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Show BATTLE OF SAND CREEK. 91 them because I thought they did about half right.' Take the report of the committee on the conduct of the war in the matter of General Sherman's having 10,000 men slaughtered by the rebels only just to show Pemberton, or some other rebel commander, that he would fight. No man can afford to be tried by a star-chamber court. But were not these Indians peaceable! O, yes, peaceable!!! Well, a few hundred of them have been peaceable for almost nineteen years, and none of them have been so troublesome as they were before ' Sand Creek.' What are the facts ? How about the treaty that Governor John Evans did not make with them in the summer of 1864. He, with Major Lowe, Major Whitely, two of his Indian agents, and the usual corps of attaches under escort, went out on the Kiowa to treat. When he got there they had gone a day's march further out on the plains and would meet him there; and so on, day after day, they moved out as he approached, until wearied out, and suspicious of treachery, he returned without succeeding in his mission of peace. He told them by message that he had presents for them, but it was not presents they wanted, but war and plunder. " What of the peaceableness of their attack on General Blunt's advance guard, north of Fort Larned, almost annihilating the advance before succor could reach them ? What of the dove-like peace of their attack on the Government train on Walnut creek, east of Fort Larned, under the guise of friendship, till the drivers and attaches of the train were in their power, and by a signal struck down at once every man, only a boy of 13 years barely escaping, and he with a loss of his scalp, taken to his ears, and from the effects of which he finally died. " That was a very friendly act these Indians did when they ran off the entire stock at Fort Larned, one Sunday morning, after they had drawn their rations for the succeeding week. This herd consisted of all the cavalry and artillery horses,, all the Quartermaster's animals and all the beef cattle belonging to the caravansary department at the post. What of the trains captured from Walnut creek to Sand creek, on the Arkansas route, and from the Little Blue to the Kiowa, on the Platte route ? Of supplies and wagons burned and carried off, and of the men killed ? What of the Hungate family ? Alas! What of the stock, articles of merchandise, fine silk dresses, infants' and youths' apparel, the embroidered night-gowns and chemises ? Aye, what of the scalps of white men, women and children, several of which they had not had time to dry and tan since taken ? These, all |