Colorado Volunteers are going against Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.  The warriors are from Chief  Black Kettle's village which is called the Sand Creek Massacre.  This happened on November 29, 1864, with Colonel John Chivington as the primary villain.  Soon a private letter was written by Lt. Col. Sam F. Tappen wrote it to his brother Lew.  Tappen told his brother stuff about "Ned" Wynkoop.  Tappen told his brother to keep the information under his hat. Tappen wrote his letter on May 15,1862.  The Tappen brother's were accused by Michno for being co-conspirators.  They were the best of friends.  Soon Ned wrote a formal letter to Tappen on January 2, 1869,a little bit after the battle of Washita.  Tappen got  things figured out with Col. Chivington back on January 23, 1873, he wrote from camp Weld, "From the earliest organization of out regiment you have done your utmost by out spoken remarks and secret intimations to destroy my influence as an officer in the regiment."  "I appeal to you in the behalf of cause in which we are both engaged...."  Michno said, "On September 1864. Some Indians brought in a note from hostile tribes that indicated their desire for peace talks, and Wynkoop was determined to pay them a visit."  On June 27, 1864, John Evans issued "Friendly Indians of the plains, " he said,' direct that all friendly Indians keep away from those who are at war, and go to places of safety...  Friendly Arapahos and Cheyenne's... will go to Major Colley, U.S. Indians agent at Fort Lyon, who will... show them a place of safety..." Evans sad again, "so far as making a treaty now is concerned, we are in no condition to do it."  Chivington told the Indians, "They are nearer to Major Wynkoop than any one else, and they can go to him when they get ready to do that."  Michno calls Silas "a poetry-quoting friend of Walt Whitman's," which is right , I was thinking if in 1864 that men sing in the shower.  But 1864 was a long summer for Silas.  He wrote a letter to his mother on July 29, 1864, saying, "all I care for is to have part of the farm in Kansas to live on when I get out of the service.  " Silas wrote to Chivington on October 11th of 1864saying, "I am anxious to hear from Denver hoping to receive orders to return: My company should be mustered out this month but the Major, (Wynkoop), says he cannot spare us the past...."  Then he said, "I wish to make application about next February for a furlough to go Kans to see my mother and sister.  I have not been across the Mo. River but once in ten years and have officially or unofficially I shall always be pleased to do.  Yours Respectfully Silas S. Soule.  " On October 17, he wrote back to Chivington saying, "I have made application to Major Wynkoop to order me to Denver to have my company mustered out.... " Then he said, "The Major refuses to let me go...." 
After a while Colonel John Chivington and Governor John Evans Portrayed men that made the massacre of 1864 happen, Edward Wynkoop was in the scoundrels affair he was at the top of the list.  In 1864 of November, 700 soldiers went after Black Kettle's village of 500 Cheyenne's and Arapahos from Sand Creek, were 35 miles northeast of the fort.  Colonel Chivington got to Fort Lyon- Colorado Territory with 3rd cavalry.  Major Anthony who joined the six companies the 1st Colorado Cavalry on 29th of 1864.  They killed 120 Indians and captured 70 others.  But the fight is called the Sand Creek Massacre.  It is a struggle of good and evil.  Every event would change within time.  It was bad from the beginning.  Evans and Chivington plus the 3rd Colorado Volunteers.  Some White hats and black hats were found to be gray.  The hat colors should be changed.  But the Sand Creek Massacre from machinations a half-dozen people.  Major Edward W. Wynkoop joined the Colorado Volunteers after traveling a long road.  His nick name was "Ned".  He was  born in Philadelphia in 1836.  He went to Leavenworth, Kansas by 1858.  He got to  be Arapahoe sheriff.  He became a Saloon/brothel in 1869 at Denver when he'd first arrived,  Denver Inter-Ocean would say, "a bad man from Kansas, who wore buckskin breeches and carried a brownie-Knife and revolver in his belt." Then a little bit later he was elected Marshal on April  of 1861.  On march of 1862 he rode in to the battle of Apache Canyon, it was going to be a three-day battle. It was called Glorieta Pass - New Mexico Territory he won a promotion of a Major.  Then he spent the rest of the year in Denver at a camp.  By 1864, Wynkoop took command at Fort Lyon.  Boredom made men and officers go to Denver for Chivington. A colonel conduct Wynkoop.  Major Curtis, wrote Chivington a letter saying Wynkoop's fault for sending parties from the district.  Chivington tried to help Wynkoop but a major drew attention to him and his colonel.  Chivington made a place under Mag. Gen James G. Blunt.  This is what made Wynkoop future trouble change.  Soon John S.Smith and Samuel G. Colley were acquainted with Wynkoop.  Smith was called "Lying John."  Bent said the Colley made $30.000 with in three years.  Sam Colley would paint pessimistic pictures in letters to Evans.  "The Indians are very troublesome," he would say. "I have made application to Major Wynkoop for troops....  It looks at present as though we shall have to fight them all."  But in early of September of 1864, Indians brought a note about peace talks.  Wynkoop is going to visit them.  He knew he was under the command of Gen. Blunt.  Blunt order Wynkoop on August of 1864 to "confine your operations to the defense of your post and give such protection to the road and mail coaches as you can afford."  Blunt and Curtis agreed that the Indians should be hurt.  Wynkoop knew they were getting ready to fight.  He's been out of the district lines before.  He didn't ask for permission for what he did.  Soon 125 men of the 1st Colorado went to the Smoky Hill River with no orders from Blunt or Curtis.  John Smith was with them.  Sam Colley Stayed Back to tell the others.  Some men told Wynkoop to back to the fort.  But they returned with four of the seven captives.  Plus Chiefs such as Black Kettle for a meeting.  But Evans nor Chivington wanted peace conference during a war.  After a while Evans wrote a letter to Colley.  He told him.  "You will be particular to impress upon these chiefs, the fact that my talk with them was for the purpose of ascertaining their views, and not to offer them anything whatever."  He didn't want the Indians think that we were going to continue war.  But it didn't think Colley would listen to him.  The Indians didn't make any peace treaty as they were going back to Denver.  Wynkoop said, the Indians should move close to their fort.  But Fort Lyon was another Sand Creek villain.  Where Silas S.Soule stayed.  He had an up right thing going on more than Wynkoop but he was in the hole.  A friend of Soule named Walt Whitmas lived by his favorite phrase.  "You may have the argument, but by God, I know I'm right!"  He became a Jayhawker in his teens.  Then in 1859 Silas Soule was not liked by Indians.  He wrote a letter to his sister.  He told her .  "The Cheyenne's also know a trick or two.  Some of them steal a girl....  Out of Kansas, trade her from lodge to lodge, then come up with her at our parley on the Smoky Hill last month.  A gift say.  They want to steal a peace 'forever'.  Of course they'd killed the father, (and) the mother hanged herself."  Colley was after him.  Mrs. Colley who was selling the Indians annuities.  Soule said.  "The Indians agent's wife sells pies she makes with Cheyenne flour allowance.  Mrs.Colley [sic] got more rations on her hands than the U.S. Cavalry and Northern tribes combined."       
The period in and around 1864 was a bad time for both Indians and whites.  They argued and fought. None of them got along together.  Sand Creek Massacre was a turn over for everyone involved.

Later on November 29,1864, Colonel John M. Chivington went up on the ridge sometime around dawn.  He sent out 750 Colorado Volunteers and four 1216 howitzers.  He saw 100 tepees of Cheyenne's and 30 tepees of Arapaho allies going for a mile across the Big Sandy Creek in Colorado.  Black Kettle was the leader of the village.  Soon Colonel Chivington thought he would become a hero, only slightly.  His mantle was swept away and placed with devil horns.  Because of his actions and testimony he gave before a Senate Committee in March 1865, Chivington was seen as a villain.  People saw what happened that day.  So sand Creek war attacked by Chivington.  They attacked Black Kettle's, Cheyenne's and Arapaho friends.  They did not tell them anything about it.  The battles we usely read is how the kick butt and whipping out the village but not this one.  There was torture, scalp and mutilated bodies.  About 2/3 women and children were killed from Black Kettle's village.  But maybe Sand Creek was a thing that the white men were waiting to happen.  Senate Committee questioned the Hearings.  Every reference tells the same thing.  Colorado excepted Chivington and they went crazy over him, they named him after the town, because he was a Civil War hero.  After all this had happened on April 1861, William Gilpin offered to him Chaplain.  Chivington was to say.  "I feel compelled to strike a bow in person for the destruction of  human slavery...."  He was appointed to be a Volunteer Regiment.  Some months later, "Fighting Parson" got the job as a Military District of Colorado.  He was everything with the White and Indians.  The Indians found out that the white men weren't just passing though.  The men were farmers and raised cattle.  They put the cattle on the buffalo lands and tore up the lands with plows.  The Cheyenne's and Arapaho's thought that the white men would leave. Black Kettle went to Denver. He believe that the whites would move west.  Black Kettle hopes they don't say any to make his people angry and he hoped that the white men would leave and get off the Indians lands. But the whites did not leave and it made the Cheyenne's even made mad.  They respected avocation of the war with the Ute's and Pawnee's.  They scared the whites going to war.  But on the whites back it was worst they had scalps of Ute's with them.  Cheyenne's and Arapaho's stole cattle, provision the horses from the whites. The Cheyenne's and Arapaho's war ponies were close to dying.  It wasn't fun playing war games in the winter.  They were told peace in the winter was normal.  They did it so they could get food and clothes for warmth.  But Cheyenne's were starving so they took the cattle from the white men.  They attack on people traving through increased in 1863.  But it still continued in eastern Colorado during the spring of 1864.  Though Chivington was under the order to Maj. Gen. Samuel Ryan Curtis, who thought the Indians "babied" it was hard for the Indians on a "realistic" basis.  On June 11, 1864, toured bodies of Nathan Hungate and his family was brought to town and let everyone see them.  Everyone was scared after that.  Every trail from now on had raids of men.  Mining towns were running short on supplies.  There were more stories on their way.  After that Evans and some people thought  there was a Indian uprising.  Governor wrote messages to tribes saying some forts will get some supplies and keep safe from dangerous Indians.  By July, Kiowa Chief Satonta was degusted when he had to go see Fort Larned in Kansas.  He put an arrow in the arm of a sentry.  They ran off horses of the forts.  Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs with a white flag entered Fort Learned to discussed the problem, the solders fired cannon at them.  They the Indians looked the Indians looked the same to them.         

Soon Lt. Joseph Cramer sent a letter to Major Ed Wynkoop the commanding officer.  The other letter was sent by Capt. Silas Soule to Wynkoop. They were three weeks a-part of Sand Creek Massacre.  Cramer and Soule said.  After a while the letters soon reached Colorado.  The officer wouldn't kill the scared men, women and children who lived under the white flag and the American flag in Southern Colorado.  The letters were "ground zero" to be investigated in 1865.  They killed 163 Cheyenne and Arapahos Indians at Sand Creek.  Just because they didn't shoot the Indians the two men went to Chivington because they knew he would try to get them out of the Military.  They kept a copy of the letters.  Soon a lady got the copies of the letters.  Because her great grandfather a farmer knew the Bent family and stayed with them.  But the Colorado Historical says, "Today there are people who still believe that the soldiers did not commit atrocities.  Let them read those letters and then see the passion.  These men are shocked.  They are angry.  And they feel guilty."    

Now you see that Chivington had a major part in the Sand Creek Massacre.  The Sand Creek Massacre is a big deal to a lot of people.

Chelsie Beckwith

8th American History

Rossville Jr. High

Plain History Project

2004

         Bibliography
Revised: February 05, 2004 .