A Letter After Sand Creek

Based on Captain Silas Soule's eyewitness letter, Colorado Territory, 1864

Dear Friend,

I write because silence has become a kind of complicity, and I cannot keep it.

On the morning of the attack at Sand Creek, I had command of Company D. Orders were plain enough in language, but not in conscience. The village before us was not arranged as a battle line. It was a camp with lodges, families, old men, women, and children.

I determined my company would not fire. We crossed the creek and held position, while other troops advanced and opened upon the camp. In the first confusion I still believed some restraint might prevail. It did not.

What followed was not a soldier's fight. It was killing at close range among people attempting to flee. I saw acts that no man should defend and no official report should conceal.

In the days after, many sought to name it a victory. I could not use the word. A victory is won against armed resistance. This was something else, and every man who stood near enough knows it.

I have set these matters down plainly because I expect they will be denied in polished language by men who were not where I stood. Paper can be made to say many things, but it cannot clean a field after the fact.

I know well the cost of writing this. Colorado is a small world, and memory here is long. But if officers can witness such a day and then call it honorable, then our uniforms are little more than cloth.

I would rather be charged with disloyalty to command than disloyalty to truth.

Respectfully,
Silas S. Soule
Captain, First Colorado Cavalry