Mochi's War

by Enss, Chris

31. Ibid., 189–91.

  32. Hyde, Life of George Bent, 151–57.

  33. Craig, Fighting Parson, 189–91.

  34. North Hills News Record, September 15, 1971.

  35. Davenport Democrat, May 3, 1929; Life of George Bent, 131–35.

  36. Life of George Bent, 131–35; North Hill News Record, September 15, 1972.

  37. Lookingbill, War Dance at Fort Marion, 58–61.

  Chapter 2

  The Reverend Colonel

  The smell of the sandy beaches and seawater of the southern Florida peninsula was in sharp contrast to the sweet aroma of the rolling plains and crystal clear rivers of northern Colorado. Fort Marion was unlike any place Mochi had ever been in her life. The Spanish once lived in and ruled the oceanfront outpost.[1] No matter where Indian prisoners were within the garrison they found reminders of Spain constantly beckoning them to behold her ancient glory. For a long while Mochi stood in the shadow of the walls of the fort, lost in thought. Soldiers in towers at the corners of the rampart watched her with careful eyes in case she tried to escape.[2]

  Fort Marion was surrounded by a moat. Two drawbridges extended to the other side and provided people with a way to cross. Below the bridges and the casements were miles of dungeons. No sooner had Mochi and the other Indian prisoners arrived than the soldiers began telling tales of the skeletons found chained to the walls, warning the condemned Cheyenne that they would suffer the same fate if they caused trouble.[3] Mochi took the threat seriously. It had been her experience that white men never made good on any promise to the Indian apart from those of injury or death. Respected Cheyenne elders had foreseen all that would happen to the Indian people.

  When she was a girl, Mochi had begun hearing stories of what was to happen to the Indian. Her grandparents shared tales of a prophet and teacher named Sweet Medicine who warned the Cheyenne that they would be overtaken.[4] According to the traditional folklore, Sweet Medicine told his people that only the rocks and mountains were forever and that the “Indians would be like dust on the prairie.” He shared with those around him during his last hours on earth:

  I’ve seen in my mind that sometime after I am dead they will come. Light-skinned, bearded men will arrive with sticks spitting fire. They will conquer the land and drive the Indian before them. They will kill the animals who give their flesh that Indians may live, and they will bring strange animals for them to ride and eat. They will introduce war and evil, strange sicknesses and death. They will take the Indians’ land little by little, until there is nothing left. You must be strong when that time comes, you men, and particularly you women, because much depends on you, because you are the perpetuators of life and if you weaken, the Cheyenne will cease to be.[5]

  For a time Mochi’s life in the land of her ancestors on the Great Plains was without sorrow or harsh struggle. She contented herself with doing what was traditionally required of Cheyenne women. Using long branches filled with dried leaves, she swept the dirt from the lodge where she lived with her husband, gathered wood to make fires, and collected the daily water. She prepared the food her husband brought home and made moccasins and robes with the buffalo and deer hides. Mochi was responsible, as were all Cheyenne women, for keeping track of the family belongings; the Cheyenne lifestyle could be quite transitory. Mochi’s job was to break camp, pack, and reassemble the lodge once a new location was determined.[6]

  Mochi’s grandmother and those before her believed the role of the Cheyenne woman was set by the Wise One Above, or as the Cheyenne referred to him, He’amave’ ho’e.[7] According to Cheyenne legend the Wise One Above made both man and woman. Cheyenne ancestors told their children:

  When the Wise One Above made the man in the south, he took from his own right side a rib to make him with, and when he made the woman in the north, he took from the man’s left side a rib to make her of. Wise One Above then stood between those two with his back toward the rising sun. When he placed them apart he spoke to them and said, “In that direction,” pointing to the south where the man was, “you will find all kinds of animals and birds different from those which you find in that direction.” Pointing to the north where the woman was he said, “The birds that live in the south will come to the north in the summer time. Where the woman is it will be cold, and you will freeze and the grass and the trees will not grow well. There will be hardly any at all of them. But where the man is, everything will grow, grass, bushes and timber.

  The woman who had been made and placed in the north will never grow any older. The woman in the north controls Ho-im-a-ha, commonly interpreted as ‘winter man’ or ‘storm,’ the power that brings the cold and snow. He obeys her and she will care for the man the Wise One Above made and she will help in defending theirs and make it storm if there is cause.[8]

  When Mochi’s family and homeland were eventually threatened she did as the stories of the elders told her the woman should do: defend it and make it storm.[9]

  It was raining on June 18, 1864, when a frantic lone rider spurred his galloping horse toward Fort Lyon, Colorado. After making sure the man was neither a Cheyenne nor an Arapaho Indian, army soldiers on guard opened the gate of the fort and let him in. “The red devils have massacred a whole family on Running Creek,” the desperate rider exclaimed.[10] The commander of the outpost managed to calm the man down long enough for him to explain that a band of Arapaho Indians had attacked a ranch twenty-five miles east of the fort. Nathan Hungate, his wife, and two children had been killed in the raid. Their bodies were mutilated and burned in a fire that destroyed the ranch house. Angry freight wagon drivers transported the mangled bodies to Denver for everyone to see. The public was outraged and insisted that the government needed to intervene and protect the settlers on the plains from the Indians.[11]

  Colorado Governor John Evans called an emergency meeting with territory leaders and army officers. Denver was placed under martial law, and volunteer units were called to help fight the Arapaho warriors involved with the Hungate massacre.[12] Colonel John M. Chivington was one of the men Governor Evans consulted about exercising such extreme measures.[13] Known as the “Fighting Parson,” Chivington was a frontier preacher turned soldier. He was born in Warren County, Ohio, on January 27, 1821. His father, Isaac, and mother, Jane, carved out a home for themselves in the wilderness twenty miles northeast of Cincinnati. The couple struggled against the elements, wildlife, and Shawnee Indians to keep the land they occupied. Isaac and Jane had four children: three sons and one daughter. John was a middle child. His mother taught him how to read and write, and his father taught him how to be a woodsman.[14]

  According to historical records from the Kansas Historical Society, Chivington was an imposing figure. In March 1902, his friend John Speer described him in a letter as “a man of fine personal appearance.” Chivington was six feet four and a half inches tall and weighed 265 pounds. “His father was six feet six inches tall,” Speer wrote in his memoirs. “The Chivington family was all large.”[15]

  When John was eight years old, he took over marketing the family timber business. He spent a considerable amount of time working in Cincinnati, where he met his wife Martha Rollason. Martha was from Virginia and worked in the city as a servant girl in the home of some of her friends. She was two years older than Chivington, short, proficient in French, and an expert seamstress. The two married in late 1840. Early on Chivington supported his wife by working as a carpenter. The couple attended the Methodist church in southern Ohio, and by 1842 John decided he wanted to enter the ministry. In September 1844, Chivington was ordained as a Methodist preacher. His first assignment was at a church in Goshen, Ohio.[16]

  An influx of rowdy and rough men traveling through the region on the way west created a great deal of unrest in the area where Chivington preached. There was drinking and prostitution, gunfighting and gambling, and the need for reform was evident. Chivington not only spoke out against such immoral behavior but also helped law enforcement officials restore law and order. The big man
with the big voice and personality gained a reputation as a fighter. Not only did the community respect him, but it also had a healthy fear of him.

  Colonel John M. Chivington, the fighting parson, Civil War hero and leader of the attack on Sand Creek.

  The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-128

  Encouraged by the changes made in the unruly community, Chivington reasoned his services would be well received in other towns. In 1848, his wife and three children moved to Quincy, Illinois. As a leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he assisted in ending disputes between neighbors and kept his flock safe from the criminal elements by putting a stop to their misdeeds and carting them to jail. Chivington and Martha helped establish schools and curtail drinking at public events such as picnics and horse races.[17]

  After less than a year in Quincy, Chivington and his family were transferred to the Methodist church in Pleasant Green, Missouri. The itinerant preacher served five churches in western Missouri and was a missionary to the Wyandot Indians in Kansas City, Kansas.[18] The Wyandot Indians had been forced to the area by the government. Their native homeland was along the Ohio River, but settlers pushed the Indians out of the region. Life in Kansas was becoming increasingly difficult for them as once again they were being crowded off the spot said to be reserved for them. Chivington took on the task of easing tension between the Wyandot and settlers encroaching on their space. Using an interpreter, he was able to reason with the Indians and share the gospel. Many converted to Christianity and helped Chivington build a church near their village.[19]

  Chivington spent time with the white settlers educating them about the Indians. He was able to change the perception many pioneers had that the Wyandot were savages. In time they came to accept one another and work side-by-side farming and trading produce.[20]

  In 1854, Chivington was transferred to a parish in St. Joseph, Missouri. St. Joseph had a reputation as one of the toughest cities in the country. Hundreds of people passed through the river port en route to the trails leading west. Saloons and gambling halls flanked the thoroughfares. Unsuspecting travelers were victims of highway robbers and stray bullets from gunfights. Once Chivington improved the quality of the local schools, he set to work reforming the city. Dressed in ministerial garb complete with white shirt and black collar, Chivington took to the streets, preaching to individuals most vulnerable to the vices all around. He was successful in closing down a few bars and escorting out of town those people who refused to succumb to the ways of polite society. St. Joseph remained a respectable community for more than eight years. Chivington’s presence helped keep order.[21]

  When rumors of a possible Civil War reached St. Joseph in 1860, Chivington was not shy about telling his congregation that slavery was wrong. People who were opposed to his view sent threatening notes to the parson. He was warned not only to stop preaching in St. Joseph but also to stop preaching anywhere in Platte County, Missouri.[22] He was warned that he’d be tarred and feathered if he said anything against slavery. Chivington was not intimidated. The Sunday following the warning he stepped up to the pulpit carrying two pistols. After laying a gun down on each side of his Bible he announced, “By the grace of God and these two revolvers I’m going to preach here today.” Chivington proceeded without interruption. Chivington’s friends seemed to recognize the trouble to which he had opened himself. Fearing that Chivington’s life was in serious danger from pro-slavery groups, his friends persuaded him to take his family to the new position the church wanted him to take. By the fall of 1856, Chivington was appointed presiding elder of the churches in the Kansas and Nebraska regions.[23]

  After two years in Omaha, Chivington was transferred to Nebraska City and was given the job of organizing the local district of the church and clearing out the negative influences that were poisoning the area. Proclaiming that he was operating on the authority of God, Chivington destroyed cases of rum and whiskey some residents had been stockpiling and strongly urged all residents to attend church.[24]

  From Nebraska City, Chivington moved with his wife and children to the Rocky Mountain District, where he had accepted an assignment as elder. It was March 1860, and a flood of humanity was parading to the Colorado gold fields and specifically to Pike’s Peak.[25] He built a home for himself and his family in Denver and then set about gathering believers to help him construct a church. The First Methodist Church in the rugged territory was a small but adequate building. From this location Chivington dispatched missionaries to carry the Lord’s message to mining camps and other settlements in his district. By the beginning of summer in 1860, a considerable degree of order had been restored to the lawless mining burg, and hundreds of prospectors were attending church and taking communion.

  The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, but John Chivington did not join in the fighting until nearly two years after the first shot. The Methodist Church did not want to lose one of its most effective ministers. Committees were formed by southern supporters to keep clergymen like Chivington from speaking out against their fight with the north. Chivington could not be kept quiet. He told a congregation before him at the funeral of a Union recruit: “I am a man of lawful age and full size, and was an American citizen before I became a minister. If the church had required me to renounce my rights of manhood or American citizenship before I became a minister, I should have respectfully declined.”[26]

  Shortly after the First Colorado Volunteer Cavalry Regiment was formed, Chivington offered his services. He declined an appointment as chaplain for the regiment and requested a combat post. Newly elected governor of Colorado William Gilpin honored Chivington’s request and appointed him a major over the First Colorado Regiment.[27] Chivington’s military experience was limited to a few months of service in a militia company in Ohio and reading numerous books on the subject of military history and tactics. Chivington’s natural leadership ability prompted officers around him to place him in charge of training soldiers for service. He eventually rose in rank to colonel. He led more than four hundred volunteers through the Battle of Glorieta Pass. The confrontation involved a showdown between a scattered Union and Confederate forces that had campaigned in New Mexico, one alert watching for blue or gray uniforms and the other watching for Apache and Navajo warriors. Union forces won the battle, captured Albuquerque, and occupied it during the summer of 1863.[28]

  Chivington proved himself to be an effective military officer. Acting quickly against enemy troops, Chivington and the First Colorado Regiment managed to overtake Confederate soldiers and confiscate their supply train and cannons at a crucial time in the battle. He was well respected by his superiors and troops alike.[29]

  Chivington’s regiment returned to Colorado in January 1863. The small number of troops under the colonel’s command was the only organized defense against hostile Indians in the territory. The job of the regiment was to protect the areas of eastern Colorado and western Kansas. They were kept quite busy during the spring and summer of 1863 dealing with a number of Indian raids on settlers. Property was stolen, livestock was driven off, and people were killed. The Indians were pushing back against the boundary-less white men. The Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne combined forces to rid their land of further invasions. The job securing the plains eventually became overwhelming.[30]

  Colorado Governor John Evans was implicated in creating the conditions for the Sand Creek Massacre.

  The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-2873

  Political and military leaders in Nebraska and Colorado quickly informed Washington of the predicament, and help came by way of two Indian agents. The agents were married to Arapaho women and had the ear of both Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian chiefs. The agents were instructed to negotiate a peace treaty with the warring Indians. None of the Indians from the combined tribes would agree to any of the United States proposals for peace.[31] Colonel Chivington was appalled at their obstinacy and their unrelenting assault on westward pioneers. Cheyenne Dog Soldiers defied
every attempt by Chivington and his regiment to stop numerous raids. Only the youngest and strongest members of the tribe were Dog Soldiers. According to historian and author Robert H. Lowie, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers were “ambitious men who enjoyed torturing and killing and believed that old age was evil and to die young in battle a point of honor.” Colonel Chivington believed the Dog Soldiers were an enemy that could only be defeated by complete annihilation.[32]

  Throughout the summer of 1864, Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans sent urgent messages to various military and civilian authorities asking for additional troops to help in the Plains Indian War. In mid-August approval was given by military personnel in Washington, D.C., to recruit volunteers to aide in the fighting. Colonel Chivington was in charge of dispatching these troops to points along the Overland Trail where many wagon trains and stagecoaches had been overtaken by Indians. Chivington and his volunteers managed to bring about some order with a small band of Cheyenne and Arapaho who initially refused to enter into a treaty with the government.[33]

  On September 4, 1864, Chief Black Kettle delivered a written message to the garrison at Fort Lyon expressing that all the Plains Indians, specifically the Southern Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho, wanted to talk peace. “All have come to the conclusion to make peace with you, provided you make peace with us,” Black Kettle’s note read. “We have several prisoners of yours which we are willing to give up providing you give up yours.”[34]

  Military officers along with more than two dozen armed troops agreed to meet with Black Kettle and other tribal chiefs to discuss a conference to be held in Denver to negotiate terms of a peace agreement. The conference was held on September 28, 1864, outside Denver at Camp Weld. Among the Indian leaders participating in the summit were White Antelope, chief of the Cheyenne; Bull Bear, chief of the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers; Arapaho Chief Left Hand’s brother, Neva; and several other minor chiefs of both tribes. The United States was represented by Governor John Evans, Colonel George Shoup, Major E. W. Wynkoop, Indian agent Simeon Whitely, Colonel John M. Chivington, and several private citizens.[35]