The following extract from the report of the indian commission relating especially to Colorado, will be found a fair specimen of the whole document;
    "From this time until the twelfth of April, 1864, these Indians were confessedly at peace. On that day a man by the name of Ripley, a ranchman, came into Camp Sanborn, on the South Platte, and stated that the indians had taken his stock. He did not know what tribe. He asked and obtained of Captain Sanborn, the commander of the post, troops for the purpose of pursuit. Lieutenant Dunn, with forty men, were put under the guide of this man Ripley, with instructions to disarm the indians found in possession of Ripley's stock. Who or what Ripley was we know not. That he owned stock, we have his own word--the word of no one else. During the day indians were found. Ripley claimed some of the horses. Lieutenant Dunn ordered the soldiers to stop the herd, and ordered the indians to come forward and talk with him. Several of them rode forward and when within six or eight feet Dunn ordered his men to dismount and disarm the indians. The indians, of course, resisted, and a fight ensued. What indians they were he knew not. From bows and arrows found, he judged them to be Cheyennes. Dunn, getting the worst of the fight, returned to camp, obtained a guide and a remount, and next morning started again. In May following, Major Downing, of the first Colorado cavalry, went to Denver, and asked Colonel Chivington to give him a force to move against the indians. For what purpose we do not know. Chivington gave him the men, and the following are Downing's own words: "I captured an indian and required him to go to the village or I would kill him. This was about the middle of May. This was about eleven o'clock in the day--traveled all that day and all that night. About daylight I succeed in surprising the Cheyenne village of Cedar Bluffs, in a small ca�on, about sixty miles north of the South Platte river. We commenced shooting. I ordered the men to commence killing them. They lost, as I am informed, twenty-six killed and thirty wounded. My own loss was one killed and one wounded. I burnt up their bodies, and everything I could get hold of. I took no prisoners. We got out of ammunition and could not pursue them." In this camp, the indians had their women and children. He captured a hundred ponies, which, the officer says, were "distributed among the boys for the reason that they had been marching almost constantly day and night for nearly three weeks." This was done because such conduct "was usual," he said, "in New Mexico." About the same time, Lieutenant Ayres, of the Colorado troops, had a difficulty in which an indian Chief, under a flag of truce, was murdered. During the summer and fall of this year, occurrences of this character were frequent. Some time during the fall Black Kettle and other prominent chiefs of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe nations, sent word to the commander at Fort Lyon, that the war had been forced upon them, and they desired peace. They were then upon their own reservation. The officer in command, Major E. W. Wynkoop, first Colorado cavalry, did not feel authorized to conclude a treaty with them, but gave them a pledge of military protection until an interview could be procured with the governor of Colorado, who was superintendent of indian affairs. He then proceeded to Denver, with seven of the leading chiefs to see the governor. Col. Chivington was present at the interview. Major Wynkoop, in his sworn testimony before a previous commission, thus relates the action of the governor when he communicated the presence of the chiefs seeking peace: "He (the governor) intimated that he was sorry that I had brought them; that he considered he had nothing to do with them; and that they had declared war against the United States, and he considered them in the hands of the military authorities; that he did not think anyhow, it was policy to make peace with them until they were properly punished, for the reason that the United States would be acknowledging themselves whipped." Wynkoop further states that the governor said the third regiment of Colorado troops had been raised on his representations at Washington, "to kill indians, and indians they must kill."
    Wynkoop then ordered the indians to move their villages nearer to the fort, and bring their women and children, which was done. In November this officer was removed, and Major Anthony of the first Colorado cavalry, ordered to take command of the fort. He too, assured the indians of safety. They numbered about 500 men, women and children. It was here, under the pledge of protection that they were slaughtered by the third Colorado, and the battalion of the first Colorado cavalry, under Colonel Chivington. He marched from Denver to Fort Lyon, and, about daylight in the morning of the twenty-ninth of November, surrounded the indian camp, and commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. The particulars of this massacre are too well known to be repeated here, with all its heart-rending scenes. It is enough to say that it scarcely has its parallel in the records of indian barbarity. Fleeing women, holding up their hands and praying for mercy, were brutally shot down; men were tortured and mutilated in a manner that would put to shame the savage ingenuity of interior Africa.
    No one will be astonished that a war ensued which cost the government $30,000,000, and carried conflagration and death to the border settlements. During the spring and summer of 1865 no less than 8,000 troops were withdrawn from the effective force engaged in suppressing the rebellion to meet this indian war.
    The result of the year's campaign satisfied all sensible men that war with indians was both useless and expensive. Fifteen or twenty indians had been killed, at an expense of more than $1,000,000 a piece, whilst hundreds of our soldiers had lost their lives, many of our border settlers been butchered, and much property destroyed. To those who reflected on the subject, knowing the facts, the war was something more than useless and expensive. It was dishonorable to the nation and disgraceful to those who originated it.

Source:

Unknown, "The Indian Commission on Sand Creek," The Weekly Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, Wednesday, 22 January, 1868, page 2.