Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! ... I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians. ... Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.
— Col. John Milton Chivington
10 comments:
A popular aphorism back then.
There's a lot of evidence that Sand Creek wasn't the bloodbath we've been told. Fighting lasted all through the 29th and into the 30th, according to accounts.
Most slaughters happen pretty quick, if you know your history. Isandlwana and Little Big Horn took about an hour, the Alamo about an hour an a half, due largely to the Texans' having a prepared defensive position.
Sand Creek is supposed to be a massacre of defenseless women and kids. How could they hold out for more than a day? Also, when Custer hit Black Kettle's band 4 years later on the Washita, there were plenty of women and kids. Also, accounts tell how Black Kettle raised an American flag and a white flag underneath it. Nomadic hunters are unlikely to have a semi-permanent structure like a flagpole in their camp and more unlikely to understand the cuultural significance of a white flag.
Having read about Washita and hearing the propaganda on Sand Creek, a lot of the questions nagged at me better than 50 years ago. They count on your not questioning.
Were the Lefties lying way back then?
Is there truth in this?
Colonel Chivington gained infamy for leading the 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia responsible for one of the most heinous war crimes in American military history: the November 1864 Sand Creek massacre. An estimated 70 to 163 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho – about two-thirds of whom were women, children, and infants – were murdered and mutilated by Col. Chivington and the militia troops under his command. Chivington and his men also took scalps and many other human body parts as trophies, including unborn fetuses, as well as male and female genitalia. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War conducted an investigation of the massacre, but while they condemned Chivington's and his soldiers' in the strongest possible terms, no court-martial proceedings were brought to bear against him or them. The only punishment Col. Chivington suffered was public exposure and the end of his political aspirations.
Consider this.
There's a theory that the estimate of 100 dead Custer made for the dead at the Washita was way off.
He broke the 7th into 4 squadrons and they charged through the village from the major points of the compass. Given the number of people Armstrong and Phil Sheridan confronted a month after the fight, some young hotshot wondered if the 25 dead each squadron counted was all there was, with Custer assuming they had each seen a different group of Indians and adding them up accordingly.
It's said over 100 wet scalps were exhibited in a Denver theater the night of the 30th by Chivington's men. 225 men of the 7th Cavalry died at Little Big Horn in less than an hour, over 1000 at Isandlwana. Again, how did a bunch of defenseless women and children hold out for more than a day? The fact is, testimony at the investigation featured Chivington's political rivals almost exclusively and there is considerable skepticism on the veracity of their testimony. If the account you give, along with the anecdote of 100 scalps, is drawn from that testimony, I'd take it with a grain of salt.
My own guess is, since Custer's order at the Washita that women and kids were to be spared and there were plenty of them in tow when he arrived at Camp Supply in December 1868, a lot of the accounts of what happened are dubious.
YMMV
The truth resides somewhere in that mess. No doubt politics and rivalry were part of the government's response. It was, however, the after-battle bragging and public showing off of the collected "trophies" (which comes through in all accounts I read-with no doubt that happened) that caught positive and negative attention afterwards. Followed by Covington's arrest of six men whom he charged with cowardice in battle. No doubt about that either. His angry zealotry also comes through, as a life pattern.
"Chivington was at first widely praised for the "battle" at Sand Creek, and honored with a widely-attended parade through the streets of Denver just two weeks after the massacre. Soon, however, rumors of drunken soldiers butchering unarmed women and children began to circulate, and at first seemed confirmed when Chivington arrested six of his men and charged them with cowardice in battle. But the six, who included Captain Silas Soule, a personal friend of Chivington's who had fought with him at Glorietta Pass, were in fact militia members who had refused to participate in the massacre and now spoke openly of the carnage they had witnessed. Shortly after their arrest, the U.S. Secretary of War ordered the six men released and Congress began preparing for a formal investigation of Sand Creek. Soule himself could not be a witness at any of the investigations, because less than a week after his release he was shot from behind and killed on the streets of Denver."
thelatinlibrary.com/chron/civilwarnotes/chivington.html
"The Sand Creek massacre seized national attention in the winter of 1864-1865 and generated a controversy that still excites heated debate more than 150 years later. At Sand Creek demoniac forces seemed unloosed so completely that humanity itself was the casualty. That was the charge that drew public attention to the Colorado frontier in 1865. That was the claim that spawned heated debate in Congress, two congressional hearings, and a military commission. Westerners vociferously and passionately denied the accusations. Reformers seized the charges as evidence of the failure of American Indian policy. Sand Creek launched a war that was not truly over for fifteen years. In the first year alone, it cost the United States government $50,000,000."
OK, let's separate a few facts. Which "a war that was not truly over for fifteen years" are they talking about? The wars on the Central Plains were pretty much over with the destruction of Tall Bull's villages (Summit Springs, 1869). The wars on the Southern Plains (and, for that matter, the Apache wars) ended in 1875 and the last Sioux war ended in 1877 at Wolf Mountain.
What war they mean, I have no idea. The Ghost Dance War was 1890, 10 years later.
My point is simply that the establishment numbers just don't add up. History acknowledges the 3rd Colorado was recruited from the saloons of Denver and was one of the worst outfits ever to wear the uniform of the US Army (troopers were seen sticking whiskey bottles in the belts of their pants). Doubtless, there were Indian casualties, including non-combatants, but the one thing all sides agreed upon was that the fighting took more than one day, so I'm still skeptical. Also, his zealotry, as your quote terms it, may have been political hype. The massacre of a white family had hardened attitudes in Denver and you weren't going very far as a friend of the Indian.
PS The winter of 1864-1865 was the time of Sherman's March To The Sea and Petersburg, so how much national attention was seized is debatable.
In any case, I always get a good discussion from you.
I'm wondering if the Battle of Wounded Knee (or Wounded Knee Massacre as some refer to it) which took place in 1890, might account for the 15 year reference following the 1865 investigation into the Sand Creek atrocities?
The second quote comes from the jacket overview of the book, "Massacre at Sand Creek: How Methodists Were Involved in an American Tragedy" by Gary L. Roberts, published in 2016.
What stood out for me in that was the acknowledgement of "controversy that still excites heated debate more than 150 years later", along with mention of voraciousness and passion among the deniers and the reformers. I also found the comments offered on Amazon about it and Chivington intriguing.
Beyond the physical carnage and betrayals involved with that situation, stands the question of religious perversion. How did a Methodist minster who'd accepted the task of delivering the good news of Jesus Christ, come to believe the words he spoke and actions he took with regard to the Indians and the men he led, were in alignment with the words and life of Christ, or messages contained within the Book he used to preached from? There's a lot to reconcile there. More than political hype, from my viewpoint, with his own words, according to the posted quote, testify to the following divide:
"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."
As the story goes, the path Christ took, befriending the prostitutes and sinners, and talking to the Wal-mart crowd that would gather around to hear him speak or receive the goodies of lunch, healing, hope or the sense of belonging that came with it, eventually led to him enduring betrayal by his own and the brutal and grotesque punishment of death by Roman crucifixion. Not very far indeed, until you take into account the power of influence that his life, death and supposed resurrection has had on civilization since then.
I too appreciate a good discussion, along with info I hadn't previously considered. Hearing the men of the 3rd were recruited from the saloons adds to the story. Also recognition of the culture of fear that was rolling that hardened attitudes at that time, as there appear to have been many in Colorado who approved of or condoned whatever took place.
1865 + 15 is 1880.
Colorado was the site of a major gold rush, begun in 1859 (along with the Comstock). In both cases, the Indians felt pressed as never before. In July of 1864, a family named Hungate was massacred by the Cheyenne and that was the spark. The governor of CO had a regiment on hand that hadn't done much (Chivington had distinguished himself in NM against the Confederates) and he wanted some action out of them before they were mustered out.
FWIW The Cheyenne didn't wait long to get their revenge. They sacked Julesburg, a major stop on the Oregon Trail and the Overland line to CA, destroying it and insuring Denver's future. Roman Nose later led his braves in the Platte Bridge fight and essentially joined forces with Red Cloud's Sioux who had been drawn into war with the Army after the Minnesota Uprising.
This phase of the Plains wars only ended on the Washita, Summit Springs, and at Beecher's Island where Roman Nose was killed.
MamaM said...
Also recognition of the culture of fear that was rolling that hardened attitudes at that time, as there appear to have been many in Colorado who approved of or condoned whatever took place.
They were in the middle of their own war and race played a big part for both sides. From the days of the French and Indian Wars, there were ghastly stories of how Indians killed their enemies and how they treated prisoners. Hatred against the Kiowas and Comanches was such Texans have never allowed an Indian reservation in their state.
One of the ironies of history is that the best Indian fighters were always the ones who saw the Indians as people - Robert Rogers, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and Armstrong Custer.
talking to the Wal-mart crowd that would gather around to hear him speak or receive the goodies of lunch, healing, hope or the sense of belonging that came with it
Mama, you real have a flair for the turn of a phrase. I love it.
Appreciating the additional info, edutcher. Unfortunately, math is not my strong suit! I'd gone so far as to work that one out on the yellow pad next to me and clear as a bell the addition of 15 years got me to 1890! Also pondering the Texan response and the irony mentioned. It's that sort of additional awareness that makes history intriguing to me. I had a history teacher in high school who taught like that, and I was able to find the story and get into it enough to receive straight A's. (Not so with Algebra!) History in college, however, was a disappointment--dull as dirt.
Without this post, I'd not have known about Chivington or received this perspective. And that's a plus.
Glad I could help.
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