Near dawn on November 29, 1864, detachments of the 1st and 3rd regiments of the Colorado (U.S.) Volunteer Cavalry, commanded by Col. John M. Chivington, opened fire on unsuspecting Cheyenne and Arapaho villagers along Big Sandy Creek. With orders to take no prisoners, 675 soldiers attacked as Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle raised American and white truce flags to show peaceful intentions. Villagers fled upstream on foot and on horseback, some tried to surrender, and others dug pits in the creek banks, but many were killed by small arms and artillery fire. Warriors mounted a defense as the killing continued into the afternoon. Nearly two hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho were massacred, most of them women, children, and the elderly. Some officers and soldiers mutilated the dead, took scalps and body parts as trophies, looted the camp, and burned it over the next two days. In the following months, two U.S. Congressional committees condemned the Sand Creek Massacre, and the site was established as a national historic site on April 28, 2007.