By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
If you missed our blog about the Missing Bonsall map, make sure to read it here: BonsallMap.
Just four years after Sand Creek, in 1868, the location of Black Kettle’s village was undoubtedly known. Lt. Bonsall traveled from Ft. Lyon 40 miles north to the site and measured the distance of the village. He documented the location on a strip map. But sometime after 1868, and for sure by 1908, the location became unknown. Even though Bonsall documented the location, there wasn’t anything left behind to mark the site.
However, all someone had to do was measure six miles down Sand Creek from Three Forks, which was the location of Bonsall’s camp no. 2. That camp is over a mile up the creek from what is now the National Park Service Sand Creek historic site bluff, where the NPS alleges the Cheyenne and Arapaho were camped and attacked. About a quarter of a mile above his camp no. 2, Bonsall began measuring the distance of Black Kettle’s village—this places the beginning of the village about a mile and a half up the creek from the NPS bluff.
Four veteran Sand Creek soldiers held a reunion in 1908 with the intention of marking the Sand Creek battleground.
From our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site:
An interest in marking the site emerged when four of the Sand Creek veterans set off to document the location in July 1908–Morse Coffin, W. H. Dickens, David Harden, and P. M. Williams.
‘The members of the First and Third Colorado cavalry who participated in the battle of Sand Creek in 1864, will hold a reunion at the site of the struggle on July 13th of this year, leaving Denver on the morning of that day,’ the Littleton Independent reported June 26, 1908.
Sand Creek
Early July 1908
It was a Monday afternoon when three elderly veterans, Coffin, Dickens, and Harden got off the train at Kit Carson. (Van Loan, C.E. “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.” Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
Those three veterans were joined by Lant Williams from Kansas—he was only 19 at Sand Creek. Reporter, C. E. Van Loan, went along for the ride to cover the story. The story was published in the Denver Post. Their trek down Sand Creek began the next morning.
The leader of the reunion was Morse Coffin of Longmont, seventy-three years of age. Mr. Coffin carried a large cane and had a strong sense of what was right and wrong.
‘Coffin seemed always on his guard lest he should find himself becoming too well satisfied with ‘conditions,’ as he called them, and betrayed a passion for accuracy in all things,’ Van Loan said.
Paul (who drove the wagon) said he knew the exact site of the battleground. He chased cattle all over that country and knew every inch of Sand Creek with his eyes shut. He hinted at the long argument to come.
‘Was they any trees in that country when you was there, Lant?’ Paul said.
‘Trees? Not a tree that I remember. A dead one out in the creek, I think, but no trees growing.’
‘Well, they’s trees all over there now. Big ones,’ Paul said, flicking Hannah Lady with the whip.
This started a long argument, but the old men decided there were no trees near the Indian village. Trees could grow in forty-four years, but they weren’t satisfied with Paul’s battleground.
The reporter opened and closed gates all morning, and they eventually came to the open range near Sand Creek.
‘See anything that looks familiar?’ Paul said.
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, this is where it was. That’s Charlie’s beef corral where they tell me it happened. Right down there the other side of the trees.’
The old vets said it was not a bit like it…
‘Did Mr. Creaghe know where the battle was fought?’ Coffin said.
‘Indeed, yes! Most certainly. Right down there on the flat, ‘bout half a mile from here. Found a lot of arrowheads there once and there’s bones up on the bluff the other side of the creek. Human bones. Yes, this is the place,’ Dick Creaghe said.
‘The ground doesn’t look right. It must be further down the creek.’
Dickens took a long walk over the hills, the creek bed, climbed the sand bluffs, and returned silent and satisfied.
Lant shook his head and Hardin was silent.
After a quick lunch, the teams were hitched and they drove on down the creek. Clouds piled up to the south, the rolling landscape disappeared in a mist of rain and they drifted through sheets of pouring water. The veterans, secure in slickers, stood up to scan the unfamiliar landmarks. At last, Lant thought he recognized something, but Coffin was unbending.
‘Ain’t this the place where we laid our overcoats before we charged?’ Lant said.
‘It’s similar, similar. I’ll not deny that it’s similar, but it ain’t the same. We never fought over this ground,’ Coffin said.
Before night every man had found a site that pleased him. Paul clung to the ‘Charlie-beef-corral’ delusion (Van Loan, C.E. “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.” Denver Post. July 26, 1908).
They got to the open range of Sand Creek somewhere passed Kit Carson.
The veterans mentioned not seeing trees at Sand Creek—it’s possible there were some saplings, especially in the village area. Scattered tipis could make it difficult to see everything around them. Read about the Witness Tree in chapter nine of our book. A sapling probably wouldn’t stand out in the midst of a battle—the soldiers weren’t there sight-seeing.
If anyone has information on George Creaghe, where he would have ranched, leased or rented land, either in Cheyenne County or Kiowa County, please let us know. It would have been early 1900s. The veterans were out in 1908, and he was ranching in the area then. If Creaghe did own land on Sand Creek, that is of interest to us—we would like to document how far down Sand Creek the soldiers went.
It looks like everyone the veterans encountered had a belief where the battleground was but didn’t really have sound evidence. One said he saw arrowheads, but he didn’t specify if they were stone or metal. By the 1860s, the Cheyenne were using metal arrowheads. It’s likely what the guy found were stone, and they would be much too old to be from Sand Creek. Metal arrowheads would be difficult to find on the ground. A metal detector would be needed to discover them.
Morse Coffin was convinced the other three veterans and others were incorrect and made sure he dismantled their claims. And they believed he was incorrect. None of them could agree on a single location. The site was left unmarked.
Charlie’s beef corral is more than likely no longer there, but it would be interesting to know where it was located. Van Loan also mentioned a “slow tongued Irishman.” They met the Irishman down the creek from the Creaghe ranch who said the fight happened just behind his windmill.
We don’t know how close or far they were from the Lost Sand Creek Site, the real location of Black Kettle’s village and running battle areas. We know there wasn’t an Irishman that lived on what would become the Bowen family ranch, per records. The abundance of trees also wouldn’t fit our site in 1908. There’s a lot of trees near the bottom of the village site now, but those trees were saplings in the early 1950s. It makes sense the veterans were further up the creek.
It’s possible they traveled about three miles an hour in their wagon as they made their way down Sand Creek from Kit Carson. They could have traveled about 20 miles, depending on how long they stopped at various places, including the Creaghe ranch, which is where they also had lunch. It’s unclear where they stopped at night, where a total of eight battleground locations were debated. Van Loan stated they stayed in an “old ranch house.”
We know now the correct site based on physical evidence, but they didn’t see any physical evidence. They were trying to mark the site from memory, forty-four years after Sand Creek. The Bonsall map also verifies the real location of the village and battleground areas.
It seems like the four veterans were unaware of the Bonsall map. Three Forks was a known landmark at the time, and as stated above, all someone had to do was measure down the creek six miles from Three Forks to know the location of Bonsall’s camp no. 2–the location of the village started about a quarter of a mile up the creek from that camp. The veterans never mentioned Three Forks or Bonsall’s map—it clearly went missing. If they knew about Bonsall documenting Three Forks and the village site, that would have given them the information needed to start from, instead of traveling down Sand Creek from Kit Carson, hoping to find it.
It’s interesting the four veterans weren’t joined by Irving Howbert—he’s the soldier that wrote about seeing the Indian village about two miles up the creek from the bluff (Howbert, Irving, El Paso County Pioneers, The El Paso County Democrat, December 1908). The NPS bluff is still significant—it’s just not the location of the village. It’s where the soldiers first saw the village, about two miles up the creek. Howbert had a clear memory of the bluff and first seeing the village.
Howbert provided the most detailed accounts of what the land looked like.
Howbert wrote about his experience at Sand Creek in two books: Indians of the Pike’s Peak Region in 1914 and Memories of a Lifetime in the Pike’s Peak Region in 1925. His first book was published 50 years after Sand Creek. It’s incredible how accurate his documentation was on how far away the village was from the bluff and the distance between the creek banks which he said were about 200 yards wide. He likely documented this information soon after the battle, decades before he wrote his books. It doesn’t seem plausible that after fifty years he remembered specifically how far the village was from the bluff, creek banks being 200 yards wide and other information about the creek. The creek banks at the NPS site are nowhere near 200 yards wide—they’re not very wide at all. The NPS site doesn’t fit the eyewitness accounts, and it doesn’t fit with where physical evidence was found. The NPS site has never been verified by an eyewitness or by physical evidence, just an oral history account and the belief Colonel Chivington meant the furthest bend to the south when he said the village was on the Big Bend of the Sandy and the fight was on the south branch of the Big Sandy (Report of The Secretary of War, 39th Congress. 2nd Session Special Orders No. 23, page 195).
Howbert also provided the biggest and best clues to help discover Sand Creek village and battle artifacts. His account of a running battle is not just complimented by the 4,000+ artifacts Chuck Bowen found, it is corroborated by them. He could have provided the veteran soldiers needed assistance with locating the site.
Maybe if the old soldiers were able to start further down the creek, they could have made their way up the creek to the bluff and that would have jogged a memory—they would then have the perspective they did when they first saw the Cheyenne and Arapaho camped about two miles up the creek. It’s still possible they went far enough down the creek but nothing seemed familiar because they were seeing it in reverse order.
But since they were working with limited information, it’s likely their only option was to get off the train at Kit Carson. It would also be interesting if they would have left a marker at each of their believed sites so we could compare to the real location. We could look at it on a map and see Coffin’s believed site, Lant’s believed site, etc.
It seems likely if the veterans had access to the Bonsall map or knew about his documentation, the Sand Creek Battle Ground monument doesn’t get placed in 1950 at what is now the NPS Sand Creek site. But since they left without agreeing on the right location, that left people to speculate and assume the Big Bend of the Sandy meant the bend at the NPS site and the location of the village.
The artifacts do not lie, but people do.
There were no Indians camped below the NPS bluff—there were no Indians attacked or killed under that bluff. The physical evidence verifies Sand Creek was a running battle. The artifacts show how far up the creek events at Sand Creek took place, including skirmishes between soldiers and warriors. Read about Robert McFarland and watch a video about him here: McFarland. It’s also proof the warriors were not off hunting. If the soldiers did indeed make a sneak attack on a sleeping peaceful village, it’s not possible for the Indians to get several miles up the creek. It’s not a matter of opinion the fighting took place outside of the village—it’s proven by physical evidence.
Warriors were not only in the camp, they put up a good fight, per John Smith who testified against Colonel Chivington—Smith saw “60 or 70 warriors who were armed and stood their ground and fought” (Thirty-Eighth Congress, Second Session, Congress of The United States, In The House of Representatives, January 10, 1865). It’s also important to note that since it was a running battle, he is referring to the number of Indians he saw where he was located. More warriors would have been scattered along the creek. You can read more about multiple soldiers who said warriors were in the village in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
The running battle areas began on the opposite side of the creek from the village and extended up the creek and in various directions, for several miles. Artifacts confirm this.
The media coverage was quite different back in 1908. C. E. Van Loan, of the Denver Post, accompanied the veterans on their visit to attempt to mark the Sand Creek battleground. He knew the truth and reported on the fact that scalps of young white children and white women were found in lodges at Sand Creek (Van Loan, C.E. “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.” Denver Post. July 26, 1908). He was also aware that some liked the “popular version” of Sand Creek, the false massacre claim, but the truth was known at the time.
“The site of the famous Indian fight is now is left to the prairie dog, the billy owl, the rattlesnake, the road lizard and the cottontail rabbit,” Van Loan said (Van Loan, C.E. “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.” Denver Post. July 26, 1908). Van Loan believed the Sand Creek site was hopelessly lost and would not be marked.
It could also be said the site was left to the metal detector and a rancher turned archaeologist.
Questions emerged in the ‘90s that the Sand Creek Battle Ground monument marked the wrong place. When things are unclear or there is uncertainty, the place to go to find the truth is always source material. In the case of Sand Creek, the source material is eyewitness accounts. The original source needs to be the guide.
Chuck Bowen, with the assistance of his wife Sheri, turned to original source material, looking for land description clues—they came to believe the village site and battleground areas were up the creek from the Sand Creek monument, likely on the Bowen family ranch. The biggest red flag that the monument was in the wrong place was the fact that no period artifacts were ever found below the National Park Service bluff. The bluff simply serves as a backdrop for a massacre story where it’s alleged the Cheyenne and Arapaho could not see an approaching enemy and were surprised with a sneak attack by soldiers just before the sun came up. But that claim isn’t supported by physical evidence.
In ‘95 the Bowens developed a plan to search for artifacts, using source material that could help them identify places to search for artifacts with a metal detector on the Bowen family ranch, which starts about two miles up the creek from the bluff. By ‘98 they had found several hundred period artifacts, including tipi sites, spent bullets, half of a grindstone that looked like it was pierced by a bullet, a Mexican ring bit, buttons from a dress, knives, rings, jewelry, kettle parts, coffee grinder parts, cavalry spur, and harmonica reed plates. They had their documentation notarized in October of ‘98. The number of artifacts kept growing, and by the early 2000s, they had found over 4,000 battle and village artifacts—truly a preponderance of evidence.
The village location is not in an area where the Indians would have been blocked from seeing an approaching enemy, it’s in open prairie where they could and did see the soldiers coming from several miles away (Bent to Hyde 4-14-1906). The real Sand Creek site discovery doesn’t simply place the massacre location somewhere else, it clarifies the Sand Creek story, showing a running battle between soldiers and warriors. George Bent said the warriors fought off the soldiers until the Indians could get into the rifle pits (Bent to Hyde 4-30-1913). Bent also said one of the pits held 19 people, and he wrote about upper and lower pits.
It’s always best to check the source material and make sure information is correct. In the case with Sand Creek, the eyewitnesses such as Irving Howbert, Morse Coffin, George Bent are verified by physical evidence—Sand Creek was a running battle.
Please share this blog on Facebook. The truth needs to be known. Sand Creek was not an unjustified attack on a sleeping peaceful village of women, children and elderly. Sand Creek was fighting back. See our blog about that here: GeneralCurtis.
People have a right to know, and taxpayer money has been used to tell a false story at the NPS Sand Creek site. The goal is for people to visit and to leave ashamed of their white American ancestors and their country—it’s to destroy patriotism. The massacre claim was initially used to destroy Colonel Chivington. Read about it here: SandCreekSynopsis.
Learn the truth about the discovery of the Lost Sand Creek Site, the real location of Black Kettle’s village and running battle areas in our book. Click on the Buy The Book tab in the top right or click here: WeFoundtheLostSandCreekSite. Please leave us a rating and review on Amazon: LostSandCreekBookReview.
Knowledge is power.
Truth matters. Truth wins.
