Some do the right thing

At Sand Creek, this man Capt. Silas Soule defied the orders of his superior, General Chivington, and barred his men of the 1st Regiment from attacking the Cheyenne and Arapaho under the American and white flags. “I refused to fire and swore that none but a coward would,” he wrote later in letters to DC, which outed the event as a massacre and conflicted with Chivington’s claims that it was a battle. As a result of his courage to speak out against this brutality and wrongdoing, a Congressional investigation was launched by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War.

Soule and a few others testified against Chivington and it was determined that Chivington had “surprise and murdered in cold blood unsuspecting men, women, and children who had every reason to believe they were under [US] protection.” Despite, no one was ever indicted. Chivington retired from service before the ruling and was never tried in military or civilian court. What’s worse is the newly married, Soule was assassinated on the street in Denver near 3 months after for his testimony His murderers were never brought to justice

His condemnation of the attack was not his first act of moral courage. At 17, he was a conductor on the Kansas underground railroad and at 21 attempted to free two of John Brown’s men after Brown was hanged. Every year, the Cheyenne and Arapahos of today honor this man for his courage, for using his voice, for standing up for what is right, for initiating documentation of the massacre, and – most importantly – for telling the truth.

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Some do the right thing

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