Buffalo Soldiers on the Colorado Frontier

Nancy K. Williams

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2021
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439672242
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

The legendary Buffalo Soldiers, four army regiments of former slaves, were vital in taming the American frontier. The Tenth Cavalry of African American troopers rode across the Colorado plains to battle the Cheyennes and rescue wounded, starving soldiers at Beecher Island on the Arikaree River. Under the cover of darkness, the Ninth Cavalry aided besieged troops pinned down by Ute sharpshooters at Milk Creek. They drove off Cheyenne Dog Soldiers attacking a stagecoach of nervous travelers on the Smokey Hill Trail to Denver. And they braved howling blizzards and deep snowdrifts to protect lonely homesteads and wandering prospectors. Author Nancy K. Williams details the bravery and valor of these historic servicemen who served proudly defending America's Wild West.

1

SAND CREEK IGNITES THE COLORADO WAR

The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought a flood of immigrant wagon trains pouring across the Colorado plains, infuriating the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who mistakenly thought their attacks had driven out the soldiers and settlers and stopped the invasion of their lands. As travelers crossed the prime buffalo country along the Smoky Hill Trail, a main road to Denver, and the Overland Trail, a connection to the Oregon Trail, they were often set upon by large war parties. Angry, frightened Colorado citizens demanded action. Terrorized farmers and ranchers moved their families into Denver as the deadly raids on isolated homesteads on the plains increased. There was little peace of mind in the territorial capital, where everyone was afraid that the tribes were gathering to overrun the town. People clamored for a volunteer militia that could pursue the Indians and drive them completely out of the territory. A full-page editorial in the Rocky Mountain News called for “the extermination of the red devils” and urged readers to “take a few months off and dedicate that time to wiping out the Indians.”

Governor Gilpin’s call for volunteers brought shopkeepers, tavern owners, drifters, and ranch hands to enlist in the First Colorado Volunteer Infantry Regiment, with Major John Chivington in command. Addressing a gathering of church deacons, Chivington, a Methodist minister, declared, “The Cheyenne will have to be soundly whipped—or completely wiped out—before they will be quiet. It simply is not possible for Indians to obey or understand a treaty. The only thing to do is kill them.…It’s the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado.”

During the summer of 1864, there were more Cheyenne attacks on homesteads and ranches near Denver. On June 11, 1864, the Hungate family, Nathan and his wife, Ellen, their six-year-old daughter, and six-month-old baby, were killed at their small homestead southeast of Denver. Their mutilated bodies were put on public display in Denver, horrifying and infuriating the local citizens. The public was inflamed and eager to “kill the Indians” or drive them out of the Colorado Territory. In August, Governor Evans, who was strongly anti–Native American, issued a proclamation authorizing “all citizens of Colorado…to go in pursuit of all hostile Indians [and] kill and destroy all enemies of the country.” Then he ordered “friendly” Indians to go to certain forts for their “safety and protection,” and those who refused would be viewed as “hostile,” to be “pursued and destroyed.” Evans organized a second cavalry unit, the Third Colorado Volunteers, who signed on for 100 days to fight the Cheyenne. Commanded by Chivington, this unit was scornfully dubbed the “Bloodless Third” because it hadn’t had any battles.

In September, a group of Cheyenne and Arapahoe chiefs, led by Black Kettle, met with Governor Evans to develop a peace plan. Evans didn’t offer them any hope, saying he “was in no condition” to make a treaty, and his soldiers “were preparing for the fight.” The discouraged Indians were sent to Fort Lyon for protection, but the new commander, Major Scott Anthony, an anti-Indian ally of Chivington, sent them west to camp at Sand Creek. He assured Black Kettle and Arapaho peace chief Left Hand and their large bands of warriors and their families that they would be safe there. Then he sent a messenger to notify Chivington of the Indians’ location at Sand Creek.

In the predawn hours of November 29, 1864, Major Chivington and 700 troops of the First and Third Colorado Cavalry attacked the sleeping Indian camp at Sand Creek. The troops dashed through the village shooting into the tipis of the sleeping Native Americans. As the terrified men, women, and children scattered in all directions, looking for a place to hide on the treeless plain, they were chased down by the mounted militia and shot. Some tried to hide under the overhanging banks of Sand Creek, but the troopers pursued them, slaughtering women, children, and babies without mercy. Indians who were trying to surrender were cut down. Black Kettle was shot near his tipi, where he was flying a white flag of truce beside a giant American flag that President Lincoln had given him. After shooting every Indian they saw, the Colorado Volunteers prowled through the demolished camp, stabbing and killing the wounded, even small children and toddlers, scalping the dead, and mutilating their bodies. They took no prisoners, then burned the tipis, and destroyed the camp.

At the time of this attack at Sand Creek, there were approximately 650 Indians in the camp, as most warriors had gone hunting, leaving only a few old men behind. Historians estimate that approximately 230 people were massacred, and over half were women and children. Black Kettle was wounded but escaped with his wife. Left Hand got away but was severely wounded and was cared for by the Sioux until he died from his wounds. White Antelope, who longed for peace for his people, was killed at Sand Creek. Some of the other survivors of the massacre fled north to the Republican River, where they joined a large body of Cheyenne.

Chivington and the Colorado Volunteers returned triumphantly to Denver, where everyone turned out to cheer them. They paraded through the streets proudly displaying their battle trophies of scalps and body parts, even male and female genitalia. Some Volunteers showed off their gruesome prizes at popular saloons and took the stage at a local theater to display these horrible remnants of the slaughter.

The victory of the Volunteers, while initially praised, was soon condemned as the atrocities of the massacre emerged. Within a few weeks, witnesses began telling their stories, and the truth about the attack on these peace-seeking Indians became obvious. Accounts of the militia’s brutality—Volunteers bashing babies’ brains out and slashing off ears, fingers, and noses for souvenir ornaments; a trooper who shot a toddler who was running away; and young children slashed to pieces—all aroused the nation’s outrage.

Several investigations were conducted—two by the military and another by the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. Horrifying testimony was given by two officers who had refused to obey Chivington’s order to attack the sleeping village and had ordered their men to hold their fire. They testified that the Volunteers had committed “the most fearful atrocities that were ever heard of.” The Joint Congressional Committee on the War concluded that Chivington “deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre.…The truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand Creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities.”

Chivington was court-martialed for his leadership of the massacre and forced to resign from the militia. An army judge publicly stated that Sand Creek was “a cowardly and a cold-blooded slaughter, sufficient to cover its perpetrators with indelible infamy, and the face of every American with shame and indignation.” Governor Evans tried to cover up his part in the massacre, but he was blamed for creating a climate that made it possible. He was forced to resign as governor of the territory, ending his political career and hopes of being elected to the U.S. Senate when Colorado became a state. The 1864 Sand Creek Massacre had a negative effect on the territory’s image, and statehood was not approved for 12 more years. It ignited the Colorado War, which expanded into the Plains Wars with the Native Americans, which lasted five times longer than the Civil War, cost thousands of lives, and didn’t end until the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Historians identify the Sand Creek Massacre as one of the worst atrocities U.S. citizens ever perpetrated on Native Americans.

The treachery of the Sand Creek Massacre united Indian tribes who’d been enemies for generations. Furious over the deliberate attack on peace-seeking Cheyenne, they laid aside their differences to avenge the massacre and stop the invasion of white people. The Dog Soldiers, a militant warrior society of Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux, vowed, “We have raised the battle axe until death!”

The Colorado War of 1864–65 pitted the Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota Sioux against the U.S. Army, the Colorado militia, and white settlers in the Colorado Territory, western Kansas, and southern Wyoming. Before the end of January 1865, attacks on settlers and travelers on the Colorado plains had increased dramatically. Men, women, and children were killed, scalped, and their bodies mutilated, their wagons and carts plundered, their horses and livestock stolen, their homesteads and cabins burned.

On January 5, 1865, a wagon train heading west on the Overland Trail through northeastern Colorado was attacked by a large Cheyenne war party that killed and scalped 14 men.

On January 7, 1865, about a dozen Cheyenne warriors led by Chief Big Crow attacked Fort Rankin and then turned and fled. The fort commander, Captain O’Brien, and 60 cavalrymen chased them for a few miles, until they reached an area of high bluffs where they were ambushed by more than 1,000 braves. The soldiers whirled about and made a mad dash toward the fort, but 14 cavalrymen and 4 civilians were quickly cut off and killed. Captain O’Brien and the others reached the safety of the fort.

Next, the huge war party galloped up the Platte River and attacked the undefended settlement of Julesburg, an important stage and Pony Express station on the Overland Trail. The 50 men who ran the express office, stables, and stage station escaped to Fort Rankin just before the Indians attacked. The warriors ransacked the express and telegraph offices, tore up the stage line’s headquarters, raided the large supply store and warehouse, rounded up the horses, and carried off all the food and goods.

The westward movement of immigrants across the Great Plains caused the Indian Wars—decades of conflict from the 1860s to 1890. Courtesy of Fine Art of America reproduction of oil painting Battle at Beecher Island by Frederic Remington.

On January 14, 1865, in northeastern Colorado, two cowboys from the American Ranch were cutting wood when a large war party of Cheyenne and Sioux, hidden in a ravine, suddenly attacked them. The cowboys dived behind their wood pile, and in the skirmish that followed, one man, Big Steve was killed, and the other, Gus Hall, was shot in the ankle. Unable to run, he managed to crawl to a nearby sand bluff, which offered some protection. Hall was trapped there by several warriors, who repeatedly tried to creep up on him. The other Indians rode on toward the American Ranch, where owner Bill Morris and three ranch hands were at work. They killed all four men and then chased down two more cowboys herding cattle and murdered them. They set the ranch house, barn, and outbuildings on fire and captured Sarah Morris as she tried to flee with her two little boys.

The warriors who’d cornered Hall finally abandoned him and rejoined the others and moved on to raid more homesteads. Hall saw the smoke from the burning American Ranch buildings and managed to crawl and walk 12 miles in the frigid night to reach safety at the Wisconsin Ranch.

On January 15, 1865, a large band of Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux attacked Holon Godfrey’s isolated ranch northeast of Denver on the Overland Trail. In 1862, Godfrey and his wife, Matilda, opened a small general store and rest stop on this main route through the Colorado Territory. They sold whiskey, food, and goods and occasionally provided lodging.

Homesteaders on the plains of Kansas and Colorado were often killed and their cabins destroyed by Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux. Courtesy of Tom Williams.

Godfrey was prepared for an Indian attack with fortifications to protect his family and property. He’d constructed a six-foot-high adobe wall with strategically placed gun ports around his sod ranch house, stable, and corral. He’d even built a lookout tower, which afforded a view for miles around of the rolling prairie and the Platte River. Godfrey had an impressive stockpile of weapons and ammunition, and he’d even set up a bucket brigade in case the Indians tried to set the place on fire. Late on the night of January 15, when about 130 braves attacked, Godfrey and his three ranch hands were ready.

The Cheyenne raced around the adobe wall trying to punch holes through it, but they were driven off by the defenders’ rifle fire from the gun ports. Godfrey’s wife and the other women kept the guns reloaded and, when they ran low on ammunition, melted lead bars and quickly made more bullets. The Indians finally managed to break through the end of the wall near the corral and ran off all the horses. Then they shot flaming arrows onto the roof and set the house on fire, so Godfrey’s seven children filled buckets of water for a bucket brigade to extinguish the blaze. When the rancher was on the roof fighting the fire, he was suddenly attacked by a warrior who’d gotten inside the yard and climbed up the ladder, knife in hand. Godfrey managed to get off a quick shot, killing his assailant, and went right back to fighting the fire. The rancher knew his small group of defenders would need help if the war party kept up the attack. He was grateful when a ranch hand named Perkins volunteered to try to get through the Indians and go for reinforcements. Late that night, he quietly slipped out of the fortress, crept past the scattered warriors, and reached the Overland Trail. He followed it several miles to the next stage station, where he sent a telegram to Denver, asking for immediate help.

On the following day, January 16, the Indians set fire to the dry grass outside of Godfrey’s fortress, which started blazes in the barn and outbuildings. These burning structures were a real danger to the nearby house, so another bucket brigade sent relays of men dashing outside between attacks by the Cheyenne. The defenders finally managed to put the fires out, but the Indians kept up their merciless attack the entire day. Then they set up camp within sight of the fortress but out of rifle range.

On the morning of January 17, the Cheyenne and Sioux resumed the attack but quickly galloped off as a large dust cloud appeared on the western horizon. The exhausted defenders were relieved to see it, and they cheered as a cavalry troop from Fort Morgan rode up to Godfrey’s ranch. Days later, Godfrey put up a sign announcing the new name of his ranch, “Fort Wicked.” It was unsuccessfully attacked again by the Cheyenne in 1867. In 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad reached Cheyenne, Wyoming, decreasing travel on the Overland Trail and slowing Godfrey’s business. Weary of fighting Indians, the tough rancher closed Fort Wicked and moved to Greeley.

On February 2, 1865, Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors raided the stage station at Julesburg again, took all the supplies, and burned the buildings. Once again, Fort Rankin’s commander, Captain O’Brien, and 14 troopers made a lucky escape. They were returning to the fort and, at first, were hidden by the smoke from the fires at Julesburg. When the warriors saw them, they quickly attacked, but they were scattered by a round from a howitzer fired from the fort.

The successful attacks on Julesburg were followed by numerous raids up and down the South Platte Trail to Denver and along the Overland Trail to Fort Collins. For six days, smaller war parties from this large body of Cheyenne and Sioux attacked stage stations and homesteads along the Overland Trail. They killed settlers and burned ranches, homesteads, and wagon trains. They stole horses and more than 2,000 cattle. At night, the entire South Platte River Valley was lit up by the flames of fires that were burning homes, barns, outbuilding, everything as the white settlers paid for Chivington’s murderous deeds.

On February 4, 1865, more than 100 Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux attacked the Mud Springs stage station in Nebraska. When a troop of 36 cavalrymen arrived, they were surprised by more than 1,000 warriors, who killed one trooper and wounded several others but were finally driven off by fire from the army’s howitzer.

On February 6, 1865, 185 cavalrymen came upon a huge force of 5,000 Indians near Rush Creek, Nebraska. The troopers held off the attack with their howitzer, but they were pinned down for four days, until the Indians decided to abandon the fight and continue their journey north to the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. Other smaller groups left the band and went east to join the Northern Cheyenne and Sioux in the Black Hills. This huge body of united tribes had killed more white people than the total number of Cheyenne who’d been massacred at Sand Creek. They’d also destroyed stage stations, killed employees, and stolen the stock across more than 100 miles of the Overland Stage Line through Colorado.

The tribes went into their winter camps, and there was no more trouble until the summer of 1865, when they resumed their daily raids on homesteads, army outposts, and stage stations across Wyoming and Montana. By July, the military had stopped all civilian and commercial travel on the Oregon Trail. The Overland Stage Line couldn’t operate because it still didn’t have enough horses, and no one wanted the dangerous job of driving a stage or manning a remote station. There was no commercial travel on the Santa Fe Trail through southern Colorado because there were so many Indian attacks. Like a prairie fire, the Colorado War with the Indians had quickly spread north and east across the plains, taking a huge toll on lives and property, hampering western expansion, and slowing the nation’s growth.

Congress appropriated barely enough cash to build additional forts, but the demobilized army didn’t have enough soldiers to man these scattered posts when they were finally completed. The Union Pacific stopped construction of the transcontinental railroad because so many of its employees had been killed. The number of settlers murdered and homesteads destroyed by Native Americans was growing daily, and there just weren’t enough troops in the West to fight the war parties and protect settlers and travelers.

2

SLAVES BECOME SOLDIERS

Private William Cathy, a formerly enslaved man, was tramping through a New Mexican winter night with other soldiers of Company A of the Thirty-Eighth Infantry. These troopers were looking for a camp of Chiricahua Apaches who’d been raiding ranches near Fort Cummings. The men, most of whom were from the Deep South, shivered as a frigid wind blew through their thin uniforms. Their light coats provided little warmth against the cold desert night, and their boots were in tatters from stumbling over miles of rugged, rocky terrain. Two feet of new snow i...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Sand Creek Ignites the Colorado War
• 2. Slaves Become Soldiers
• 3. The Tenth Cavalry: “Ready and Forward”
• 4. The Battle of Beecher Island, 1868, and Sheridan’s Winter Campaign, 1868–69
• 5. The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869, and the Red River War, 1874–75
• 6. The Ninth Cavalry: “We Can, We Will!”
• 7. The Utes, Treaties, and Prospectors
• 8. The Ninth Cavalry in Colorado, 1875
• 9. Meeker’s Troubles with the Utes
• 10. The Battle of Milk Creek, 1879
• 11. The Meeker Massacre, 1879
• 12. “The Utes Must Go!”
• 13. The Buffalo Soldiers and the Utes in Utah
• 14. The Later Years
• Bibliography
• About the Author