The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1865-09-07
Gen M'Cook on the Sand Greek Mas
--- sacre.

Our old corps commander, Major Gen
eral Alexander Med. McCook, with his
personal Aid, Major Bates, and other
members of his staff, arrived here from
the West yesterday morning. Gen. Nc
Cook has been on tour to New Mexico
and Colorado, accompanying Vice Presi-
dent Foster and party, and has thorough
ly investigated, by order OF the war De-
partment, all affairs connected with the
Indians in the West. Gen. McCook no
inexperienced Judge of the Indian charac.-
ter and disposition he has not learned
what he knows of the red men from
"Cooper's Novels he has fought them
in many campaigns, and is inf enced by
no mawkish sentimentality in their Ia
vor. His opinions are, therefore, entitled
to credulence OF Chivingtons Sand
Creek massacre he gave us many inter
esting details, and he is OF the opinion
that it is one of the most cold-blooded,
revolving, diabolical atrocities ever con-
ceiyed by man or devil The sworn ac-
counts of the witnesses of the affair are
enough to make any man blush for his
species.
1t was an indiscriminate, wholesale
murder of men, women and children, ac
companied by the Disagreement Of dead
bodies of both sexes, in every revolving
and sickening form and manner. Unborn
babes were torn from the wombS OF dy-
ing mothers, and scalped; children of the
most tender ages were butchered sol
diers adorned their hats with portions of
the bodies of both male and females;
and the flag and uniform of the United
States were Gisgraced by acts of tiendish
barbarity, so revolving in their details
that truthful account cannot be pub
lished in respectable journal without
giving offence to decency And all these
atrocities were committed Oh a band of
Indians who had voluntarily entrusted
themselves to the protection of the Coy
ernment received assurances of care, and
who had flying above their encampnent,
at that time, white flag and national
banner, given them by the military au.
thorities at Fort Lyon, with the promise
that this was to be to them security and
guardianship as long as they remained
under it and continued friendly.
These Indians were under the leader
ship of BLACK Kettle" a chief whose
friend ship for the whites had been pro-
verbal for years He had been in the
employ of our Government as q scout;
had been engaged by Lieutenant Colonel
Tappan, of the First Colorado, to keep a
watch npOn the Sioux and other hostile |
Tribes; had only a few days before pre-
vented, by giving timely information,
an intended raid, and he brought the |
men, women and children of his tribe |
together to live near the fort, and under
the care of the whites His trust was re-
paid by indiscrminate massacre; his |
friendship was rewarded by outrage on
the living and Disagreement of the dead
his confidence requited by betrayal, by
rapine, by murder, so sickening in its |
forms that it passes all understanding to
imagine how any one bel he either man or
devil, could have executed it. Added to
these crimes, and making them more
heinous, is the fact that within some dis
tance of the scene of the massacre were
a body Of hostile Indians, who had. notp
riously been engaged in committing dep
relations. These, Chivington permitted
to 90 unharmed, probably because their
warriors numbered as many as did the
men of his command So to his cruel
ty must be added cowardice; to his bar
barity, poltroonery.
All these facts are established by
sworn statementsln possession of General
McCook, and they agree in every respect
with the testimony taken by Lieutenant
Colonel Tappan, of the First Colorado,
az he related them to us some days ago.