Capt. Silas S. Soule, Company D, First Colorado, contended that he would not shoot at the Indians.
The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
Major Hal Sayr’s Battalion scattered during the opening stages of the fighting at Sand Creek.
At the beginning of the action, Colonel Shoup sent John McCannon’s Company I, Third Colorado, to the southwest to cut off another herd of horses. Company I, wrote Shoup, “captured about 200 ponies at the first dash.” McCannon’s pony gathering was interrupted, however, when a large number of fleeing warriors ran right into him in a sandy valley west of the creek. McCannon “sent the ponies to the rear and opened a terrible and withering fire on the Indians, completely checking them, killing many, and causing them to retreat up Sand Creek.”
This group of Indians is the same one that vacated the village before the soldiers entered it from the east. This retreating throng included George Bent, Little Bear, Big Head, and Crow Neck. The Indians hurried beyond the west end of the camp for about 100 yards to where the creek made a bend from the north to the southeast. The warriors joined up with a larger group of Indians and fought Captain Talbot to a standstill before continuing their retreat. When they crossed the creek, they figured they were out of harm’s way, only to run into McCannon and Lt. William E. Grinnell’s Company K of the Third Colorado.
“We hardly knew what way to turn,” Little Bear later explained, fortunate to have survived the action, “but Big Head and the rest soon decided to go on. They ran on toward the west, but passing over a hill,” continued Little Bear, “they ran into another body of troops just beyond and were surrounded and all killed.”1
Big Head’s party moved across the prairie about a mile, trying desperately to reach an area of sand hills and make a stand there. Unfortunately, it had the misfortune to collide with Capt. Oliver Baxter’s Company G, Third Colorado. Baxter had been rounding up horses west of the creek and rode to reinforce McCannon. Panicking, the Indians turned about and ran back east to the creek bed. Another company of cavalry came upon them from the east bank and opened fire.
Little Bear chose not to follow Big Head’s group out onto the prairie. Instead, he left them and ran off on his own up the creek in the direction most of the villagers had taken. He did not get far before about 20 cavalrymen got in the streambed behind him and chased him for about two miles.
“Nearly all the feathers were shot out of my war bonnet, and some balls passed through my shield.” reported Little Bear, “but I was not touched. I passed many women and children, dead and dying, lying in the creek bed.” He ran until he found “the place where a large party of the people had taken refuge in holes dug in the sand up against the sides of the high banks.” The soldiers fired at them from both banks, “but not many of us were killed. All who failed to reach these pits in the sand were shot down.”
George Bent was in the same predicament. Shunning the dash out to the prairie, Bent later explained what happened: “We ran up the creek with the cavalry following us, one company on each bank, keeping right after us and firing all the time.”
The dry streambed was a terrible sight with men, women, and children lying scattered in the sand. The carnage in front of Little Bear and Bent is evidence that they had spent considerable time west of the stream before returning to it, for fleeing Indians and pursuing soldiers had already swept beyond them. Bent ran north about two miles until he came to a place where the banks were high and steep. “Here a large body of Indians had stopped under the shelter of the banks,” related Bent, “and the older men and the women had dug holes or pits under the banks, in which the people were now hiding.” Just as he reached that point, Bent said, “I was struck in the hip by a bullet and knocked down; but I managed to tumble into one of the holes and lay there among the warriors, women, and children.”2
A young baby boy named Three Fingers and his mother were in one of the pits. Strapped in a cradle board on her back, she held her youngster’s hand and ran for the creek. Bullets whizzed by and she one slammed into her shoulder. Somehow she kept running. They made it below the bank, where it was safer for her to pull her baby off her back. To her sadness, he was dead—shot through the body, which had stopped the bullet that would have gone into her back.
As soldiers chased the Indians up the creek, individual acts of bravery, cowardice, and savagery took place. Duncan Kerr saw one soldier dismount from his horse to better his aim, but when he fired, his horse ran off and left him. A woman sprang up from hiding not far in front of the soldier and caught his horse, apparently thinking that if she caught it and held it for him, he would spare her. As the soldier approached the nameless woman, she held out the reins to him. He took them, but pulled the trigger on his carbine anyway. Nothing happened because he had forgotten to reload his weapon. The woman fell to his feet in supplication, but the heartless soldier, recalled an eyewitness, “coolly reloaded his gun and blew her brains out.”
An old Cheyenne named Yellow Fingernails was shot and fell to the sand badly wounded. A soldier jumped on him and cut away his scalp while the old man feigned death. The soldier got away with the hair, but the old Indian crawled away still alive.
David C. Mansell of Company A, Third Colorado, spied what appeared to be a dead Indian who wore a headdress ornamented with small Mexican coins and “a queue about four feet long platted out of the shaggy mane of buffalo hair, platted into his own hair.” Mansell had to have such a prize. He dismounted and straddled the fallen brave, but when Mansell touched the knife to the Indian’s scalp, he sprang up and tried to run. Mansell grabbed the warrior’s hair and as they dashed about, yelled “Boys, shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” The action frightened the horses into a near-stampede, and the nearby soldiers could not get a shot off. “I held on to the queue until it pulled loose from his head,” recalled Mansell. “He saved his scalp, and I saved the ornaments…. I fired two or three shots while he was running but they had no effects.”3
Capt. Silas S. Soule, Company D, First Colorado, contended that he would not shoot at the Indians.
The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
One troop not heavily engaged was Captain Soule’s Company D. Soule was ordered to open fire when within about 100 yards of the lodges, and his men commenced desultory shooting after Smith, Louderback, and Clarke had been rescued. When the battery opened fire behind him, Major Anthony ordered Lieutenant Cramer to take his company to the left to the edge of Sand Creek, and Soule to take his company down into the creek bed and then move upstream “for the purpose of killing Indians which were under the banks.” Soule complied and went into action, firing and advancing. Before he could go far, however, troops moved along both sides of the banks and were spitting out a crossfire above him. This unnerved the captain. “It was unsafe for me to take my command up the creek,” explained Soule. “I crossed over to the other side and moved up the creek.”4
At some point before he crossed the Sand Creek, Soule, in the words of one of his men, Jesse S. Haire, asked his soldiers, “Boys, do you know who you are fighting today?”
“No,” an unidentified man replied.
“Well,” Soule supposedly shot back, “We are fighting Left Hand and his band.”
Someone identified as simply “Mr. Lynch” answered, “Well, we won’t fire a shot today.” The others shouted much the same thing.
It was then that Soule decided, “I don’t ask you to shoot, but follow me and we will mix in this fuss and go through it. So, come on boys.” The soldiers galloped through the cross fire of “both sides to [the] north end.”5
Soule moved his men out of the line of fire and in doing so, became separated from Anthony’s battalion. From that point on, he was effectively out of the fight. Watching the battle unfold, Soule slowly moved two miles upstream, maintaining a safe distance below the south bank. It has been argued Soule stayed out of the fight because of moral principles, but he had been fighting, if only desultorily. He followed Anthony’s orders to fire, and he continued to do so until too many bullets from hostile and friendly sources forced him to hightail it out of the creek bed. He pulled out of harm’s way and never returned until the battle was nearly over.
While Soule cut out, Major Anthony had Lieutenant Cramer moved to the north bank of the creek to await further orders. Half an hour later, Andrew Gill arrived with orders to burn the village. Cramer’s men did little fighting, perhaps from a moral stance or perhaps from a lack of opportunity. Had Cramer been face-to-face with Indians firing at him, he would have had no choice but to fight harder. As it was, he only fired intermittently and then quit altogether when orders sent him back to the village. The circumstances of the one-sided fight gave Soule and Cramer excuses for their non-belligerence. Their sudden scruples against killing Indians may have been legitimate—which was good for humanity’s sake, but not so good considering they were under military orders to fight—or, other factors may have influenced the testimony about what they did that day.
Riding near Chivington, Breakenridge saw the Indians dispersing. He believed the women and children must have escaped while the men made a “desperate fight, as I saw very few squaws and no children.” After Chivington sent Gill back with orders for Cramer to burn the village, Chivington had a slightly different idea. He turned to Breakenridge and ordered him to catch up with Gill “to tell them to save some of the largest tepees for hospital use for our wounded.” As Breakenridge rode downstream, the battle moved upstream. Along the creek he saw “a good many dead Indians, all of them scalped.” The stretch above the camp was comparatively quiet, but still dangerous. “About a mile from the village,” Breakenridge recalled, “an Indian arose from behind a tuft of bunch grass, when I was about thirty feet from him and shot at me with an arrow; he missed me but slightly wounded my horse on the rump. I had my Sharps carbine across my lap, and before the Indian could dodge I fired and hit him. I was so close I knew I killed him, and I did not stop, but kept on to camp.”
After Breakenridge delivered the message, the first assistant surgeon, Dr. Caleb S. Burdsal, picked out the tipis he wanted and ordered them cleaned out. The camp included many buffalo robes and plenty of dried buffalo meat, flour, bacon, and other foodstuffs and supplies. Breakenridge entered some of the tipis and noticed wearing apparel that he believed was taken from looted ranches and wagon trains. Much of the contraband was confiscated.6
While Dr. Burdsal set up a hospital and the ambulance began bringing in the wounded, the main command moved northwest up the creek right behind the Indians. Some of Anthony’s battalion and a portion of the Third Colorado, including Company I and the color-bearer with the flag, moved up the south bank. There was little order to the pursuit, with companies and groups of men and even individuals engaged piecemeal, fighting their own actions as they followed close on the Indians’ heels.
In several locations above the village and the banks of the creek, the Indians defended themselves and enhanced their positions by digging hasty entrenchments in the sand, which, said Coffin, “gave them a strong position.” Artillery fire “was the only way they could be reached except to our disadvantage,” he added. “It was along the banks of the creek, but more especially the west bank, that most of the fighting took place, and where several of our men were killed.”
One of the unlucky soldiers, Henry C. Foster of Company D, Third Colorado, did not make it as far as the west bank. Foster had been on the sick list for some time, but did not feel that he could let his comrades down by missing the fight. Two days prior, he rejoined his company. He got as far as the edge of the east bank of Sand Creek when he was shot in the neck and chest. He died almost instantly.
As the fighting intensified, Irving Howbert’s nervousness dissipated. “After the first few shots I had no fear whatever,” he said, “nor did I see any others displaying the least concern as to their own safety.” His Company G moved up the south bank, while the fight “became general all up and down the valley.” The Indians put up “a constant fusillade” from the banks of the creek while the soldiers shot at every Indian who appeared. “I think it was in this way that a good many of the squaws were killed,” Howbert said. “It was utterly impossible, at a distance of two hundred yards, to discern between the sexes on account of their similarity of dress.”7
Captain Cree’s battalion fought dismounted for about one hour. The men, he boasted, “behaved like veterans.” During the maneuvering, however, Company F became separated and moved off with Lieutenant Colonel Bowen’s battalion. Cree took the remaining companies of D and E eastward away from the bluffs by the creek “for the purpose of killing Indians that were making their escape to the right of the command.”
Sergeant Coffin noticed Indians and about 20 ponies in that direction and appealed to Capt. David H. Nichols of his Company D and to Captain Cree to be allowed to take some men and go after them. Cree agreed, and Coffin and 15 men rode out with instructions to remain together. The advice was soon forgotten, however, as the men on faster horses pulled ahead. Coffin was mounted on a slow horse and, “not wishing to run him to death, was soon left alone in the rear.”
The lead soldiers caught up with a couple of Indians and promptly shot them down. When Coffin rode up, James Cox was already scalping one. Farther on, Coffin spotted two Indian women lying in the dirt, one face down and writhing in agony. Coffin went up to her and saw that “in her efforts to breathe the blood was expelled from a wound which must have been through the lungs. After thinking it over a minute or so,” he said, “and believing it an act of mercy, I drew my revolver and shot [her] through the head.”
Coffin thought the other woman was already dead, but when Cox arrived, she sat up to look around and he shot her. While this was taking place, an Indian sped by on foot and the Coloradans sprinted after him, firing several shots to no effect. In an effort to run faster, the Indian snatched off his ill-fitting moccasins as he ran. Coffin mounted and tried to cut him off. The chase was about six miles from the village. When the Indian saw Coffin riding in on his flank, “[he] seemed to realize his situation though not a word or sign escaped him; but in the most deliberate manner possible he faced about and laid down, but with his head raised and eyeing us. I dismounted and fired at him and his head fell,” explained Coffin. “[The] boys took several shots to be certain he should not play us.” When they walked closer, they found a rifle bullet had gone through his left eye, which, Coffin noted, “was presumed to be mine.” Hank Farrar took hold of his hair, asked for Coffin’s pocketknife, and cut off his scalp lock. “He was brave,” Coffin concluded, “but we showed him no mercy.”8
The other half of Coffin’s small command, consisting of Cpl. Steve Phillips, Robert McFarland, Hi Lockhart, William Elliott, Franklin Montgomery, and David Ripley, an aged veteran of the War of 1812, had veered off east of the village after some horses. They rode farther out than Coffin’s party and finally succeeded in catching the herd. Hi Lockhart, who had been earlier thrown from his horse, was on foot again when his mount played out. When they captured the animals, Lockhart found a mule complete with saddle and riding gear. Mounted once more, he and his fellow soldiers drove the animals back toward the village.
On the prairie about four miles east of the village, Phillips and McFarland discovered a buffalo robe lying in the grass. Phillips thought there might be an Indian hiding under it, and McFarland rode up and dismounted. Suddenly, a warrior threw back the robe and jumped up with a yell. When both soldiers fired and missed, McFarland dodged behind his horse. The Indian shot two arrows into the animal’s side, which bucked wildly in pain. The adversaries rushed together, and McFarland, using his carbine as a club, dealt the warrior a blow that splintered the gunstock. Somehow the warrior mananged to fire another arrow that stuck in McFarland’s exposed side.
Lockhart, meanwhile, rode up on his recalcitrant mule and found the men wrestling in the grass. To Lockhart, who was still about 75 yards away, it looked like the warrior took an arrow in his hand and, using it as a dagger, plunged it into McFarland’s heart.
“Oh God, boys I’m killed!” McFarland exclaimed as he fell to the ground.
Phillips, who was nearby, jumped on the Indian. It was all he could do to hold one arm, while the man struck at him with his free hand, using the arrow like a knife as he had with McFarland. Phillips took several wounds to the head and neck before Elliott and Ripley arrived and dispatched the warrior with their pistols. The considerably shaken Corporal Phillips ordered the soldiers to mount and get out of there, lest they encounter more warriors. None of them thought to remove McFarland’s body or gather his carbine, pistol, and other valuables.
As Phillips and Coffin returned to the village on their own tangents, Coffin came across an ambulance containing the badly wounded Cpl. Andrew J. Maxwell of Company D, who had taken a bullet in the chest as the company attacked along Sand Creek. Although grievously wounded, Maxwell’s iron constitution helped him pull through, but the wound would cause him problems for the rest of his life. While Coffin comforted Maxwell, Phillips and his party galloped in from the northeast.
“Mac is dead,” Phillips exclaimed to Coffin as they drew together, showing the sergeant his own chopped and torn hat and shirt. When Coffin asked Phillips if he was sure McFarland had been killed, and received repeated assurances there was nothing that could be done for him and it was more important to care for the wounded, the men fell in with the ambulance. “This news made many of us feel sad and half sick,” admitted Coffin.
Just then, a soldier rode up and told them to turn the ambulance back upstream toward the creek. There were more Coloradans being killed and wounded. The fight was proving to be no easy affair.9
Coffin, Phillips, and the remnant of the party rode with the ambulance holding the suffering Corporal Maxwell back to the battle that was inexorably moving away from them to the northwest. The soldier who had ridden up to the ambulance gave Sergeant Coffin directions to where another wounded man was located. As Coffin rode out, the soldier warned him to be careful because Indians were still hiding in the tall grass.
Coffin approached Sand Creek northwest of the village where the creek made a big bend. On the west bank was a ridge slopping down to the creek, and in front of it was a tangle of bushes and small cottonwoods. From the directions he was given, Coffin expected to find the wounded man on the ridge. As he crossed the dry creek bed, he saw another soldier apparently headed for the same ridge. Part way across the creek Coffin spotted a puff of smoke rise above the brush, heard the crack of a rifle a second later, caught a glimpse of an Indian, and watched as the nameless soldier fell to the sand. The man rose and scrambled back to cover. The Indian was out of sight before Coffin could take aim and fire.
The Indian was probably Cheyenne warrior Standing Elk, who had become separated from the other Indians while fleeing the village. Dodging the soldiers, he ran west to where the creek turned from north to southeast but stopped to fight on the bluffs west of the creek when he found a good defensive spot on a little hill. He dug in there, but when he saw that most of the soldiers had bypassed him, he moved down closer to the creek where he might pick off a lone soldier. His weapon was poor, however, and he had only a few rounds of ammunition. Even so, he wounded a “ve’ho’e” (whiteman) in the creek bed before crawling back to the ridge. He would have to rely on his bow, which was no match for a Spencer.
Coffin beat back and forth along the creek, trying to find a spot where he could draw a bead on the warrior. He did his best to stay at least 100 yards away, sometimes shooting from behind his horse, sometimes lying flat behind a sand drift. Coffin played this game for about an hour, “but a fair shot I could not get. He was cautious.”
Finally, another man from the Third Colorado armed with a Garibaldi musket “with an awful bore” joined him. The weapon made a tremendous noise when fired. Although Standing Elk had no weapon but a bow and arrows, other Indians were also nearby, for an occasional shot whizzed by the soldiers. Coffin was sure his horse would be hit, for it spend the time calmly munching grass.
After a few hours of hide and seek, Coffin concluded they were being fooled and shooting at a rag or other object displayed only to draw their fire. Still, they had plenty of ammunition and doggedly hung on. Standing Elk finally decided to abandon his hiding place and crept over the top of the ridge. Coffin eventually discovered him a few rods beyond the spot they had been targeting, crawling away on his hands and knees through the weeds. The distance was considerable, explained Coffin, but “Three to five shots were sent after him before he disappeared, and we were very sure he was hit.”10
Coffin’s partner decided to leave, so Coffin covered him as he hurried along the creek bed and over the bank. When he caught sight of some men about one mile up the creek, Coffin presumed they might be from his company and headed northwest toward them. All along the route, there were isolated groups of Indians, some of whom would jump up to take a pot shot at him. He fired several more times while riding until his Smith and Wesson rifle became so fouled that an empty cartridge stuck fast in it. Coffin switched to his revolver, but after a few shots a piece of gun cap got stuck in the lock, and he could not cock the gun or remove the obstruction. While trying to free the mechanism, Coffin spied an Indian rise up in full view from his hiding place. “I thought him bold,” he recalled, “as he could not know my arms were out of fix.” Coffin turned to see another Indian sitting calmly on a pony watching him. Another glance off to the side found yet another Indian riding in at full speed. It was then he realized he had not seen a group of soldiers, but Indians. Coffin spun around, bent low in his saddle, and headed his horse in a zigzag course through the sandy creek bed. A couple of bullets whizzed by his head, but he never looked back.
Farther downstream, Coffin wheeled right and went up the west bank, where he happily found fellow soldier Melanthon Williams. His comrade had tied his horse on the east bank, crossed over to help a wounded man, and had stayed by his side for about three hours before the ambulance arrived. Once the man was safely in the wagon together with the other man Standing Elk had wounded, Williams went in search of his horse. Groups of Indians were still shooting from isolated pockets along the creek however, and Williams could not get across. Eventually he abandoned the hope of getting his horse back, and he was walking downstream when Coffin rode up. The two soldiers joined up. It was late afternoon, and the Colorado cavalry was nowhere to be seen.11
The main fighting along the creek had been heavy. After Private Louderback got to comparative safety out of the tipis, he hooked up with his Company G and helped Lieutenant Baldwin work the battery. The mountain howitzers were not immune to Indian fire. Baldwin narrowly escaped injury when a bullet slammed into his horse, Poker. By then, Louderback had had enough fighting. He decided to head back to the village “to get my boots and overcoat.” John Smith, after witnessing what he believed to be the main action, also returned with the first body of soldiers who went back to the camp. There, he met Colonel Chivington, who questioned him about his son Jack, about who the Indians were, about which chiefs were there, and whether he could recognize them. Smith replied that he could, so Chivington directed him to survey the field after the battle.12
While Coffin and Williams fought in isolated actions, larger groups were still doing battle along the creek. As Company A, Third Colorado, moved upstream, Joseph H. Connor got into a duel with a young warrior, exchanging shot for shot. After a few rounds, one of Connor’s bullets hit home and the Indian fell. Connor stood out in the open, where he failed to heed the warnings of his comrades. The men hiding in the grass behind him saw a woman rise up out of the tall weeds where the warrior had fallen. They raised their rifles, but before they could fire, she fired an arrow that pierced Connor’s right lung. As Connor went down, several shots rang out and the woman spun and fell dead.
The seriousness of Connor’s wound meant it would be very dangerous to move him. Nearby, a bullet slammed into the left leg of Pvt. Ed Frank Parks, also of Company A, Third Colorado. Connor and Parks waited together for the ambulance, but it did not come. Alston Shaw had seen both men go down and he tried to make them as comfortable as possible. Hours later, the sun was dropping low and most of the soldiers had returned to the village. Shaw was worried because there was not an ambulance in sight, but he refused to leave the wounded men. He finally saw another man of his company, David G. Cobb, and talked him into standing guard over them. Shaw was not gone long before he found the ambulance on its way to pick up McFarland’s body and turned it back to the creek, where he and Cobb helped the two injured men board. On their way back to camp, they watched as four Indians jumped up from the opposite bank and ran off onto the prairie.13
Captain Baxter’s Company G fought along the south and west bank throughout the morning, slowly moving upstream. By noon the Indians were fully under cover in sand pits and along the banks where they could fire with little exposure to themselves. Company G joined another unit that was carrying on a brisk fight with a group of Indians shooting from behind a pile of driftwood along the creek banks, while another group fired from a similar driftwood pile in the middle of the dry bed. Baxter’s men crept up in a depression on the edge of the north bank and tried to shoot over the bank and down into the driftwood. Howbert arrived just in time to see a man from the other company step out “a little too far.” When he turned around to speak, he “was shot in the back, the bullet going straight through his lungs and chest.”
Howbert thought it was a fatal wound. The man asked to be taken back to his company, and Howbert volunteered. He helped him on his horse, and they started across the prairie. “With every breath, bubbles of blood were coming from his lungs,” recalled Howbert, “and I had little hope that he would reach his comrades alive.” Just when they met some of his mates, he fainted, but was caught by his captain as he fell from Howbert’s horse. Howbert returned to his own unit.
Sand Creek about two miles upstream of the village. This is the location of some of the rifle pits used by the Indians for defense. Author
It was dangerous for Indian or soldier to show himself for long, but when one spot got too hot, somebody had to make a run for it. Howbert saw one small group of warriors jump up from a sand pit. “They ran in a zigzag manner, jumping from one side to the other, evidently hoping by so doing that we would be unable to hit them—but, by taking deliberate aim, we dropped every one before they reached the other bank.”14
After being wounded in the hip, George Bent remained in one sand pit for a time. Many of the Indians with him were wounded. Even though the sun was bright, the day was bitterly cold to those trapped in holes and barely able to move. The troops surrounded them and kept up a nearly constant fire, but Bent was contemptuous of their fortitude. “If they had been real soldiers they would have come in and finished it,” he said, “but they were nothing but a mob, and anxious as they were to kill they did not dare to come in close.”
Little Bear remained in the pits throughout the day, but he was actively firing back at the soldiers whenever he had an opportunity. The soldiers took positions on both sides of the creek and fired down into it, but few bullets struck home for the sand and deep pits gave them good protection. Many soldiers commented about the rifle pits. Most likely these were natural depressions in the sandy banks that the Indians scooped to greater depths during the fight, but some insisted they had been dug before the battle. According to Private Slater, “the camp was surrounded by rifle pits and the fact of the snow lying in the bottom of these pits was evidence that they had been dug some time previously, as snow had not fallen for some ten days before.”15
According to Morning Star, a Cheyenne, most of the Indian deaths were caused by cannon fire, especially those firing from the south bank at Indians fleeing up the creek. The entrenched Indians, however, were given respite when the howitzers ran out of ammunition. Just after Morgan’s battery ceased firing, a moment of silence gave Sgt. Stephen D. Decatur, Company C, Third Colorado, an opportunity to strike up a conversation with a companion sheltering along the creek bed. The soldier told him that in a hole up ahead was an Indian who could speak English. Decatur started to go forward, but the soldier warned him not to go closer or the Indian would shoot him. Decatur hesitated, and a voice called out from under the bank, “Come on, you God damn white sons of bitches, and kill me if you are a brave man.” It is quite possible that the man calling to Decatur was George Bent.
Private John Patterson described one Indian as a “medicine man” because he placed what looked to be “bags of medicine” around the pit from which he fought. The Indian would pop up, shoot an arrow, and duck before anyone could get a shot at him. Lieutenant John F. Wymond, Company C, Third Colorado, sat on his horse in direct range of the Indian in the sand pit. When Private Patterson saw the Indian rise up to shoot an arrow, Patterson shouted a warning to the lieutenant. Wymond turned his mount and the arrow buried itself into the horse’s leg. The animal jumped in pain before acting as if it was paralyzed. Patterson surmised he arrow had been poisoned, and the horse killed. The next day, the private found the “medicine man” dead in his hole with several bullet wounds.
Later in the afternoon, the Cheyenne Red Owl called out the names of five men to join him, asking them to move to some pits farther upstream to defend about 30 people trapped there. Little Bear, Spotted Horse, Big Bear, Bear Shield, and George Bent (who was apparently not too badly wounded) joined him and they made their way up the creek. They reached the upper pit and prepared a defense, but more soldiers were moving up from the south.16
As Morse Coffin and Melanthon Williams hid by the creek, both wondered how they would get out alive since Coffin’s weapons were useless and Williams only had an old dragoon revolver. When Coffin spotted soldiers of Company I, Third Colorado, carrying the regimental flag about a mile to the south, they moved toward them. McCannon, however, was still on the offensive, and the two men had to join in and continue the hunt for Indians. As McCannon moved up the creek, he was “much of the time sustaining a heavy fire” from a group of well-armed Indians, reported Major Sayr, “who were secreted under a high bank on the south side of Sand Creek.”
Company I dismounted and surrounded the area, where, said Coffin, “a lively fire was kept up for some time.” Still, McCannon could make little headway without taking casualties. He called for artillery support, but there was no more ammunition. In the pits during a slackening in the shooting, Spotted Horse noticed soldiers circling around to vantage points from where they would be able to get the Indians in a crossfire. Even so, the Indians’ fire had been good, for he saw a few of the soldiers fall. At the last moment, Spotted Horse called to the warriors to move out. Several of them, including Bent and Little Bear, abandoned the position, left the women and children behind, and fell back to the lower pits. It was well for the warriors that they did so for the soldiers eventually closed in and killed those who had remained behind. When the last warriors were killed, the women sent out a little girl of about six years old with a white rag on a stick. She advanced only a few yards before the volunteers shot her down. McCannon’s men moved in for the finish. In his report, Colonel Shoup wrote, “His brave company killed 26 Indians in one pit.”
Coffin figured it was about four in the afternoon when Company I headed back to the village. They came out of the fight at the upper pits with one dead man tied across his horse. McCannon did not follow along the creek bed, which Coffin was thankful for, for there were still Indians in pits between them and the camp. They swung wide to the southwest, then back east to the village.
When Baxter’s Company G received orders to return to the village, hidden Indians took pot shots at the men. Irving Howbert saw one child, perhaps four years old, run out of a pit toward the soldiers, crying, with arms extended as if he wanted to be picked up. “At first I was inclined to do so,” admitted Howbert, “but changed my mind when it occurred to me that I should have no means of taking care of the little fellow.” He knew that the Indians, within a few hundred yards of them, would come to get the boy as soon as the soldiers cleared out. “No one dreamed of harming him,” Howbert said. Unfortunately, many of the other volunteers were not so kind-hearted.17
Lieutenant Luther Wilson recalled that “the ears were cut off the body of White Antelope.” Wilson didn’t see it, but he heard that White Antelope’s “privates” were cut off “to make a tobacco bag out of.” He also heard men say that “the privates of one of the squaws had been cut out and put on a stick.”18 There were a number of similar atrocious actions.
Soldiers had been straggling back to the village since noon, but the fighting didn’t die out until three in the afternoon when ammunition ran low. As the attack slowed and dispersed, Indians individually and in small groups began to extricate themselves from the creek bed and head for safety. Some were seen, but Colonel Shoup declined to pursue them. “The fact was,” Morse Coffin explained, “men and horses were very tired and hungry, and the boys were glad for an opportunity to rest and look around camp.”19
One unit safe in camp for the past three hours was Soule’s Company D. After cutting out of the fight early, Soule and his men stayed far to the west for the rest of the morning. Having moved only about two miles in the intervening time span, Soule found a quiet place to cross and moved to the east bank around noon. Soule did not reestablish communications with a superior officer until about 1:00 p.m., when Major Anthony found him. Soule asked him what he should do with his command. Although Anthony might have had a caustic comment in mind, he simply told Soule to go to the village and guard the wounded men and the baggage.20
Among the prisoners taken early in the day was Charlie Bent, the youngest son of William Bent. He hid in a lodge for a time with an Indian woman, but was luckily recognized by Charles Autobees, a friend of his father’s. Bent and the woman were taken to scout Jim Beckwourth. Charlie had pronounced Indian features, and so was fearful for his life and begged Beckwourth to save him. The scout took him under his wing, and later in the day placed Charlie in the ambulance that carried the wounded Captain Talbot. He told him to stay there. Beckwourth also took the woman and the wounded James A. Metcalf to the hospital area.21
An old woman and two children were also found in one of the lodges that evening. Elsewhere, two more girls and a little boy were taken, and John Smith’s Indian wife, Zerepta, and his child, four-year-old William Gilpin Smith, were unharmed. Amache, the wife of John Prowers and daughter of One Eye, was saved with her two children, as were an old Arapaho woman and her grandson, both found hiding in a ravine. The wife of Charlie Windsor, the sutler at Fort Lyon, was also brought in. They were fed and cared for while in the camp. A lady named Spanish Woman was stabbed by a soldier, but other soldiers brought her to the hospital tipi in an effort to save her. She had also lost her little girl. They tried to take care of her, but she was obviously dying. When she asked for her child, a soldier told her she had escaped. For that at least, she was happy.22
Before 3:00 p.m. Major Anthony was ready to return to Fort Lyon with the prisoners and return to Sand Creek with supplies. Since Captain Soule was only guarding the baggage, he was ordered to accompany Anthony. Concerned with the white men and mixed-bloods who were prisoners in the village, Soule sought out Chivington and asked if he could take Charlie Bent back home to his father. Chivington replied that Charlie’s brother, Robert, did not much care about having his wild younger brother sent back home, so Soule had better not. Chivington had a change of heart, perhaps realizing that the move would placate the influential William Bent, and told Soule that he had no objections either way. Soule prepared for the ride back to Fort Lyon, his participation in the battle was over. Perhaps this is what prompted him to later declare that he “saved” Charlie Bent.23
Others at Sand Creek were not so lucky.
1 Coffin, Sand Creek, 34.
2 Hyde, George Bent, 152-54; Shoup to Chivington, December 7, 1864, OR 41, pt. 1, 956-58.
3 Margot Liberty and John Stands in Timber, Cheyenne Memories (Lincoln, NE, 1972), 169; Roberts, “Sand Creek,” 430, 435; Sand Creek Massacre Project, 190.
4 “Sand Creek Massacre,” 11, 13, 21, 22, 48.
5 Pam Milavec, “Jesse S. Haire: Unwilling Indian Fighter,” Prologue (Summer 2011), vol. 43, No. 2, accessed March 30, 2014, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/summer/hair.html and www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/summer/haire.html
6 Breakenridge, Helldorado, 50, 53; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 203.
7 Coffin, Sand Creek, 21, 26; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 23, 63-64, 67; Howbert, Indians of Pike’s Peak, 103-04.
8 Cree to Shoup, December 6, 1864, OR 41, pt. 1, 958; Coffin, Sand Creek, 21-22.
9 Coffin, Sand Creek, 22-23, 26-27.
10 Coffin, Sand Creek, 23-24; Sand Creek Massacre Project, 206-07. Coffin returned the next day and located the dead warrior, who proved to be Standing Elk. His body was never recovered.
11 Coffin, Sand Creek, 24-25.
12 “Sand Creek Massacre,” 135; “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 8-9.
13 Shaw, Pioneers of Colorado, 89, 93-94.
14 Howbert, Indians of Pike’s Peak, 104-06.
15 Hyde, George Bent, 155-56; Slater, “Indian Troubles,” 4. Some soldiers insisted the rifle pits were already there, while most historians reject that notion as nonsense. Yet, Cheyenne oral history occasionally supports the soldiers. Blanche White Shield, for one, claimed the Indians “already made like fox holes in case the soldiers really came.” Sand Creek Massacre Project, 193.
16 Sand Creek Massacre Project, 207; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 195; Shaw, Pioneers of Colorado, 93; Powell, Sacred Mountain I, 305-06.
17 Michno, Battle at Sand Creek, 236-38.
18 “Chivington Massacre,” 67.
19 Coffin, Sand Creek, 26.
20 “Sand Creek Massacre,” 22-23.
21 Silas Soule later claimed that he had “saved little Charley Bent,” but this does not appear to be the case. Bent was about 17 years old, and hardly “little,” and he was taken by Autobees and Beckwourth. Soule was west of the creek avoiding Indian bullets at the time of Charlie’s rescue.
22 “Sand Creek Massacre,” 71, 107; Stan Hoig, The Western Odyssey of John Simpson Smith Frontiersman, Trapper, Trader, and Interpreter (Glendale, CA, 1974), 116, 156, 158; Sand Creek Massacre Project, 193.
23 Monahan, Denver City, 196; “Sand Creek Massacre,” 22-23.