I was on the battle-field 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 camp-fires 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 throughout 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.