Home : America At War : The Indian Wars :

Indian Warfare During The Civil War

Many officers of the Old Army used to say that the Indian wars really started when regular troops were withdrawn from the western posts for the Civil War. The record offers little to support that point of view. There were no great outbreaks in 1861, when the withdrawal actually was under way. Later on, as Indian warfare resumed in its usual desultory and unpredictable fashion and western states' and territories called out regiments of volunteers, there were more troops guarding against Indian forays than there had been before the war.

The theory that Confederate agents stirred up the Indians, an idea popularized by fiction writers and Hollywood productions, is based on the popular notion that Indians were united in opposing white invasion. The fact is that they never were. True, the Confederates did attempt some small-scale efforts, but without material result. The most ambitious effort was that of Brigadier General Albert Pike, who enrolled volunteers from the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory. In fact the Cherokee chief Stand Watie, commissioned brigadier general, was the last general officer of the Confederates to surrender - on June 23, 1865. But the record shows that the Confederate cause was little aided by the efforts of the civilized tribes.

The Minnesota Massacre

Ironically enough, the most serious Indian outbreak during the Civil War began in the American midlands but the fighting soon spread westward. It commenced in Minnesota in 1862 with the Santee Sioux, who had long been exposed to the civilizing influence of the Indian Bureau. The immediate cause of the outbreak was a delay in delivering the rations promised by treaty, chargeable to preoccupation of the governmental agencies with Civil War problems. When hungry Indians stole food and killed settlers, the rest of the dissatisfied Sioux lost no time in joining in the slaughter. An estimated 400 to 800 people were killed. Henry Hastings Sibley, commissioned colonel by Minnesota's governor, soon organized the state's defenses, harried most bands out of the settlements and won a considerable victory at Wood Lake on September 22. Of the captured Indians accused of murders, rapes and torture and tried by a military commission, 100 were condemned to death. President Lincoln reviewed the findings, and reduced the number to 38, who were hanged on December 26, 1862.

Meanwhile many of the hostile Santee had fled westward, seeking refuge among their kinsmen, the Teton Sioux. When Major General John Pope, deprived of his army after his defeat in Virginia at Second Bull Run, came to assume command of the Department of the Northwest in September, 1862, he organized punitive expeditions to pursue the hostiles into Dakota Territory. In the summer of 1863 Sibley, promoted to brigadier general of volunteers, moved up the Minnesota River toward Devil's Lake. A larger column marched up the Missouri under command of Alfred Sully, major of the 8th Infantry who had been commissioned brigadier general of volunteers.

Sibley fought the Sioux at Big Mound on July 24, Dead Buffalo Lake on July 26 and Stony Lake on July 28, while Sully captured a village at White Stone Hill on September 3. In all of these fights the use of artillery proved decisive. In 1864 General Sully undertook a longer campaign into Dakota. After crossing the Missouri River he traversed the Cannonball and Heart Rivers, defeating Santee and Teton Sioux at Killdeer Mountain on July 8. He pursued these Indians westward through the Bad Lands - not far from where Theodore Roosevelt would one day own a ranch - as far as the Yellowstone in western Montana, then turned back down the Missouri.

Sand Creek

No single event of the Indian wars has been subject to more exaggeration and overemphasis than the November 29, 1864, attack by Colorado Volunteers under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington on a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory. In A Century of Dishonor, Helen Hunt Jackson made it Exhibit A in her catalog of wrongs inflicted on the Indians. Most later writers have followed her lead, although the colonel does have a few defenders. He was censured in the findings of three inquiries: those of a joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, a Joint Special Committee to Inquire into the Condition of the Indian Tribes, and a military commission. Testimony was highly sensational in its gory details on mutilations of Indian bodies, but a surprising amount of it was prefaced by "they told me," "he said," "I heard" and even "according to representations made in our presence," and not nearly enough of it by, "I saw."

Chivington was a popular and persuasive frontier preacher, the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When the 1st Colorado Cavalry was raised in 1862 he declined an appointment as chaplain and asked for a fighting job. He was made major. At Glorieta he led the surprise attack on the rear guard and supply train that was decisive in repelling the Confederate invasion of New Mexico. He was promoted to colonel and district commander, provoking the jealousies of many volunteer officers. Backed by a party demanding immediate statehood for Colorado, he was a candidate for Congress in a bitter political campaign that had bearings on the congressional inquiries into his conduct at Sand Creek.

The southern Cheyenne had been in eastern Colorado since about 1800, when they came from the north. They became allies of the Arapaho, and by constant warfare with the Ute to the westward and the Pawnee to the eastward maintained hunting grounds sufficient for their needs. Atrocities in these intertribal wars make the worst charges against Chivington seem tame and colorless.

Although this idyllic Indian way of life was disturbed in 1859 by the "Pike's Peak or Bust" gold rush, there was no serious clash until 1863, when a Cheyenne war party moving against the Ute levied forced contributions on settlers along the way. This was followed by reports of horses, mules and cattle stolen, possibly by hungry Indians. Troops were sent to recover the stock, and shooting inevitably followed.

On June 11, 1864, rancher Nathan P. Hungate, his wife and two little girls were slaughtered by Indians. Their mutilated bodies were brought to Denver and placed on public view. The town was thrown into panic. One false alarm sent all women and children to brick business houses that were fortified and guarded. Plains travel slowed to a trickle. The supply of coal oil (kerosene) was exhausted and the settlers had to use candles. The Rocky Mountain News was printed on pink tissue paper. Chiselers cornered flour.

A regiment of 100-day volunteers to fight Indians was raised as the 3rd Colorado Cavalry. Its colonel, George L. Shoup, in later years became Idaho's last territorial governor and first elected governor. Subsequently he served as United States senator and was honored by Idaho in National Statuary Hall.

On August 29, before his regiment saw active service, a letter from Black Kettle of the Cheyenne was received by Samuel G. Colley, Indian agent at Fort Lyon on the Arkansas, 150 miles southeast of Denver, which said the hostiles had met in council and agreed to make peace. They offered to exchange prisoners in their hands for those held in Denver. The letter, however, could hardly be considered a "cease-fire" because it admitted frankly: "There are three [Cheyenne] war parties out yet, and two of the Arapahoes." Major E. W. Wynkoop of the 1st Colorado at Fort Lyon, eager to recover the captives, marched a small force to the Indian camp. There, convinced of Black Kettle's sincerity, he persuaded a delegation of chiefs to go to Denver.

John Evans, governor of the Colorado Territory (and the founder of both Northwestern University and the University of Denver) meanwhile issued a proclamation stating: "Friendly Arapahoes and Cheyennes belonging to the Arkansas River will go to Major Colley, U. S. Indian Agent at Fort Lyon, who will give them provisions and show them a place of safety ... The war on hostile Indians will be continued until they are effectually subdued."

From Fort Leavenworth, Major General Samuel Ryan Curtis, commander of the Department of Kansas, telegraphed Chivington prior to the conference with the chiefs: "I shall require the bad Indians delivered up; restoration of equal numbers of stock; also hostages to secure. I want no peace till the Indians suffer more."

These are the orders under which Colonel Chivington acted when he told the chiefs at Denver: "My rule of fighting white men or Indians is, to fight them until they lay down their arms and submit to military authority. You are nearer Major Wynkoop than anyone else and you can go to him when you are ready to do that."

Black Kettle returned to his village on Sand Creek, thirty-five miles northwest of Fort Lyon. He did not move his band to Fort Lyon, as both Governor Evans and Colonel Chivington had demanded. No arms were surrendered, no hostages given, no bad Indians delivered up, no stock restored. Major Wynkoop, however, had recovered four prisoners, and reported that he was continuing to negotiate with the Indians. General Curtis considered this a violation of his orders and relieved Wynkoop from command, demanding an investigation of charges that the major had issued supplies to hostile Indians, meaning Black Kettle's band.

At this time, Chivington, having waited two months after his conference with Black Kettle, decided to act before expiration of the 100-day enlistment of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry. Detachments from six companies of the 1st Colorado Cavalry with two howitzers joined the expedition, which marched in bitter cold through snow sometimes two feet deep. Chivington halted all traffic as he marched along the roads to prevent any warning from reaching Black Kettle's band through traders.

The attack at dawn of November 29, 1864, on the Sand Creek camp came as a complete surprise for Black Kettle. This fact in itself does not prove, necessarily, that the Indians were relying on white man's promises, for Cheyenne prowess in the field of security and information was quite as lacking in several subsequent surprise engagements when they were definitely on the Warpath.

Despite their unpreparedness, Cheyenne and Arapaho quickly rallied and from cover along the banks of the creek put up a stiff fight that lasted all day until dark, giving the lie to any idea that this was a slaughter of unresisting Indians or that the camp was mainly women and children.

Women and children were killed, although Private William M. Breakenridge (in later years a deputy under Sheriff John H. Behan, Wyatt Earp's rival at Tombstone) said, "I saw very few squaws and no children." And further, "There were a lot of scalps of white men and women, some very fresh, found in the teepees; but so far as scalps went, our boys had the best of it, for every dead Indian was scalped once, and some of them two or three times." Assistant Surgeon Caleb S. Burdsal reported that a soldier brought five or six white scalps to him, and further stated, "My impression is that one or two of them were not more than ten days off the head." What clearer indication could there be that war parties had been out since the peace talks two months before?

And though it is also clear that Chivington commanded an ill-disciplined body of vengeful frontiersmen who fought well and long, did a lot of scalping and perhaps committed other atrocities, there is no proof that Chivington said or did anything to encourage atrocities - or to stop them.

The Sand Creek Aftermath

The final exaggeration of the Sand Creek fight has been its representation as the direct cause of a great uprising of Plains Indians when the Cheyenne spread word of the white men's perfidy. It would be difficult to prove that any other tribes were influenced by such a plea or that Indian warfare became any more intense than it had been previously. One of the causes of the Sand Creek incident was Governor Evans' fear of an "alliance of Indians on the plains." But there was no such concert of action among Plains tribes before Sand Creek or afterward - or at any other time.

The actual result of Sand Creek was that its survivors fled northward, carrying along with them Sioux and Arapaho bands that had been raiding along the Kansas and Smoky Hill rivers. What the Colorado Volunteers had accomplished, then, was to drive Indians out of their territory - only to dump them across the Oregon Trail.

On January 7, 1865, this concentration of Indians attempted to ambush Iowa Volunteer Cavalry at Camp Rankin, guarding Julesburg, Colorado. But too many, too eager ambushers showed themselves too soon. The cavalry held its camp, where citizens took refuge while Indians looted the town. Subsequent raids on Rock Ridge, Sweetwater, Sage Creek and Bridger's Pass, however, stopped traffic along the trails.

At Fort Laramie 1,500 Brule Sioux, presumed friendly, had been fed during the winter. It was proposed to send them to Fort Kearny under escort to get them out of the war zone. On the way they killed the escort commander, Captain W. D. Fouts of the 7th Iowa Cavalry, and took to the hills. Colonel Thomas Moonlight of the 11th Kansas Cavalry, a district commander, went in pursuit, but the Sioux stampeded his horses and he returned afoot. This ended the war for a volunteer officer who had made a commendable record fighting Confederates in the Missouri border struggle.

First Lieutenant Caspar Wever Collins of the 11th Ohio Cavalry was killed at Platte Bridge on July 26, 1865, while leading a force to the relief of a wagon train which was overwhelmed at the same time by a large war party of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho. In the two separate fights of the wagon train escort and the relief party twenty-five soldiers were killed and nine wounded. The post at Platte Bridge was renamed Fort Caspar in his honor, using his first name to avoid confusion with his father, the regimental commander Colonel William O. Collins. Somehow the city that grew up there got its vowels mixed and became Casper, not Caspar.

Powder River Expedition, 1865

The Civil War over, General Patrick E. Connor, commanding a new District of the Plains, led the largest expedition of volunteer troops ever sent against Indians. The Powder River Expedition was organized in the summer of 1865 at Fort Laramie in four columns.

The right, under Colonel Nelson Cole of the and Missouri Light Artillery, included eight companies of his regiment equipped as cavalry and a section of three-inch rifled guns, and eight companies of the 13th Missouri Cavalry, totaling 800 men.

The center, under Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Walker of the 16th Kansas Cavalry, consisted of 600 men of that regiment. Walker was a veteran of the Bleeding Kansas troubles and, although slightly crippled by a hip ailment, had won a reputation as a fighting man.

The left was commanded by Colonel J. H. Kidd of the 6th Michigan Cavalry, who with his regiment had served under Major General George A. Custer in the Civil War's eastern campaigns. He had six companies of his regiment totaling 200 men, 90 of the 7th Iowa Cavalry, 90 of the 11th Ohio Cavalry and 95 Pawnee Scouts under Captain Frank North.

The fourth, or west, column was commanded by Captain Albert Brown of the 2nd California Cavalry with two companies, 116 men, of that regiment and a company of Omaha and Winnebago scouts under Captain E. W. Nash. General Connor himself accompanied the left and west columns, with Jim Bridger, the famous mountain man, as scout. The total force was 3,000 men short of what had been planned, clue to the fact that many volunteers had demanded their discharges on the ground that the war was ended; others, in the words of Major General Grenville M. Dodge, commanding the Department of the Missouri, were "mutinous, dissatisfied and inefficient." On August 19 Captain North's Pawnee Scouts overtook a band of Cheyenne and killed all twenty-four of them. The west column was meanwhile detached at Platte Bridge to scout the Wind River country.

General Connor, with the left column, surprised the Arapaho camp of Black Bear on Tongue River on August 29. Charging cavalry fired a volley from their carbines without halting, and the Arapaho fled. General Connor led the pursuit until he found that he had out distanced all except fourteen of his command, at which point the Indians turned on him. Fortunately, as he fell back, he was reinforced by the soldiers he had left behind and so was able to renew the running fight until the village was reached. There his troops destroyed 250 lodges and rounded up 500 horses. Connor estimated thirty-five Indians killed; he captured seven women and eleven children and lost one Omaha scout killed and seven men wounded.

Colonel Cole's right column marched 1,200 miles in eighty-two days through the Bad Lands and Black Hills, losing twelve killed and two missing in four fights with Indians. To his misfortune, however, a severe sleet storm resulted in the loss of 414 horses within thirty-six hours. Cole had already lost 225 horses and mules in a previous storm and had to abandon most of his wagons.

When Colonel Walker's center column reached the mouth of Dry Fork of Powder River on September 8, he was attacked by Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne. Cole came to his aid and in several fights that followed Cole estimated 200 to 300 Indians killed and wounded. Walker more modestly reported, "As to the number of Indians killed in our long fight with them I cannot say as we killed one. I saw a number fall, but they were at once carried off." Walker's column lost 225 horses and 25 mules in its march of 600 miles in forty-seven days.

Cole and Walker failed to make junction with Connor until their men were exhausted and starving. Forced to exist on the meat of their few surviving horses, they fell back for supplies to a depot established by Connor at the Bozeman Trail crossing of the upper Powder River, at the time called Fort Connor but later renamed Fort Reno for Major General Jesse L. Reno, who had been killed at the battle of South Mountain, Maryland, on September 14, 1862.

Jay Monaghan. Wild Indians During the Civil War. The Book of the American West. Simon & Schuster New York, NY 1969.

The U.S. Cavalry and the Indian Wars European settlers and Native Americans had a long history of conflict that culminated in the Indian Wars. Many lives were lost as each side sought control over important land in the west. Reluctant readers will learn about the history of this conflict and how it affected the growth of the United States.

---

top of page

back a page