Testimony

In the aftermath of Sand Creek, federal investigations and military inquiry took place as dozens of eyewitnesses provided testimony in Washington, D.C., Denver City, Fort Lyon, and other locations. Officers, soldiers, and civilians came forward, and specific details about the event began to emerge. George Bent recalled Indian survivors straggling into the Smoky Hill camps while everyone cried, with women and children screaming and wailing and many in their grief gashing themselves. Robert Bent said he saw the American flag waving and heard Black Kettle tell the Indians to stand around the flag, and he also saw a white flag raised in a position that could not have been missed. Lieutenant James Cannon said that in going over the battleground the next day, he did not see a body of a man, woman, or child that was not scalped, and that in many instances their bodies were mutilated in a most horrible manner. Captain Presley Talbot recounted receiving a very galling fire from Indians under the bank and from ditches above it, ordering his company to advance, prepare to dismount, and fight on foot, and then being shot by the rifle of a chief known as One-Eye. Colonel John Chivington demanded the chance to introduce evidence to sustain what he believed had been an act of duty to his command, themselves, and civilization. A report from the Thirty-Eighth Congress by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War condemned the soldiers' acts as barbarity of the most revolting character and expressed hope that the authority of the government would never again be disgraced by such acts.

Brandon, Colorado · United States