About daybreak on November 29 Chivington's force reached the Cheyenne village on Sand Creek, where Black Kettle, White Antelope, and some 500 of their band, mostly women and children, were encamped in the belief that they had made their peace. They had received no pledge of this, but past practice explained their confidence. The village was surrounded by troops who began to fire as soon as it was light. "We killed as many as we could; the village was destroyed and burned," declared Downing, who further professed, "I think and earnestly believe the Indians to be an obstacle to civilization, and should be exterminated." White Antelope was killed at the first attack, refusing to leave the field, stating that it was the fault of Black Kettle, others, and himself that occasioned the massacre, and that he would die. Black Kettle, refusing to leave the field, was carried off by his young men. The latter had raised an American flag and a white flag in his effort to stop the fight.
The firing began, swore interpreter Smith, on the northeast side of Sand Creek, near Black Kettle's lodge. Driven thence, the disorderly horde of savages retreated to War Bonnet's lodge at the upper end of the village, some few of them armed but most making no resistance. Up the dry bottom of Sand Creek they ran, with the troops in wild charge close behind. In the hollows of the banks they sought refuge, but the soldiers dragged them out, killing seventy or eighty with the worst barbarities Smith had seen: "All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons; they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word." The affidavits of soldiers engaged in the attack are printed in the government documents. They are too disgusting to be more than referred to elsewhere.
Here at last was the culmination of the plains war of 1864 in the "Chivington massacre," which has been the centre of bitter controversy ever since its heroes marched into Denver with their bloody trophies. It was without question Indian fighting at its worst, yet it was successful in that the Indian hostilities stopped and a new treaty was easily obtained by the whites in 1865. The East denounced Chivington, and the Indian Commissioner described the event in 1865 as a butchery "in cold blood by troops in the service of the United States." "Comment cannot magnify the horror," said the _Nation_. The heart of the question had to do with the matter of good faith. At no time did the military or Colorado authorities admit or even appear to admit that the war was over. They regarded the campaign as punitive and necessary for the foundation of a secure peace. The Indians, on the other hand, believed that they had surrendered and were anxious to be let alone. Too often their wish in similar cases had been gratified, to the prolongation of destructive wars. What here occurred was horrible from any standard of civilized criticism. But even among civilized nations war is an unpleasant thing, and war with savages is most merciful, in the long run, when it speaks the savages' own tongue with no uncertain accent. That such extreme measures could occur was the result of the impossible situation on the plains. "My opinion," said Agent Colley, "is that white men and wild Indians cannot live in the same country in peace." With several different and diverging authorities over them, with a white population wanting their reserves and anxious for a provocation that might justify retaliation upon them, little difficulties were certain to lead to big results. It was true that the tribes were being dispossessed of lands which they believed to belong to them. It was equally true that an Indian war could terrify a whole frontier and that stern repression was its best cure. The blame which was accorded to Chivington left out of account the terror in Colorado, which was no less real because the whites were the aggressors. The slaughter and mutilation of Indian women and children did much to embitter Eastern critics, who did not realize that the only way to crush an Indian war is to destroy the base of supplies,--the camp where the women are busy helping to keep the men in the field; and who overlooked also the fact that in the mêlée the squaws were quite as dangerous as the bucks. Indiscriminate blame and equally indiscriminate praise have been accorded because of the Sand Creek affair. The terrible event was the result of the orderly working of causes over which individuals had little control.