that we captured at Sand Creek rude
paintings portraying their fights with the
soldiers of the United States Army. In every
case the soldiers were running at the top of
their speed, pursued by Indians who were
firing at them and scalping those who had
been killed. The Indians knew no law, nor
did the Government attempt to teach them
any. From the first they were permitted to
go on year by year educating their young in
savagery, while at the same time the agents
of the Government were dealing dishonestly
with them; and in every case it was the
frontier settler who had to pay the penalty.
The savages soon found out that they could
kill the whites, steal or destroy their
property through-out the summer, and then
upon their professing penitence, the
Government would permit them to remain
unmolested during the winter and at other
times would make a treaty of peace with them
and give them large quantities of annuities.
After this, they could rest in security
until their ponies were in condition to
start upon the war-path again the following
spring. Was there ever anything in the
history of the dealings of any nation with
its savage neighbors more absurd or more
disreputable? The period I have referred to
was certainly a "Century of Dishonor, " not
only because of the attitude of the
Government in its dealings with the Indians,
but in the treatment of those of its own
people who were opening up frontier lands
for settlement.
The Indians could have been easily handled
had the Government studied their nature and
formulated a system of laws for their
control, compelling them to regard the
rights of the whites as well as of their
neighboring tribes, and had at the same time
protected them from wrongs perpetrated upon
them by thieving and disreputable white men;
in short, have treated them with justice in
all things, and have required the same from
them in their dealing with the whites. Had
this policy been pursued, it would have been
of infinite benefit to the Indians, and
would have saved the lives of thousands of
white men along the frontier settlements. In
this connection, I assert, from my personal
knowledge, that more than ninety-five per
cent. of the frontier settlers treated the
Indians with the utmost fairness and used
every possible endeavor to avoid
difficulties with them.
As I have already said, the Indian is at
a great disadvantage in carrying on warfare
during the winter. He has no trouble in this
direction in his warfare with his own race,
as every tribe is alike in this respect. In
this way the white people had a great
advantage, and it would have required only a
few cases of summary punishment such as we
gave them at Sand Creek, to have settled
Indian troubles for all time. We who
inhabited the frontier in the early sixties
knew this and realized that nothing struck
such terror to the Indian tribes as to be
attacked in the winter, and had the battle
of Sand Creek been followed up as it should
have been, the frontier settlements of
Colorado would thereafter have had little
trouble with any of the Indians of the
plains.
Four years later, the absurdity of the
policy of permitting the Indians to murder
and rob during the summer, make peace in the
fall, and remain unmolested during the
winter, accumulating ammunition for the
following summer's warfare, finally dawned
upon the military authorities and a new
policy was adopted. As a result, on the 27th
of November, 1868, General Custer, under the
direction of General Sheridan, commander of
the military division of the Missouri, made
an attack upon the Cheyenne camped on the
Washita, south of the Arkansas River, in
which one hundred and three Indians (a
number of whom were squaws) were killed,
fifty-three squaws and children were
captured, and 875 ponies were taken. This
attack was at the same time of year and was
almost identical with that made by
Chivington at Sand Creek. General Sheridan
says in his report:
The objects of the winter's
operations were to strike a hard
blow and force them on to the
reservation set apart for them,
or if this could not be
accomplished, to show to the
Indian that the winter season
would not give him rest; that
he, with his village and stock,
could be destroyed; that he
would have no security winter or
summer except in obeying the
laws of peace and humanity.
As in the case of Chivington, Custer was
at-tacked viciously for this affair by
Wynkoop and others, but, fortunately, Custer
had the backing of the commanding officers
of the army and nothing his enemies could do
affected him in the least.
What a fortunate thing it would have been
for the frontier people if this policy had
been adopted a few years sooner!
