By Mike Bowen – Co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
P. M. Williams, known as Lant, fought at Sand Creek. He was only nineteen. He was one of four veteran soldiers that held a reunion in 1908 and tried to mark the spot where they fought. He was living in Bennington, KS at the time of the reunion. All four veterans served in Company D of the Third Colorado Cavalry.
His full name was Phillip Melanchthon Williams. His middle name was shortened to Lant.
Williams was born in Kentucky and lived in Manhattan, KS at the time of Sand Creek, per ancestry records. After Sand Creek, he spent time living in Colorado, including Ashcroft, Aspen and Parachute.
As was the case with other Sand Creek soldiers such as Irving Howbert and Morse Coffin, Lant was well respected in the communities he lived in. He served as a deacon in his church (Rocky Mountain Sun, October 8, 1887). Some of his jobs included shoring up mines with timber (Boulder Daily Camera, Volume 19, Number 81, June 18, 1909) and working as a road overseer (Rocky Mountain Sun, June 24, 1882).
According to Lant, an outbreak of Indians closed the stage route along the Platte River in 1864. Since the Civil War was still going on back east, troops could not be spared. He enlisted in August as a Private in the Third Colorado Cavalry and served “along the old Ben Holiday (Holladay) line guarding the stages and emigrant trains,” Williams said (Denver Post. July 26, 1908). This was likely en route to Sand Creek to make sure an advanced warning wasn’t delivered to Black Kettle’s village.
The Ben Holladay line he mentioned would have been the Overland Stage Route along the Overland Trail. He mentioned the Indians closing the stage route, so it’s likely he was familiar with the attacks from the Indians including raiding wagon trains, killing white settlers and taking white captives, in the months leading up to Sand Creek (Denver Post. July 26, 1908). It’s interesting he joined to serve in Colorado when he was living in northeastern Kansas. He didn’t provide the reason why he joined.
“Later we went into camp at Fort Boone below Pueblo and from there we made a quick march to Fort Lyon, about forty miles from here. We had learned that the Indians were in winter quarters on the Big Sandy-or Sand Creek as we always called it” Williams said (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
Major Scott J. Anthony, commander at Fort Lyon, was not aware of their coming, according to Williams. Before Chivington arrived at Fort Lyon to head to Sand Creek, Anthony sought reinforcements to help him fight the Indians.
“But before the re-enforcements came from district headquarters, Colonel Chivington came to Fort Lyon with his command, and I joined him and went out on that expedition to Sand Creek. I never made any offer to the Indians. It was the understanding that I was not in favor of peace with them. They so understood me, I suppose; at least I intended they should. In fact, I often heard of it through their interpreters that they did not suppose we were friendly towards them,” Anthony testified (United States, Congress, House of Representatives. “Massacre of the Cheyenne Indians,” Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865).
“We would not let a soul leave the fort that night in case warning should be given the Indians of our coming, and after a couple hours’ rest we rode out of the fort on a night ride across the country. There were about 640 of us all told, with four cannons from the fort. All night we rode, and just as the sun was coming up we spotted the Indian ponies in a herd the other side of the ridge. We sent a company of Mexicans after the ponies and went on at a gallop, for we knew we must be close to the Indian village. I was with the advance, and as we came over the raise we saw the first of the lodges,” Williams said (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
When the soldiers first spotted the village, he said they initially only saw a few lodges, “and I remember that some of the boys cussed at coming so far for just a few Indians,” Williams said. “Then we rounded the point, and there they were—stretched out on the flat ground on the other side of the creek—136 lodges in all. Then we knew we were up against a fight. One hundred and thirty-six lodges can hold a lot of Indians” (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
He said the first company crossed the creek and started down the bank on the far side. The second company kept on down the other side.
“We were trying to hem them (Indians) in. The artillery stopped on the high ground looking up the creek, and all this time the Indians were pouring out and running in all directions. Most of them were armed with bows and arrows and we had the advantage with our rifles and revolvers, though there were some good guns with the Indians, too, as we found out” (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
Many have believed the Cheyenne and Arapaho were unarmed at Sand Creek. According to artifacts and eyewitnesses, they were armed with bows and arrows along with guns.
The artillery opened fire on Indians “in the weeds beyond the village.” His account supports others that have said the Indians fled the village. He further said that Indians hid in pits along the creek with guns and, “picked off several of our men before we charged them from behind and fired down on ‘em” (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
Soldiers chased the Indians out of the grass across the country, Williams said. “When I got back to the creek bed that afternoon my captain asked me to wash and dress one of the boys who had been picked up in a little draw on the other side of the creek. He had got too far away from the others and the Indians closed in on him. They had cut him open and jammed his broken carbine inside him.”
The Indians were more skilled with their bows and arrows than the soldiers were with their guns.
“Those plains Indians could keep a perfect stream of arrows in the air, and they could hit a prairie dog at seventy-five yards every time. I never saw a white man who could draw one of those Indian arrows to the head, but those Indians used to do it like a flash,” Williams said. “The Indians could pull an arrow from the quiver, fit it to the string, and pull it back all in one motion while they were looking over their shoulder. They could work those bows as fast as a man could work a single-action revolver, and a lot more accurately, too” (Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
The massacre story says the Indians at Sand Creek were peaceful. Lant Williams experienced something else.
“It wasn’t nice work, but it had to be done. They say there were some friendly Indians in that camp, but if so they were in poor company” (Denver Post. July 26, 1908). According to Lant, the Cheyenne and Arapaho were hostile.
It’s a miracle Williams and Morse Coffin survived.
“Then I knew it was Indians not soldiers we saw up the creek. How many more of them were in sight I tarried not to see; but thinking that not a good place for me, with both gun and revolver out of fix, I quickly mounted my horse (He stood like a statue all these hours) and run him in a sort of zig zag course through the deep sand of the creek, bending forward on the saddle as I went. Two or three shots came rather close before getting out of range, but I took no time to turn to see where they came from or to learn if I was followed. After going two or three hundred yards down the creek bed I turned up the west bank where I was agreeably surprised to find a comrade—P. M. Williams—a brave boy, and as cool and self-possessed in the presence of danger as any one I ever saw, either at Sand Creek or elsewhere,” Morse Coffin said (The Battle of Sand Creek, page 24-25).
Coffin found Williams separated from his horse and with a fallen comrade.
“During the progress of our company up the creek he had, for some reason unknown to me, tied his horse to a bush near the east bank of the creek, and a little below where I found him; and having reached the west west bank, had been holding the head of a wounded man of some company of the 3rd, and caring for him for about three hours, and until the arrival of the ambulance,” Coffin said.
It is unknown which soldier Williams cared for, however, Coffin stated the soldier was a member of the 3rd and believed he died.
Williams found his efforts to be quite unsafe to get back to his horse.
“…Williams remained in the hope of being able to get his horse, which he repeatedly attempted; but whenever he started across in that direction, the fire of a lot of the enemies in rifle pits a little below, would be turned on him, and oblige him to turn back” Coffin said. (The Battle of Sand Creek, page 25).
Coffin and Williams were surrounded by Indians. They were unsafe to stay where they were, and it was unsafe for them to move.
“About the time when our surroundings looked the worst, we saw a company of soldiers which, from their carrying the regimental flag we knew to be ‘I’ of the 3d, a mile or more to the south, and on our side of the creek opposite the village. They seemed to halt and hesitate a little, but soon they moved up toward us. This gladdened us, and we went slowly forward” (The Battle of Sand Creek, page 25).
“The company bore away a little to the right, and attacked the Indians in the rifle pits, under the high bank just below and to the east of us. This was the same crowd who fired on Williams” Coffin said (The Battle of Sand Creek, page 25).
Coffin and Williams fell in line with Company I as they returned to camp which allowed them to survive. It is unlikely they would have lived without that Company coming to their aid.
The descriptions Coffin provides about where he was at Sand Creek match areas where Chuck Bowen found artifacts at the Bowen family ranch, the Lost Sand Creek Site. He said it was deep sand which doesn’t fit the National Park Service site.
The book, The Battle of Sand Creek, was originally published as an article in the Colorado Sun newspaper in 1879. Coffin dated the document March 9, 1879. It is the earliest known Sand Creek account. It was published verbatim as a book in 1965 with only 300 copies printed.
The story documented by Coffin and Williams tells about a hard fought battle, not a massacre of the Indians. Most other eyewitnesses tell a similar account.
Lant and the other three veteran soldiers that met for their reunion all picked a different spot for the battleground. Since Lant stayed with a soldier for three hours, it makes sense he would recognize where they fought. It’s our belief the veterans didn’t come far enough down the creek. They got off the train in Kit Carson and made their way down the creek. From Kit Carson to the Lost Sand Creek Site is about 15 miles.
Chuck and Sheri Bowen named their discovery site the Lost Sand Creek Site due to finding over 4,000 period artifacts. If you want to learn more about what was found, check out our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
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