There is no mention in this of anything that was done by authority, but it is so full of misrepresentation, in apology for the Indians, and unjust reflection on a people who have a right from their birth, education, and ties of sympathy with the people they so recently left behind them, to have at least a just consideration. The bodies referred to were those of the Hungate family, who were brutally murdered by the Indians, within twenty-five miles of Denver. No one here ever doubted that the Indians did it, and it was admitted by the Indians in the council. This was early in the summer, and before the notice sent in June to the friendly Indians. Their mangled bodies were brought to Denver for decent burial. Many of our people went to see them, as any people would have done. It did produce excitement and consternation, and where are the people who could have witnessed it without emotion? Would the committee have the people shut their eyes to such scenes at their very doors?
The next sentence, equally unjust and unfair, refers to my proclamation, issued two months after this occurrence, and four months before the "attack" they were investigating, and having no connection with it or with the troops engaged in it. It is as follows:
"The cupidity was appealed to, for the Governor, in a proclamation, calls upon all, either individually, or in such parties as they may organize, to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians; authorizing them to hold, to their own use and benefit, all the property of said hostile Indians they may capture. What Indians he would ever term friendly, it is impossible to tell."
I offer the following statement of the circumstances under which this proclamation was issued by the Hon. D. A. Chever. It is as follows:
"Executive Department, Colorado Territory,
August 21, 1865.
"I, David A. Chever, Clerk in the office of the Governor of the territory of Colorado, do solemnly swear that the people of said territory, from the Purgatoire to the Cache la Poudre rivers, a distance of over two hundred miles, and for a like distance along the Platte river, being the whole of our settlements on the plains, were thrown into the greatest alarm and consternation by numerous and almost simultaneous attacks and depredations by hostile Indians early last summer; that they left their unreaped crops, and collecting into communities built blockhouses and stockades for protection at central points throughout the long line of settlements; that those living in the vicinity of Denver City fled to it, and that the people of said city were in great fear of sharing the fate of New Ulm, Minnesota; that the threatened loss of crops, and the interruption of communication with the states by the combined hostilities, threatened the very existence of the whole people; that this feeling of danger was universal; that a flood of petitions and deputations poured into this office, from the people of all parts of the territory, praying for protection, and for arms and authority to protect themselves; that the defects of the militia law and the want of means to provide for defense was proved by the failure of this department, after the utmost endeavors, to secure an effective organization under it; that reliable reports of the presence of a large body of hostile warriors at no great distance east of this place were received, which reports were afterwards proved to be true, by the statement of Elbridge Gerry (page 232, Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1864); that repeated and urgent applications to the War Department for protection and authority to raise troops for the purpose had failed; that urgent applications to department and district commanders had failed to bring any prospect of relief, and that in the midst of this terrible consternation and apparently defenseless condition, it had been announced to this office, from district headquarters, that all the Colorado troops in the service of the United States had been peremptorily ordered away, and nearly all of them had marched to the Arkansas River, to be in position to repel the threatened invasion of the rebels into Kansas and Missouri; that reliable reports of depredations and murders by the Indians, from all parts of our extended lines of exposed settlements, became daily more numerous, until the simultaneous attacks on trains along the overland stage line were reported by telegraph, on the 8th of August, described in the letter of George K. Otis, superintendent of overland stage line, published on page 254 of Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1864. Under these circumstances, on the 11th of August, the Governor issued his proclamation to the people, calling upon them to defend their homes and families from the savage foe; that it prevented anarchy; that several militia companies immediately organized under it, and aided in inspiring confidence; that under its authority no act of impropriety has been reported, and I do not believe that any occurred; that it had no reference to or connection with the third regiment of one-hundred-days men that was subsequently raised by authority of the War Department, under a different proclamation, calling for volunteers, or with any of the troops engaged in the Sand Creek Affair, and that the reference to it in such connection in the report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War is a perversion of the history and facts in the case.
"David A. Chever."
"Territory of Colorado, Arapahoe County, City of Denver, SS.: Subscribed and sworn to before me this 21st day of August, a.d. 1865. Eli M. Ashley, Notary Public."