Primary Sources and Their Importance to the 1864 Sand Creek Event

By Mike Bowen

Co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site 

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. However, that’s not the case with Sand Creek. 

What’s been passed down for nearly 160 years about the 1864 Sand Creek event is mostly from oral history. Eyewitness accounts and physical evidence have played little into what’s been told about it. That begs the question: why? 

How can there be an exception to using eyewitnesses for primary source material? 

Sand Creek soldiers, Irving Howbert and Morse Coffin, both wrote about what they experienced, fighting at Sand Creek. 

Howbert wrote two books, Memories of a Lifetime in the Pike’s Peak Region and The Indians of the Pike’s Peak Region. Coffin’s account was documented in the Colorado Sun newspaper, dated by Coffin March 9, 1879. It is the earliest known Sand Creek account. It was later published verbatim in a book, The Battle of Sand Creek, in 1965, with only 300 copies printed.

All three of those books are recommended. They may be found online to purchase. Since Coffin’s book only printed 300 copies, it is difficult to find. Howbert’s book, Memories of a Lifetime in the Pike’s Peak Region, was reprinted in 2007 so it may be available online. Some copies appear to be available on Ebay: IrvingHowbert

To learn about what happened at a historical event or battle, we must read and study accounts from those who were there. That seems like the obvious thing to do. However, when it comes to Sand Creek, it’s the accounts of the eyewitnesses that are cast aside without learning what they have to say. 

Some may argue that what Howbert and Coffin claim about Sand Creek cannot be proven. 

Howbert said the soldiers reached the top of a ridge and way off in the distance, they saw an Indian village scattered about two to three miles away up the creek. 

It is our belief the ridge Howbert referenced is the one at what is now the National Park Service Sand Creek site. It is the only ridge in that area that could work, and most importantly, just over two miles up the creek from there, on the Bowen family ranch, is where Chuck Bowen found village artifacts. The location village artifacts were found matches the distance from eyewitnesses such as Howbert, which corroborates where the soldiers first saw the village and the where the Indians were camped. 

Reporter C. E. Van Loan wrote a story for the Denver Post about the reunion of four Sand Creek soldiers: Morse Coffin, P. M. (Lant) Williams, David Harden, and W. H. Dickens. Van Loan joined them as they met in Kit Carson, arriving by train. The goal was for the four veterans to hold a reunion and mark the site where they fought. To learn what they thought was the site, check out chapter two of We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. 

One of our biggest eyewitness sources used in our Sand Creek research is George Bent. The book, The Life of George Bent, is not recommended. The best sources are ones that come directly from eyewitnesses. George Bent didn’t write that book; he didn’t write any books. That book was published nearly 50 years after Bent died, and there are discrepancies with the manuscripts. However, Bent did write letters to historians, and many of those have been preserved. Bowen has over 400 pages of Bent’s letters in his archives. 

If you are interested in learning what George Bent said about Sand Creek and his Cheyenne life, read his letters. The Life of George Bent is a loose paraphrase of his letters, most often not citing any letter Bent wrote to a historian. It is not a primary source. Bent’s letters are a primary source. There are many letters cited in our book. 

Another example of a primary source would be Hal Sayr’s diary. He was a soldier in the Third Colorado Cavalry. He was one that documented the soldiers camped one mile below Fort Lyon which would be Bent’s New Fort. The soldiers would have then followed the Indian lodgepole trail from Bent’s New Fort to Black Kettle’s village at Sand Creek. 

Another soldier, who signed his name Spakes, for a submission to the Rocky Mountain News, said this:

“Fort Lyon, C.T., July 13, 1865.

Being a member of Co. E, Vet. Battalion 1st Colorado Cavalry, and hearing Col. Chivington and the men who were under his command, at the Battle of Sand Creek, so much censured for killing squaws, and fearing that I may have to be on the ‘war path’ this summer and wishing to escape the condemnation of the public, I would respectfully request that some one friendly to the “poor red brethren,” let us know, through your paper, by what means a warrior may be distinguished from his squaw. 

I have been among Indians of different tribes, and I think it an impossibility to distinguish one sex from the other at gun-shot distance. 

Yours, and friendly to the whites.

Spakes.”

He makes the point that from firing distance, a squaw and warrior looked the same. Interestingly, George Bent said the same thing. He said a soldier would not be able to tell the difference and would have mistaken a warrior for a squaw when firing (Bent to Hyde 5-24-1906). George Bent making this claim also debunks the idea that female Indians were targeted at Sand Creek. It also substantiates the claim there were warriors in the camp. He said the warrior would have been mistaken—he didn’t say the warriors were away hunting. In fact, he never claimed the warriors were not in the camp. 

Eyewitness testimony is another example of a primary source. However, some may believe that everyone that testified in the hearings was at Sand Creek. That is not the case. What is often found in the hearings is the person being questioned would be asked if they were present at Sand Creek and they would say that they were not there. The commission would still continue to ask them questions about Sand Creek even though they were not an eyewitness. Eyewitnesses that testified include Major Anthony, Silas Soule, Captain Presley Talbot, Colonel John Chivington, among others. There is a sampling of the hearings in the back of the book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. 

Silas Soule is one of the soldiers that is often falsely quoted. He never testified that he refused to fight. He allegedly wrote in a letter to his mother and to the former commanding officer of Fort Lyon, Major Wynkoop, that he refused to take part in the fighting at Sand Creek. What he said under oath is completely different. 

“Major Anthony ordered my company, which was directly in line of fire of the battery, to move down into the creek…Before I got into the creek there were troops upon both sides firing across. It was unsafe for me to take my command up the creek,” Soule testified. 

He only testified about his concern of crossfire. The deck was stacked against Chivington in the hearings so Soule would have had no reason to hold back and not testify that he refused to fight because he thought it was a horrific massacre. The hearings were led by Lt. Col. Sam Tappan, who was known as Chivington’s enemy. Chivington objected to Tappan leading the hearings before they began. 

Captain Presley Talbot, Company M, Third Colorado Territory, testified that, “John Smith had a bill made out against the government for his losses stating he would go to Washington and present it.” Smith’s testimony against Chivington was motivated by getting even for losing his buffalo robes at Sand Creek. Talbot further testified, “I also heard Smith…state that the eastern papers would be filled with letters from Fort Lyon, denouncing the same, and that Colonel Chivington had murdered his boy, and that he would be avenged by using every effort with the department possible. Colley and Smith stated to me in person that they would go to Washington and represent the Sand Creek battle as…a massacre; and Smith said that he would realize twenty-five thousand dollars from his losses.” 

Stephen Decatur fought in Company C of the Third Colorado Cavalry. He testified to seeing white scalps of men, women and children. He also said there were rifle pits that were, “dug with hoes or shovels large enough for a man to operate in, from three to four feet wide, some six feet long and longer.” 

George Bent said that he and other Indians ran 2 ½ miles above the village to the rifle pits and one of the pits was big enough for 19 people to fit into. Chuck found digging tools at a spot 2 ½ miles above where he found village artifacts that matches the description of the rifle pits. 

Interestingly, Bent was not called to testify at the hearings. In his letters to historians, he openly talks about the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, who were at Sand Creek, who made many raids on white settlers in Colorado Territory during the summer of 1864. It’s likely his testimony would have been detrimental to Lt. Col. Sam Tappan’s massacre narrative. 

During the Denver hearings, on March 8, 1865, Colonel Chivington requested for his witnesses in the Denver area to testify. His request was denied. It’s difficult to take the hearings seriously when it’s obvious they weren’t looking for truth; they were standing firm on a narrative and would not budge. 

We’re not out to retell the Sand Creek story, however, there is a lot of information about the Sand Creek event that has been suppressed. Most people have formed an opinion about the event only based on one side of the story. The soldiers’ accounts have not been told from an official perspective. It would be irresponsible to only look at one side when the artifacts and where they were found points to the account of soldier Irving Howbert being truthful. Our involvement with Sand Creek is to tell the truth about the artifacts, where they were found, and how that corrects the massacre claim. 

The massacre claim relies on that location below that bluff at what is now the National Park Service Sand Creek site. According to the massacre story, the Indians were camped below that bluff where they could not see approaching soldiers, they were killed as they came out of their tipis right as the sun was coming up, it was only defenseless women, children and elderly, and the warriors were not in the camp but off hunting. 

That area below the bluff has been searched with metal detectors meticulously by skilled archaeologists, and all of their searches came up empty. No period artifacts have ever been found there. 

Chuck Bowen found over 4,000 battle and village artifacts starting over two miles up the creek from that bluff. At this location the Indians would have had a clear view of approaching soldiers. In fact, George Bent said that Little Bear, a Dog Soldier, went across the creek very early that morning of Nov. 29, 1864 and got on a high hill to get his horse. He looked south toward the lodgepole trail and saw the soldiers way off in the distance as a long black line. The Indians weren’t attacked as they came out of their tipis but rather, most of them fled the village as they had a head start. Little Bear saw the soldiers as they traveled along a ridge that took them to the top of that bluff. The Indians weren’t camped just below, but they were camped nearly two miles up the creek from there. 

Oral history is difficult to verify. That information has been passed down for nearly 160 years, and it has been constantly changing. There are examples in our book of how the oral history about Sand Creek has changed over the years. See chapter 11 of We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. 

Our book is about the discovery of the Lost Sand Creek Site, the real location of Black Kettle’s village and battle locations. The village and fighting areas are two separate locations. Look for a blog soon that details how Chuck’s Sand Creek discovery brings clarity to the village and battle locations being different spots. 

We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site is the most well-cited book on Sand Creek. Most books about Sand Creek don’t use primary sources and many of the books don’t cite sources at all. They regurgitate the same information from a previous book and tell it as if they were there, when in fact these books were written about 100 years after the Sand Creek event. 

The truth about Sand Creek matters greatly today, even after nearly 160 years. Patriotism is under attack, and the Sand Creek massacre claim has been used to make people feel ashamed about their white American ancestors. However, the massacre claim has never been verified by physical evidence or eyewitness accounts. Right after chapter 14 of our book is a sampling of the hearings, and there are examples of testimonies where it’s claimed some soldiers mutilated Indian bodies—however, they could not name a single soldier. If I saw someone doing that, I would for sure learn who it was and document it. It’s reasonable to believe that any soldier would do that. Something doesn’t add up when not a single soldier can be named. 

We’ve never once justified a soldier mutilating Indian bodies. We’ve simply questioned the validity of those claims. It’s probable some of the Indians were mutilated from exploding cannon shells. It will be explained in a future blog about where cannons fired in relation to the village. 

Learn more about us, our book, Sand Creek site discovery and other history on this website. Read through the blogs. Just click Blog at the top of the page. 

Make sure to get a copy of our book to learn about this amazing Sand Creek site discovery. There are over 100 photos of artifacts and maps explaining and showing where many of the artifacts Chuck found were discovered. 

Truth matters. Truth wins. 

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