Today In History...

...the Sand Creek Massacre (1864). At least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho, mostly noncombatant women, children and elders, are brutally murdered by Colorado militia led by Colonel John Chivington. The Indians, under the leadership of Black Kettle, were camped at the direction of the US Army and Black Kettle flew the US flag over his tipi, as directed, to indicate his friendly status. As word of the massacre spread across the Great Plains, it inspired a general Indian war that would reach its' climax in 1876 at the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
Sadly, almost exactly four years later, on November 28, 1868, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led another attack on Black Kettle's surviving band, again unprovoked, and again with mostly noncombatants as the victims, this time at the Washita River. Black Kettle and his wife (who had been wounded at Sand Creek) were both killed in this engagement.