Mochi's War

by Enss, Chris

  News of the horrible massacre and the lead role Chivington played in it traveled quickly from Denver to points east of the Mississippi. Officials associated with the war department such as Major General Alexander McCook, commander of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, called the atrocity one of the most “cold-blooded, revolting, and diabolical ever conceived by man or devil.”[16] Major General McCook was assigned by the government the duty of investigating the Sand Creek Massacre. Having fought against the Indians in several campaigns, he was experienced in their tactics, character, and disposition. The war department considered his assessment of the matter to be valuable and unbiased.

  According to the September 8, 1865, edition of the Delphi Weekly Times, “the sworn account of witnesses of the affair is enough to make any man blush for his species.” The news article continued,

  It was an indiscriminant, wholesale murder of men, women and children, accompanied by the disfigurement of dead bodies of both sexes in every revolting and sickening form and manner. Unborn babies were torn from the womb of dying mothers and scalped. Children of the most tender age were butchered, soldiers adorned their hats with portions of the bodies of both males and females, and the flag and uniform of the United States were disgraced by acts of fiendish barbarity, so revolting in their details that a truthful account cannot be published in a respectable journal without giving offense to decency. And all these atrocities were committed on a band of Indians, who had voluntarily entrusted themselves to the protection of the government, received assurances of care, and who had flying above the encampment at that time a white flag given to them with the promise that this was to be to them security and guardianship as long as they remained under it and continued to be friendly.

  These Indians were under the leadership of “Black Kettle,” a chief whose friendship for the whites had been proverbial for years. He brought the men, women and children of his tribe together to live near the fort, and under the care of the whites. His trust was repaid by indiscriminant massacre; his friendship was rewarded by outrage on the living and disfigurement of the dead; his confidence requited by betrayal, and by murder, so sickening in its form that it passes all understanding to imagine how anyone could have executed it.

  All these facts are established by sworn statements in possession of General McCook, and they agree in every respect with the testimony taken by a Lieutenant Colonel Tappan, of the First Colorado Cavalry who was at Sand Creek but refused to participate in the slaughter.[17]

  George Bent, a Cheyenne American who chose to live and fight as a Cheyenne warrior, is pictured here with his wife, Magpie.

  The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-8878

  Colonel Chivington had no idea that a bitter controversy would arise after he and his men attacked the Indians at Sand Creek. According to the December 22, 1864, edition of the Rocky Mountain News, Chivington and the troops were treated like heroes when they first returned to Denver in mid-December. The Colorado legislature passed a resolution expressing the gratitude of the people of the territory to Chivington for his actions.[18]

  Many settlers believed the Sand Creek Battle was necessary to teach the Indians that they must come to terms with the reality that they were a conquered people. White men, women, and children could not be stopped from invading their homeland. Pioneers in Central City, Colorado, took the actions at Sand Creek to mean that they had permission to rid the frontier of Indians using any means they saw fit. Some immigrants soaked bread in strychnine and left it on the trail for hungry Indians to find.[19] According to the November 11, 1869, edition of the Miners Register, “one hundred men, women and children were killed from eating the poisoned bread.” “That is the kind of warfare we approve of,” the article continued, “and should be glad to see it introduced here. It is a cheaper peculiarity than to kill them [Indians] with powder and lead.”[20]

  Satisfied that they had done their best to protect the region from being overrun by warring Indians, members of the cavalry volunteer regiment whose enlistments had ended returned to their homes and families. Colonel Chivington was mustered out of service on January 6, 1865.[21] By then the controversy around Sand Creek had just begun to attract attention. Chivington was being courted by wealthy landowners, merchants, and political leaders as a nominee for Congress.[22] Colorado had yet to be named a state, but hopeful citizens believed it was inevitable and wanted Chivington to be their representative. Those vehemently opposed to the former colonel being involved in any political venture cited his actions at Sand Creek as their reason.[23]

  On January 15, 1865, a formal report was submitted to the war department by Indian interpreter John S. Smith. After being made fully aware of what had transpired from the men who had served with Chivington, Smith submitted the report requesting that an investigation be conducted. Included in the report were affidavits from the soldiers who witnessed the massacre. When the strongly worded report reached the desk of General Henry Halleck, President Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff, he quickly agreed that an investigation was necessary. “Colonel Chivington’s assault on Sand Creek was upon Indians who had received some encouragement to camp in the vicinity under some erroneous supposition of the commanding officer at Fort Lyon that he could make a sort of ‘city of refuge,’” the report read. “However wrong that may have been, it should have been respected and any violation of known arrangements of that sort should be severely rebuked.”[24]

  Chivington’s account of what happened was significantly different from the reports submitted by the officers who served under him. In the official report to his superiors in 1865, Chivington stated:

  My reason for making the attack on the Indian camp was that I believed the Indians in the camp were hostile toward the whites. The idea that they were of the same tribes with those who had murdered many persons and destroyed much valuable property on the Platte and Arkansas Rivers during the previous spring, summer, and fall was beyond doubt.

  When a tribe of Indians is at war with the whites it is impossible to determine what party or band of the tribe they are in or the names of the Indian or Indians belonging to the tribe, so at war all are guilty of acts of hostility. The most that can be ascertained is that Indians of the tribe have performed the acts. During the spring, summer and fall of 1864, the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians, in some instances assisted, or led by the Sioux, Kiowa, Comanche and Arapaho, had committed many acts of hostility. . . . Their rendezvous was on the headwaters of the Republican, probably one hundred miles from where the Indian camp was located. I had every reason to believe that these Indians were directly or indirectly concerned in the outrages which had been committed upon the whites. I had no means of ascertaining what were the names of the Indians who had committed these outrages other than the declaration of the Indians themselves; and the character of the Indians in the western country for truth and veracity, like their lack of respect for the chastity of women who may become prisoners in their hands is not of that order which is calculated to inspire confidence in what they may say. . . .

  With positive orders from Major General Curtis, commanding the department of punishment the Indians should receive, decided my course and resulted in the battle of Sand Creek, which has created such a sensation in Congress through lying reports from interested and malicious parties.[25]

  Colonel Chivington did not know exactly how many Indians had been killed in the battle. He estimated that a couple hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho lost their lives at Sand Creek. He was certain there were only a few women and children among the casualties and was emphatic that none had been killed who didn’t first attack his troops. “Officers who passed over the field, by my orders, after the battle, for the purpose of ascertaining the number of Indians killed, report that they saw but one woman who had been killed, and one who had hanged herself; I saw no dead children,” Chivington noted in his initial report about the battle. “From all I could learn, I arrived at the conclusion that but few women or children had been slain. I am of the
opinion that when the attack was made on the Indian camp the greater number of squaws and children made their escape, while the warriors remained to fight my troops.”[26]

  Contradictory reports from Chivington and the men who participated in the attack prompted not only a military investigation but also a Senate inquiry into the condition of the Indian tribes.[27]

  Three days before the House of Representatives passed a bill directing the Committee on the Conduct of War to initiate the investigation, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota Indians banded together and attacked a way station near Julesburg, Colorado. The Indian army numbered more than one thousand braves, including a well-known Cheyenne warrior named Roman Nose and a Sioux warrior named Crazy Horse. The various Northern Plains tribes combined forces to not only overtake the way station but also raid ranches and stagecoaches up and down the valley of the South Platte River. It was revenge for the slaughter at Sand Creek. Fourteen United States soldiers and four civilians lost their lives at the Battle of Julesburg on January 7, 1865.[28]

  After the attack the Indians assembled at a camp near Cherry Creek, Colorado. Mochi was one of the many survivors from the Sand Creek Massacre who had escaped with Black Kettle to the prairie.[29] The forlorn band was grieving the loss of family and friends. Under normal circumstances Mochi would have been able to bury her mother, father, and husband soon after they had been killed. The Cheyenne believed that ghosts might linger near the bodies of the deceased and take their spirit if they weren’t buried quickly. This was particularly so with children. Wives would remain at the graves of their husbands, parents would stay at their children’s plot, and none could be persuaded to leave for days after their passing. Mourners would cut their hair and gash their heads or legs with a knife, shedding their own blood in remembrance of the loved ones lost.[30]

  If Mochi’s husband had any property that belonged to him she would have laid him to rest with those items. If the lodge she and her husband had lived in had not been burned to the ground, she would have torn it down herself and given it to others in the community. Mochi would have kept only one blanket for herself and returned to live with her parents. There was no one left from her immediate family to turn to, and, apart from the clothes she wore, she had no personal possessions.[31]

  Major Scott J. Anthony of the First Colorado Cavalry demanded the Indians surrender their weapons and then sent them to set up camp on Sand Creek.

  The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-8877

  Mochi’s despair turned to rage. She joined the warriors who attacked the outpost near Julesburg and vowed to avenge the death of her family. While she and the other Indians planned more raids, a United States military commission prepared to hear testimony about the Sand Creek Massacre from Major Scott Anthony, Indian agent John S. Smith, Colonel Chivington, and many others.[32]

  Statements made against Chivington during the investigative hearing were damning. He tried to defend his actions by informing the committee that he had been told by his officers that the Indians along the Sand Creek were hostile. Chivington denied ever being told the Indians were under protection of the government. “I had no reason to believe that Black Kettle and the Indians with him were in good faith at peace with the whites,” the colonel assured the interrogators on the case. “The day before the attack Major Scott Anthony told me that these Indians were hostile,” Chivington reported. Chivington told investigators he ordered his sentinels to fire on the Indians if they attempted to come into the post and that the sentinel had fired on them for doing so. Chivington anticipated the Indians’ attack. Major Samuel G. Colby, a United States Indian agent, told Chivington that he had done everything in his power to make the Indians behave themselves but that “nothing short of sound whipping would bring peace with them.”[33]

  Colonel Chivington, who acted as his own council at the hearing, was adamant that he did not approve, authorize, or even know of any mutilations of Indian bodies at Sand Creek and requested any and all evidence to the contrary be presented to him. He would not accept the word of army officers who testified to the atrocities seen at Sand Creek. Chivington believed those men were pro-Indian and traitors to their country. “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians,” the colonel recalled telling his troops. “I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”[34]

  Cheyenne Indians usually rested during the winter months, but what happened at Sand Creek and the trail surrounding it changed their way of life. They declared war on the United States, and the Dog Soldiers specifically wanted to make Chivington answer for his actions.[35]

  When word that serious problems loomed on the frontier reached President Abraham Lincoln, he ordered more than seven thousand troops to travel west to help bring order. Mochi, along with hundreds of other bitter Indians, promised to fight to the death against “white man’s” idea of peace.[36]

  1. Elbert County Banner, September 1, 1899; Patricia Kinney Kaufman, My Mother’s People to Colorado They Came, 33–34; Patrick M. Mendoza, Song of Sorrow: Massacre at Sand Creek, 91; Lori Cox-Paul, “John M. Chivington: The ‘Reverend Colonel’ ‘Marry-Your-Daughter’ ‘Sand Creek Massacre,’” 130.

  2. Patrick M. Mendoza, Ann Strange-Owl-Raben, and Nico Strange-Owl, Four Great Rivers to Cross: Cheyenne History, Culture and Traditions, 66–68; Denver Republican, October 5, 1894; Reginald S. Craig, The Fighting Parson: Biography of Colonel John M. Chivington, 188–89.

  3. Craig, Fighting Parson, 190; Luella Shaw, True History of Some of the Pioneers of Colorado, 81.

  4. Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865; George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent Written from His Letters, 144–45.

  5. Daily Tribune, October 16, 1971; Mendoza, Song of Sorrow, 96.

  6. Mendoza, Song of Sorrow, 97–98; Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865.

  7. Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865; Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 33; Craig, Fighting Parson, 192.

  8. Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 1865; Daily Tribune, October 16, 1971.

  9. Daily Tribune, October 16, 1971; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 155; Mendoza, Song of Sorrow, 97.

  10. Mendoza, Song of Sorrow, 97; Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865; Mendoza et al., Four Great Rivers to Cross, 69.

  11. Mendoza et al., Four Great Rivers to Cross, 70; Peter Harrison, Mochi: Cheyenne Woman Warrior, 4–5; Report from the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, 182; Linda Wommack and John L. Sipes, Jr., “Mo-chi: First Female Cheyenne Warrior,” Wild West Magazine, April 2008.

  12. Craig, Fighting Parson, 196; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 156.

  13. Hyde, Life of George Bent, 194; Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 1865; Rocky Mountain News, March 3, 1929.

  14. Craig, Fighting Parson, 196; Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 34; Dubois County Daily Herald, March 23, 1973; Huntington Democrat, August 31, 1863.

  15. Hyde, Life of George Bent, 157–58.

  16. Daily Missouri Republican, August 18, 1865.

  17. Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865.

  18. Rocky Mountain News, December 22, 1864.

  19. Eugene Ware, The Indian Wars of 1864, 280–85.

  20. Miners Register, November 11, 1869.

  21. Craig, Fighting Parson, 202; Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 34–35.

  22. Cox-Paul, “John M. Chivington: The ‘Reverend Colonel,’” 132; Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 35.

  23. Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 35; Joseph Cummins, The World’s Bloodiest History, 99.

  24. Jacob P. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, 427; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142.

  25. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142; Craig, Fighting Parson, 261–64.

  26. Craig, Fighting Parson, 264–65; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142.

  27. U.S. Senate Documents, Reports of Committee No. 156; Craig, Fighting Parson, 205; Hyde, Life of George Bent,
163.

  28. Hyde, Life of George Bent, 169–70; Craig, Fighting Parson, 221; Harrison, Mochi: Cheyenne Woman Warrior, 4; Wommack and Sipes, “Mo-chi: First Female Cheyenne Warrior.”

  29. Wommack and Sipes, “Mo-chi: First Female Cheyenne Warrior”; Mendoza et al., Four Great Rivers to Cross, 70–71.

  30. George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians: Their History & Lifeways, 193–94.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Mendoza et al., Four Rivers to Cross, 75; Harrison, Mochi: Cheyenne Woman Warrior, 4.

  33. Craig, Fighting Parson, 264–65; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142.

  34. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142.

  35. Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians, 193–94; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 200–1.

  36. Harrison, Mochi: Cheyenne Woman Warrior, 4; Mendoza et al., Four Rivers to Cross, 74–75.