As tensions mounted, Chiefs Black Kettle and Left Hand pled for peace, writing to Major Wynkoop at Fort Lyon to express their desire to end violence. Wynkoop and 125 men marched apprehensively to the Smoky Hill River to meet them, and negotiations followed. With renewed hope, Wynkoop and the chiefs traveled to a peace counsel in Denver, where on September 28, 1864, at Camp Weld, they met Governor John Evans, Colonel John Chivington, and other officials. Chivington declared that his rule in fighting white men or Indians was to fight until they laid down their arms and submitted to military authority, and he told them they were nearer to Major Wynkoop than anyone else and could go to him at Fort Lyon when they were ready to do that. Of 1,200 Cheyenne and Arapaho camped near Sand Creek in the autumn of 1864, about 650 Arapaho moved to Fort Lyon, but prisoner rations were not enough to sustain them, so they moved farther east. A small Arapaho village under Chief Left Hand instead joined the 500 or more Cheyenne still camped at Sand Creek.