The historical Sand Creek Indian village was located here, more than one mile north of the traditional site. NPS
John Smith and David Louderback made their way through the village to the southeast end toward the nearest troops they could see. Private Louderback placed a white handkerchief on a stick, which he waved vigorously when they reached the edge of the camp. He and Smith were still 150 yards from the troops, however, and they retreated when bullets began flying in their direction. Lieutenant Cramer of Company K, part of Anthony’s Battalion, witnessed the event: “I saw someone with a white flag approaching our lines, and the troops fired upon it.”
In the village, teamster Watson Clarke also tried to signal the troops. “When the attack was made I got up on a wagon and waved a white skin—a flag of truce,” he said. “When I was waving it three or four bullets went through it. Then I got down and lay under a wagon, as I had nothing to fight with.” According to an eyewitness at least two of the whites in the village were waving white flags but the firing continued. “I staid outside, sitting on the wagon tongue, until they commenced firing the howitzers,” explained Louderback.1
Whether or not an American flag was flying over the camp has been hotly debated. Only two soldiers claimed they saw one. Private Naman D. Snyder of Company D, First Colorado, said the banner was flying at the west end, and he also claimed he saw a soldier (Louderback) “place the white flag.”
The historical Sand Creek Indian village was located here, more than one mile north of the traditional site. NPS
The only other soldier who told a similar story was Pvt. George M. Roan, Company G, First Colorado. “I saw a camp of Indians, and the stars and stripes waving over the camp,” reported the private. Roan said Chivington had not yet reached the village when he first saw the flag, because he (Roan) “was on the right of the battalion and in front.” His statement conflicts with that of Cpl. James J. Adams, who was in the same company with Roan. Adams testified that the mules had broken down and so the battery was late getting to the village. Company G was not in front as Roan claimed, and Roan later admitted that there were men three-fourths of a mile in advance of the battalion. Captain Soule recalled that the battery prepared for action in the rear of Anthony’s Battalion. The only two soldiers who claimed to see an American flag were in Anthony’s Battalion, and one of those could not have been up front as he first claimed. A flag, pennant, robe, or rag, may have been waving near the west end of the village—the end closest to Anthony’s Battalion—and farthest from the main command under Chivington. No other soldier left a record of a waving American flag, although Lieutenant Cramer said he saw a folded one in the camp late that night.
Others outside the ranks of the soldier also claim they saw a flag. John Smith said he saw Black Kettle raise one, although he was in War Bonnet’s lodge at the west end of the camp. The flag was one purportedly given to Black Kettle by Commissioner A. B. Greenwood years earlier. Some oral history alleges that the flag was always waving, but Smith testified it was raised a few minutes before the troops began firing. Robert Bent was riding far away near Chivington, but made the absurd declaration that he “saw the American flag waving and heard [emphasis added] Black Kettle tell the Indians to stand round the flag.”2
George Bent was in the village. In a letter to George Hyde he wrote, “I looked towards Black Kettle’s Lodge and he had [a] Flag on [a] Lodge pole in front of his Lodge. Just than the Soldiers opened fire from all sides of the Village.” Bent also gave Hyde Little Bear’s story as that Cheyenne had related it to him. Little Bear had been out to get the ponies that morning. When he returned, he saw women and children running away, and “as I ran by Black Kettle’s Lodge he had [a] Flag tied to [a] Lodge Pole and was holding it.”3
Taken together, about six people claimed to have seen an American flag flying. As might be expected, others adamantly denied it. Milo H. Slater of Company H, First Colorado, was in the forefront of the advance with Wilson. When he heard people claim after the event that an American flag was flying over the camp, he adamantly disagreed: “Permit me to say that these statements are unqualifiedly false. When I say that my battalion made the attack (precisely at sunrise), that I saw the first gun fired, and that I was in the engagement until its close, I will be pardoned for believing myself in a position to know whereof I speak.”4
It is common for eyewitnesses to witness the same general event and yet report different things (as will be discussed in more detail in Section Three), but it is also sensible to believe that enough people saw a flag of some kind to conclude that one was flying. In addition, the white flags seen waving by several people may simply have been those held aloft by the few white men in the village. In any case, flags proved to be of no deterrence to the advancing troopers. Smith and Louderback sought the dubious protection of a buffalo hide tipi, but Louderback could not contain his curiosity and peered out. He spotted an officer approaching who he later identified as Colonel Chivington. When he got within 50 yards Louderback emerged and hollered. The officer waved him forward.
“He told me to come on, that I was all right, calling me by name,” Louderback recalled. When he got closer a soldier fired at him, a move that enraged the private. Chivington ordered everyone to hold their fire and ordered the private to fall in with the rear. Louderback informed the colone that the lodge in front of them was filled with white men. Just then, John Smith popped his head out, and Lieutenant Cramer saw him at the same time he heard someone shout, “shoot the damned old son of a bitch.” The firing at Smith, Louderback, and Clarke incensed the officer. “Well I got so mad,” he said, “I swore I would not burn powder, and I did not.”
Captain Soule had a similar reaction. “Poor old John Smith and Louderback ran out with white flags but they paid no attention to them, and they ran back into the tents…. I refused to fire and swore that none but a coward would.”
Smith heard words similar to those reported by Louderback: “Run here, Uncle John; you are all right.” Smith thought it was Lieutenant Wilson’s Battalion, but it was Major Anthony’s men he spotted. Chivington may have been nearby, but it was Major Anthony who waved at him to approach.
“As I came up with my command, my men formed in line very close to the Indian camp; among the first persons I saw was John Smith,” reported Anthony. He did not want to “open the ball,” but wished Chivington to do so, and soon enough, Chivington’s men commenced firing on both sides of him. Anthony did not instruct his men to fire right away, as he was concerned with getting Smith out safely. The old trader looked frightened. “I rode out in front of my men and called out to him to come to me. I held up my hands, called him by name, and swung my hat at him.”5
Smith advanced, but hesitated when the bullets whizzed by him. Just then, one of Lieutenant Cramer’s attached men of Company F, Pvt. Joseph W. Aldrich, rode to Anthony and said, “Major, let me bring him out.” Aldrich rode a short distance toward Smith through a hail of flying bullets before slumping in the saddle. Aldrich’s horse circled around before both horse and rider fell. The private tried to rise, but an Indian ran up to him, “snatched his gun from him, and beat him over the head and killed him.” The Coloradans had suffered their second casualty.6
Things were not working out as planned. Chivington had promised Anthony that he would surround the village and give the whites a chance to escape, and possibly even get out the chiefs who had been inclined toward peace. Instead, the Cheyenne were shooting at them. The situation was deteriorating by the minute, but still Chivington did not order a charge through the village.
When John Smith reached Anthony’s men, he spotted Lt. Horace W. Baldwin of Company G, the commander of the two-gun battery. “Catch hold of the caisson and keep up with us,” Baldwin told Smith.
Teamster Clarke joined them, and the firing picked up considerably. Up until that time, it had been strangely quiet. Major Anthony saw most of Wilson‘s Battalion to the right (east) as he approached the camp from the southwest, where he “was attacked by a small force of Indians posted behind the bank of the creek, who commenced firing upon me with arrows.”
Major Downing rode up when an Indian fired at him from below the creek bank. He pulled back, looked at the arrangement of the village, and rode over to Major Anthony. “Under the supposition that he was going to charge the village with his cavalry,” recalled Downing, “I advised him not to do it, believing that the horses would become entangled among the ropes and fall.” Anthony agreed and most of the command dismounted and led their horses at a walk.
Contrary to popular belief, the traditionally depicted hell-for-leather saber charge by Colonel Chivington and his Coloradans did not happen, for they had no sabers and most walked into the Indian village. According to Lieutenant Cramer, Wilson arrived first at the northeast side of the village, Anthony came up from the south, and Chivington with the Third Colorado “took position in our rear, dismounted, and after the fight had been commenced by Major Anthony and Lieutenant Wilson, mounted, and commenced firing through us and over our heads.”7
Just as the soldiers did not barrel into the village, neither did the Indians hang around waiting for them to arrive. Cheyenne Chief White Antelope, Stand in the Water, and a few others, however, offered some resistance. After Lieutenant Wilson cut off some horses to the east, he detached Company H to continue the advance, and it became engaged about five minutes before the other units. Wilson saw the Indians, “who had approached me under a bank as if they were going to fight.” Louderback saw them also, but he believed they initially did not want to fight, and did so only after being fired upon. “The Indians returned our first fire almost instantaneously,” reported Wilson.
Exactly what happened next depends on who you believe. Black Kettle stayed back, testified Louderback, but White Antelope and Stand In The Water “got their guns, came back, and commenced firing at the troops. Both of them were killed within fifty yards of each other. White Antelope,” he continued, “was killed in the bed of the creek and Stand In The Water was killed right opposite to him, on the left hand side of the creek.” Several who either witnessed or participated in the event have described the deaths.
Private Safely, who knew White Antelope by sight, assisted in his demise. He saw three Indians come out of the village firing arrows to contest Company H’s advance. One of the Indians was killed on the spot. Another, on the same bank as Safely, was White Antelope. “He came running directly towards Company H,” Safely explained. “[H]e had a pistol in his left hand, and a bow with some arrows in his right. He got within about fifty yards of the company; he commenced shooting his pistol, still in his left hand.”
The company was now about 100 yards from the village, with White Antelope in between. The soldiers took many shots at him, but their bucking horses ruined their aim. Exasperated, one soldier asked if there was any one who could hit that Indian? Private Safely announced that he could, and another trooper held his horse steady while he took aim.
“I got off and fired at the Indian,” Safely said, “the ball taking effect in the groin. He turned then and ran back towards the village, and Billy Henderson, of H Company, shot the Indian through the head when he was about the middle of the creek. That was the commencement of the fight, as near as I can recollect.”
Lieutenant Andrew J. Templeton, Company G, Third Colorado, saw White Antelope lead the fight until he was killed. Templeton, however, thought the Cheyenne’s demise came at the hands of one of his privates, Hugh H. Melrose. Among the first to reach White Antelope’s body was Pvt. Henry Mull, one of a handful of men at the battle from Company F, First Colorado. Mull hurried in to claim the fine Navajo blanket wrapped around the dead chief.
John Smith, now comparatively safe with Major Anthony’s men, also witnessed White Antelope’s death. He was the first Indian killed, believed Smith, “within a hundred yards of where I was in camp at the time.” This occurred, recalled Louderback, “opposite the lower end of the main village, “and opposite to War Bonnet’s lodge.”8
The discrepancies in this body of testimony over this episode are remarkable. “Black Kettle and his wife,” wrote George Bent in a letter to George Hyde, “were [the] last ones to leave their Lodge at Sand Creek. White Antelope, his Chief Lieutenant who always stayed with him never left his Lodge and was Killed in front of his Lodge. Black Kettle ask[ed] him to come on with him but [he] said he would not leave and sung [his] death song.” Bent, however, was not an eyewitness and heard the story later from Black Kettle. If Bent had been close enough to see and hear all this for himself, he would also have likely been killed.9
Another divergent tale comes from Jim Beckwourth. The scout claimed he saw White Antelope run out to the troops with his hands up, saying, “Stop!” in English. He said Chivington and Shoup could not hear him because of all the noise, but Beckwourth apparently could hear him just fine. “He stopped and folded his arms until shot down.”10
Another variation comes from Lieutenant Cramer, who argued the Indian was not White Antelope but Left Hand. The Arapaho, explained the officer, “stood with his hands folded across his breast, until he was shot saying: ‘Soldiers no hurt me—soldiers my friends.’” Cramer was not in earshot, it is doubtful whether he could understand Arapaho, and Left Hand was not shot and killed. Cramer’s statement is nonsense.11
Several white soldiers witnessed White Antelope fighting and being killed in the creek bed, which is where his body was found. Bent, Beckwourth, and Cramer used variations of the story that White Antelope (or Left Hand) died stoically in front of his lodge. How could people witnessing the same general episode tell such conflicting tales? Did any of them see White Antelope’s death at all? Did they hear of it from others? Were they simply speculating? Did they make it up from whole cloth, or did their unconscious memory construct it from expectations either of a tenacious warrior or a peace-loving friend of the white man? Are there any facts evident at all, or is all of this a figment of our fallible memories and biases?
Sgt. Morse H. Coffin, Company D, Third Colorado, participated in much of the action and later wrote a book about his experience.
History Colorado, Denver, CO
Colonel Shoup’s men, behind and to the left of Wilson’s battalion, had not yet gotten into the action. “[I] kept my men in column of fours till I arrived at the village, when I formed them in line of battle,” explained Shoup. Both Wilson to his right and Anthony to his left were lightly engaged, but, per Chivington’s agreement with Anthony, he did not charge through the village. “I did not allow my men to fire when I formed my first line: the battalion on my right was firing,” said Shoup. “I wheeled my men into column of fours and marched to the rear of the battalion on my right, to the right of that battalion, to obtain a better position.”
Morse Coffin rode behind Colonels Shoup and Chivington, who were a few rods in advance and separated slightly. They rode to the right, then formed again into line and moved forward. “While we were passing the village,” Coffin said, “and before a gun was fired by the soldiers, so far as I can recall, we passed a dead soldier, and his horse, also dead, a little distance from him. This man was a Mr. Pierce.” According to Coffin, there was no furious charge on horseback. “We proceeded through the village on a walk,” he testified. “I think the town at this time was entirely deserted by the Indians, as not one was to be seen thereabouts, though plenty were not far away.”
Forced by Chivington to guide the soldiers to a village containing his own relatives, Robert Bent claimed that some Indians ran away at the first fire, while others dove into their lodges to get their arms. “They had time to get away if they had wanted to,” Bent later testified. Right in the village, Private Louderback saw the exodus close-up. “I was in such a position that I could see when they got away, as a large number started before the troops commenced firing.”12
It is obvious from several perspectives there was no galloping charge through the village at Sand Creek. Yet many illustrations, novels, movies, and published histories depict crazed troopers on horseback charging through a crowded village wielding sabers to cut down fleeing women and screaming children. Why? How can eyewitnesses tell such diametrically opposed accounts?
Major Anthony’s request to Colonel Chivington that they attempt to surround the village and get certain people out had been partially fulfilled. The civilians and soldiers were safe, but the few Indians that Anthony, Soule, and Cramer sought to save either fled or fought. Regardless of what precisely took place during the opening stages of the fighting (charge or slow approach), it was a no-win situation for the Indians because the soldiers were not aware of any arrangements made among the officers. It would not have mattered whether the villagers approached shooting weapons or with their hands up—they would have been fired upon by the soldiers. A private deal between Chivington and Anthony, an uncertain battle plan, a lack of communication among the officers and men, and poor command control led to a hesitant, uncoordinated opening advance. In some sense the Indians were beneficiaries of this clumsy plan because it could have been much worse. As Bent explained, “They had time to get away if they had wanted to.”
When the first warnings earlier described alerted the village, the sleepy morning turned immediately chaotic. Ten-year-old Singing Under Water was one of a small number of Arapaho in the village. She awoke to the sound of the camp crier yelling, “Wake up Arapahos, the soldiers are attacking, the soldiers are attacking us. Run, scatter, run, scatter, we will all meet again in two moons where we had our last Sun Dance.”
Singing Under Water pulled on her moccasins. She recalled an “awful lot of noise. As I went outside of the teepee I saw people running in every direction and I saw people falling down and teepees falling apart.” The destruction among the lodges was from the howitzers that had just opened fire. “I was terrified,” she confessed. “Then I ran and ran, north.”
When the Cheyenne Braided Hair heard the commotion, the first thing he went for was his rawhide rope. He knew he had to catch a horse to get his pregnant wife out of the village. Once outside the lodge, he saw ponies running past and roped one. Rushing back, he told his wife to ride out of the area. When she told told him that she did not know where to go, Braided Hair ordered her to follow the rest of the horses and slapped the pony on the side.
A 13-year-old Arapaho girl who later took the white name “Lizzie” recalled running along the creek bed with a group of boys and girls when one of her moccasins slipped off in the water. They were good moccasins, and she didn’t want to lose one. While the others ran, Lizzie stopped to hunt for the footwear. Her sisters, however, grabbed her by the arms and made her keep running. They finally found a safe place in the sandy banks and hid from the troopers.13
The situation was no less harrowing for the warriors. Little Bear returned to camp to find people running up the creek. He made it to his lodge to get his bow, quiver, shield, and war bonnet. “By this time the soldiers were shooting into the camp from two sides,” he recalled, “the bullets hitting the lodge cover with heavy thumps like big hailstones.” Little Bear hid among the lodges before jumping into the creek bed, where he found Big Head, Crow Neck, Cut-Lip-Bear, and Smoke hiding under the bank. The soldiers were on both banks firing into the camp, said Little Bear, “but they soon saw that the lodges were nearly empty, so they began to advance up the creek, firing on the fleeing people.”
According to George Bent, he looked toward Black Kettle’s lodge and saw a flag on a lodge pole when the soldiers started firing. He and about 10 others started across Sand Creek west of the camp to make a stand, but the firing became so hot they traveled upstream about two miles to where some old men and women were digging holes in the banks for cover.14
Lone Wolf, a grandson of Black Kettle, was one of the lucky ones to get a horse. He rode out of the camp toward the sand pits where others were gathering, but his pony threw him off while trying to scale one of the high sandy banks. Lone Wolf jumped up and ran “as fast as my legs could carry me.” He hid in the breastworks the Indians had dug in the sand.
After Braided Hair got his wife on a horse and out of the camp, he retrieved his weapons from the tipi and fought his way out of the area. North of the village he came across an old blind man guided by a boy hurrying away on foot. Braided Hair stopped to help, but took a bullet in the elbow as he did so. With blood coursing down his arm, he left the pair and hurried on.
With nearly everyone else was fleeing the village, and the soldiers firing into the Indians and their lodges, Black Kettle finally realized he had no immunity from Chivington and his men. He and his wife Medicine Woman started up the streambed, following the main body of the fleeing Indians. Medicine Woman was struck by a bullet and fell. She was bleeding badly and appeared to be dead. Black Kettle ran on alone to the sheltering sand pits.15
The Cheyenne escaped the battle area in any way they could. The Tallbird family members ran up the creek. When one mother, carrying her little girl, could not run any farther, she dropped to the sand and dug a hole. She placed the little girl into the pit, covered her with sand and brush, and told her not to move and that she would come back for her later. The Cheyenne Man On Cloud also hid a young girl in the sand and brush. Another woman managed to get a horse and was riding away when she saw a little girl running alone. The girl stopped and held out her arm, and with hardly a break in the pony’s stride, the woman scooped up the child and continued riding. Another little girl lost her parents in the confusion. She ran and hid in a hollow log, where she watched from a knothole. She remained inside the log for two days.
Soon after the fight began, Charles Autobees and Oscar Pixley, Company D, Third Colorado, together with three more men, took some captured ponies to the main herd about a mile south of the village. When the five soldiers headed back to the camp, they noticed that the sand in the creek bed had been disturbed in a peculiar way. One of them suggested that maybe Indians were buried there. When they poked around, one jumped up and Autobees shot him. Two more wiggled out of the sand and ran, but both were killed. Morse Coffin thought that many escaped in this manner because, he explained, “cases were related where Indians or squaws would be seen to drop down, and after making the sand fly lively for a minute or two, be out of sight.”16
The fighting was just beginning.
1 “Chivington Massacre,” 41, 74, 96; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 135; “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 5; Roberts, “Sand Creek,” 843n43.
2 “Chivington Massacre,” 96; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 13, 50, 77, 80, 128, 142.
3 George Bent, “The Letters of George Bent to George E. Hyde, 1904–1918,” March 15, 1905, April 14, 1906. Coe Collection, Beinecke Manuscript Library, Yale University.
4 Milo H. Slater, “Indian Troubles in the Early Days of Colorado,” P-L 169, Bancroft Library, University of California, 4.
5 “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 5, 24; “Chivington Massacre,” 73; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 48, 65, 135; Roberts and Halaas, “Written in Blood,” 25, 27. Cramer and Soule were both lauded for not firing at the Indians, but in their letters to Wynkoop, it is clear they were talking about not firing at Smith, Louderback, and Clarke.
6 “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 24; M. S. Elswick, Colorado Historical Society, correspondence November 18, 2001.
7 “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 5; “Chivington Massacre,” 70, 73; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 35, 139; Anthony to Chivington, December 1, 1864, OR 41, pt. 1, 951. The ordnance record shows only seven sabers were issued to the entire Third Regiment.
8 “Chivington Massacre,” 41, 67; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 137–40, 220–22; Roberts, “Sand Creek,” 435, 843n39.
9 Bent, “Letters of George Bent to George Hyde,” April 25, 1906.
10 “Sand Creek Massacre,” 70.
11 “Chivington Massacre,” 73; Roberts and Halaas, “Written in Blood,” 27.
12 Coffin, Sand Creek, 19; “Chivington Massacre,” 96; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 135, 139, 176.
13 Sand Creek Massacre Project, 160, 163, 164, 177, 181, 244.
14 Bent, “Letters of George Bent to George Hyde,” March 15, 1905.
15 Sand Creek Massacre Project, 197, 199, 245; Powell, Sacred Mountain I, 304.
16 Sand Creek Massacre Project, 201; Coffin, Sand Creek, 29.