Upon hearing the news of Sand Creek, citizens of Denver celebrated. When Chivington and his troops returned they were hailed as heroes. But in the months that followed, those who testified before a U.S. military commission, the House of Representatives, and the Senate were not so flattering. One Congressional report concluded that Chivington had planned and carried out "a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty." The soldiers had "indulged in acts of barbarity of the most revolting character; such, it is to be hoped, as never before disgraced the acts of men claiming to be civilized."[1] The reports, quoted and summarized in newspapers and magazines, made the Sand Creek Massacre a powerful symbol "of what was wrong with United States treatment of the Indians, which reformers would never let fade away."[2] Once the Civil War had come to an end and the nation had buried President Lincoln, most Americans were ready for a major change in U.S. Indian policy.
Notes
[1] Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father, 1:460.
[2] Ibid., 1:461.
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