Chief Bigfoot's Band was intercepted by the 7th Calvary on this day in 1890

[niyad]

12. the sand creek massacre--29 nov 1864

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Attack

Black Kettle, a chief of a group of around 800 mostly Northern Cheyenne, reported to Fort Lyon in an effort to establish peace. After having done so, he and his band, along with some Arapaho under Chief Niwot, camped out at nearby Sand Creek, less than 40 miles north. The Dog Soldiers, who had been responsible for many of the raids on whites, were not part of this encampment. Assured by the U.S. Government's promises of peace, most of the warriors were off hunting buffalo, leaving only around 60 men, and women and children in the village. Most of the men were too old or too young to hunt. Black Kettle flew an American flag over his lodge, since previously the officers had said this would show he was friendly and prevent attack by U.S. soldiers.[17]

Setting out from Fort Lyon, Chivington and his 700 troops of the 1st Colorado Cavalry, 3rd Colorado Cavalry and a company of the 1st Regiment New Mexico Volunteer Cavalry marched to Black Kettle's campsite. James Beckwourth, noted frontiersman, acted as a guide for Chivington.[18] On the night of November 28, soldiers and militia drank heavily and celebrated their anticipated victory.[19] On the morning of November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his troops to attack. Two officers, Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, commanding the First Colorado Cavalry companies D and K, respectively, refused to follow Chivington's order and told their men to hold fire.[20]

Other soldiers in Chivington's force, however, immediately attacked the village. Disregarding the American flag, and a white flag that was run up shortly after the soldiers commenced firing, Chivington's soldiers massacred many of its inhabitants.

I saw the bodies of those lying there cut all to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw before; the women cut all to pieces ... With knives; scalped; their brains knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors ... By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops ...
—- John S. Smith, Congressional Testimony of Mr. John S. Smith, 1865[21]

Fingers and ears were cut off the bodies for the jewelry they carried. The body of White Antelope, lying solitarily in the creek bed, was a prime target. Besides scalping him the soldiers cut off his nose, ears, and testicles-the last for a tobacco pouch ...
—- Stan Hoig[22]

Jis to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek. His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What der yer 'spose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? I tell you what, I don't like a hostile red skin any more than you do. And when they are hostile, I've fought 'em, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would.
—- Kit Carson[23]

Some of the Indians cut horses from the camp's herd and fled up Sand Creek or to a nearby Cheyenne camp on the headwaters of the Smokey Hill River. Others, including trader George Bent, fled upstream and dug holes in the sand beneath the banks of the stream. They were pursued by the troops and fired on, but many survived.[24] Cheyenne warrior Morning Star said that most of the Indian dead were killed by cannon fire, especially those firing from the south bank of the river at the people retreating up the creek.[25]

In testimony before a Congressional committee investigating the massacre, Chivington claimed that as many as 500–600 Indian warriors were killed.[26] Historian Alan Brinkley wrote that 133 Indians were killed, 105 of whom were women and children.[27] White eye-witness John S. Smith reported that 70–80 Indians were killed, including 20–30 warriors,[2] which agrees with Brinkley's figure as to the number of men killed. George Bent, the son of the American William Bent and a Cheyenne mother, who was in the village when the attack came and was wounded by the soldiers, gave two different accounts of the Indian loss. On March 15, 1889, he wrote to Samuel F. Tappan that 137 people were killed: 28 men and 109 women and children.[28] However, on April 30, 1913, when he was very old, he wrote that "about 53 men" and "110 women and children" were killed and many people wounded.[29] Bent's first figures are in close accord with those of Brinkley and agree with Smith as to the number of men who were killed

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre