The West (1996): Season 1, Episode 4 - Death Runs Riot - full transcript

The American nation
is doomed to destruction,

and no power could save it.

It is decreed

that the measure which they have
meted out unto the Saints

shall be meted unto them,

and they are hastening on to
their work of desolation, war,

bloodshed and destruction.

And woe, woe is their doom.

The spirit of prophecy would
cry, "O Lord, hasten they work.

"Let the wicked slay the wicked

until the whole land is
cleansed."



Wilfred Woodruff.

DAYTON DUNCAN: Time after time,

Congress and the people
in the East

saw the West as a safety valve,
a place where you could go

and escape the problems of where
you were.

It was part of the whole myth of
the West.

You could escape and be free.

Well, we thought we could escape
whatever national tensions

and unresolved problems we had,

but it came back, you know, like
a big wind from the prairie,

bigger and bigger each time.

(Native American man chanting)

NARRATOR: From the beginning,
the United States had envisioned

an orderly expansion
into the West:



treaties were supposed
to legitimize settlement;

official surveys were
to map the land;

then Americans could spread
peacefully across it--

all under the guidance and
protection of their government.

But the California Gold Rush
and the war with Mexico

changed everything.

Americans were now moving west
in ever-larger numbers,

ahead of their government--
searching for new treasure,

clearing land, building towns
and cities, starting over.

But the new settlers brought
with them their nation's oldest

and most divisive issue--
slavery.

Once seen as the land of hope
and new beginnings,

the West became a breeding
ground

for the bloodshed that would
eventually engulf

the whole country.

And when war finally came, the
result in the West was chaos.

Hatred consumed entire
communities,

criminals led armies
and no one was safe.

The federal government, engaged
in a struggle

simply to hold the country
together,

could do nothing to stop it.

A pious New Hampshire woman who
moved west hoping to keep

the region free of slavery,
instead would watch

as her Kansas neighbors wantonly
killed one another.

A devout Mormon who had fled
west with his people

to avoid persecution would take
part in the worst massacre

of innocent pioneers
in American history.

A fanatical Methodist parson
would transform himself

into a celebrated soldier
and then try to build

a political career
based on murder.

While a Cheyenne chief, who
wanted nothing but peace,

would find no escape as time
and again

his unsuspecting village
became a battlefield.

PATRICIA NELSON LIMERICK:
What was supposed to be

this wonderful dream, that the
West will unite

the South and the North--

the West will be the kind of new
child who brings

this troubled marriage together.

The 1850s carry a different
lesson entirely,

which is that this is the child
that will blow up the marriage.

That's the most consequential
moment of the West

for the nation.

That's where there's no question
about how central the West is

to the whole story
of the country.

(thunder)

(Native American man chanting)

JULIA LOUISA LOVEJOY
(dramatized): A great work

is to be done, and Kansas is the
great battlefield

where a mighty conflict
is to be waged

with the monster slavery, and he
will be routed and slain.

Amen and Amen.

Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

NARRATOR: In the spring of 1855,

the Reverend Charles H. Lovejoy
of Croydon, New Hampshire,

his 43-year-old wife, Julia
Louisa, and their children

crossed the Missouri River

into the newly created
Kansas Territory.

There were thousands of settlers
pouring in that year

to stake claims in what had
recently been Indian lands.

But the Lovejoys-- and others
like them from New England--

were a different kind
of American pioneer,

not interested in gold,
land or adventure.

They were abolitionists,

part of a grass-roots movement
sweeping the North.

They were outraged that
in a nation founded

on the ideal of freedom, nearly
four million Americans

were still owned
by other Americans.

The Lovejoys had come west,

determined to keep the soil
of Kansas free from slavery.

For more than half a century,

as the United States expanded
westward, Congress had quarreled

again and again over whether
the new territories would be

slave or free, each time working
out a fragile compromise.

DUNCAN: Every time that they
thought that they had

hodge-podged something together,
some new land in the West

would become available that
Americans were settling,

and wanting to bring into the
Union, and it kept bringing it

right back to Congress.

Well, will it be free, or slave,

and will that upset this
delicate balance

that was constructed
ten years ago or 20 years ago

or thirty years ago?

NARRATOR: In 1854, Congress had
created two new territories--

Kansas and Nebraska--

and proposed to hold
a special election

which would leave the issue
of slavery

up to the settlers
who lived there.

Many in Congress believed
this new compromise

would hold the nation together.

Instead, it would tear it apart
and the West would become

a battleground for the soul
of the country.

SEN. DAVID ATCHISON
(dramatized): We are playing

for a mighty stake.

The game must be played boldly.

We are organizing.

We will be compelled to shoot,
burn and hang,

but the thing will soon
be over.

If we win, we can carry slavery
to the Pacific Ocean.

Senator David Atchison,
Missouri.

SEN. WILLIAM SEWARD
(dramatized): Come on, then,

Gentlemen of the Slave States.

Since there is no escaping your
challenge, I accept it

in behalf of the cause
of freedom.

We will engage in competition
for the virgin soil of Kansas,

and God give the victory

to the side which is
stronger in numbers

as it is in the right.

Senator William H. Seward,
New York.

LIMERICK: To hand the issue
to Kansas is to ask

for the most explosive
conditions possible.

To take the most unsettled kind
of society and throw into that

the issue that made congressmen
want to kill each other...

If you wanted to design the
worst possible conditions

to dramatize how bitter these
fights were,

you couldn't do better than what
they designed for Kansas.

NARRATOR: On Election Day,

nearly 5,000 armed
pro-slavery men,

led by Senator David Atchison,
flooded in from Missouri,

trying to influence the vote
and the fate of Kansas.

They seized polling places, cast
four times as many ballots

as there were voters
in the territory,

and installed a legislature

that made it a crime
to even criticize slavery.

Their opponents, called Free
Soilers, countered

with their own election.

They drew up a constitution that
outlawed slavery--

though it also barred black
settlement--

and then applied for admission
to the Union as a free state.

Kansas now had two governments,

and its people were about to go
to war with one another.

MARTIN RIDGE: Both sides were
supplied from the outside.

It was almost as if a civil war
were taking place

in a foreign country, with the
South providing the arms,

the money and the men
on one side,

and the New England,

ideologically-committed
abolitionists on the other.

NARRATOR: By the fall of 1855,
the Reverend and Mrs. Lovejoy

were living in the anti-slavery
stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas.

Julia began writing
a stream of letters

to newspapers back east.

LOVEJOY (dramatized):
The greatest trouble

in this part
of the Territory now

is about our Missourian
neighbors,

whose hearts are set
on mischief.

We are apprehending trouble if
not 'hard fighting'

in our quiet community.

JOHN GIHON (dramatized):
Imagine a man standing

in a pair of long boots,

the handle of a large
bowie-knife projecting

from one or both boot-tops;

a leather belt buckled around
his waist,

on each side of which is
fastened a large revolver.

Imagine such a picture of
humanity,

who can swear any given number
of oaths in any specified time,

drink any quantity of bad
whiskey without getting drunk,

and boast of having stolen
a half dozen horses

and killed one or more
abolitionists--

and you will have a pretty fair
conception of a Border Ruffian,

as he appears in Missouri
and in Kansas.

John H. Gihon.

NARRATOR: In the spring of 1856,

someone wounded a pro-slavery
sheriff,

and 800 armed men bent on
revenge stormed into Lawrence,

got drunk, destroyed two
newspaper offices,

burned down the hotel and the
home of the free-soil governor.

JULIA LOVEJOY: I caught my
darling babe from the bed,

moaning as he went.

I rushed to a place
of safety out of town

as fast as my feeble limbs
could carry me.

The scene that met our gaze
beggars description--

women and children
fleeing on every hand,

cattle, as though aware
that danger was near,

huddling together.

It will never fade
from memory's vision.

NARRATOR: When Massachusetts
Senator Charles Sumner

denounced what he called
this "Crime against Kansas,"

a South Carolina Congressman
strode onto the Senate floor

and beat him senseless
with a cane.

Three days later, on the night
of May 24,

a strange, driven man called
five unarmed settlers

whom he believed favored slavery

out of their cabins on
Pottawotamie Creek.

With the help of his sons,

he hacked them to death
with broadswords.

It was a war to the death

between good and evil,
John Brown said.

"We must fight fire with fire."

(gunshot)

During the next three months,
some 200 more men would die

in what would come to be known
as "Bleeding Kansas."

JULIA LOVEJOY:
August 25, 1856.

We are in the midst of war-- war
of the most bloody kind--

a war of extermination.

Freedom and slavery are
interlocked in deadly embrace,

and death is certain for one
or the other party.

A crisis is just before us,

and only God knoweth where it
will end.

Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

BRIGHAM YOUNG (dramatized):
We are gathered here

to build up the Kingdom of God,

to make the wilderness blossom
as the rose

and fill these mountains
with cities.

My soul feels hallelujah,
it exalts in God,

that He has planted this people

in a place that is not desired
by the wicked.

Brigham Young.

NARRATOR: It had been ten years
since Brigham Young led

his Latter-day Saints west.

And while the rest of the
country wrestled

with the question of slavery,

he continued to build his Mormon
kingdom in the deserts of Utah.

Salt Lake City, with nearly
10,000 residents,

was now the second-largest city
west of Missouri,

eclipsed only by San Francisco.

New colonies stretched
for 300 miles

along the Wasatch Mountains.

The Mormons printed
their own currency,

drove federal officials out of
Utah, and publicly announced

that polygamy-- plural
marriage--

was part of church doctrine.

Polygamy was mostly meant for
important Mormon leaders.

Brigham Young himself
had 27 wives.

Young's chief lieutenant,
Heber Kimball, had 43.

Most polygamists had no more
than two wives,

and four out of five Mormon men
had just one.

Still, the practice turned
many Americans against them.

CONGRESSMAN McCLERNAND
(dramatized): As to polygamy,

I charge it to be a crying evil;

sapping not only the physical
constitution

of the people practicing it,

but at the same time perverting
the social virtues

and morals of its victims.

It is a scarlet whore.

It is a reproach
to the Christian civilization,

and it deserves
to be blotted out.

Congressman John A. McClernand,
Illinois.

NARRATOR: In the election
of 1856,

the brand-new Republican Party
ran on a platform

opposed to what they called the
"twin relics of barbarism"--

slavery and polygamy.

The Republicans lost,

but the issues
would not go away.

ROBERT TYLER (dramatized):
Mr. President, I believe that we

can supercede the Negro-Mania

with the almost universal
excitement

of an Anti-Mormon Crusade

and the pipings of Abolitionism
will hardly be heard

amidst the thunders of
the storm we shall raise.

Robert Tyler.

DUNCAN: And when Democrat James
Buchanan won the election,

to sort of take the heat off of
this building tension

over slavery, he did a very
remarkable thing

that's only happened a few times
in our history;

he sent an army out against
citizens of the United States.

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1857,
2,500 troops headed toward Utah

to reassert federal control.

At the same time the army
slowly made its way west,

a lone wagon train entered

the southern part
of Mormon territory.

They were settlers mostly,

families traveling
with small children,

on their way to California
and a better life.

But riding with them were a band
of men who called themselves

the "Missouri Wildcats,"

and they were bent
on causing trouble

for the Latter-day Saints.

JOHN D. LEE (dramatized):
They swore and boasted openly

that Buchanan's whole army was
coming right behind them

and would kill every God Damn
Mormon in Utah.

They had two bulls

which they called one Heber
and the other Brigham,

and whipped 'em through every
town, yelling and singing

and blaspheming oaths

that would have made
your hair stand on end.

John D. Lee.

NARRATOR: On September 7, 1857,
the wagons reached a grassy area

called Mountain Meadows.

There, some 200 Paiute warriors,
encouraged by the Mormons,

attacked.

The emigrants drove them back.

The Indians settled in for a
siege, then asked the Mormons

to join them in destroying
the common enemy.

Elders sent a message to Salt
Lake City, asking Brigham Young

what they should do.

Young sent a courier back with
orders to let the wagons go.

But before the message arrived,
the Mormons at Mountain Meadows

resolved to wipe out
the wagon train

and blame it on the Paiutes.

One of the men ordered to lead
the fighting was John D. Lee,

a Mormon so loyal that Brigham
Young himself had adopted him

as a spiritual son.

Lee was used to following
church orders.

He was, as he said, "as clay in
the hands of the potter"

when it came to carrying out
the wishes of his elders.

But even he was stunned at what
he was now being asked to do.

LEE: The orders said to decoy
the emigrants

from their position and kill all
of them that could talk.

This order was in writing.

I read it, and then dropped it
on the ground, saying,

"I cannot do this."

I bowed myself in prayer
before God

and my tortured soul was wrung
nearly from my body

by the great suffering.

If I had then had a thousand
worlds to command,

I would have given them freely
to save that company from death.

NARRATOR: But in the end, John
D. Lee decided to follow orders.

On the morning of September 11,

he rode out to the besieged
wagon train

under a flag of truce.

DUNCAN: John D. Lee and some
others came to them

and said, "Throw down your arms.

"We've got the Indians
under control.

You come out with us,
and you'll be safe."

And they were reluctant to do
it, but they finally did.

And as they marched out, the
order was given,

"Do your duty."

(gunshot)

NARRATOR: The Mormons opened
fire, each man assigned to shoot

the emigrant walking
next to him.

Lee's task was to kill the sick
and wounded

riding in a wagon
in front of the others.

Then the Paiutes swept in
and finished off the rest.

In less than half an hour,

120 people had been butchered
at Mountain Meadows.

Only 17 children were spared,

thought too young ever to tell
the horrible story.

The dead were stripped of their
clothing and belongings,

which the Mormons sold
at auction.

They were hastily buried
in shallow graves

and soon dug up again
by wild animals.

STEWART UDALL: Well, I'm a
great-grandson of John D. Lee.

My middle name is Lee,

and I've studied his life
and his tragedies.

I will always believe that it
could only have happened

at that particular moment,

that if this wagon train had
come through,

as they had before, two weeks
earlier, two weeks later,

they might have gone unscathed,
so it's almost a Greek tragedy.

NARRATOR:
Two days after the massacre,

Brigham Young's messenger
finally arrived

at Mountain Meadows

with the orders to let
the wagon train pass.

John D. Lee was chosen to ride
to Salt Lake City

and tell Brigham Young
what had happened.

Precisely how much the Mormon
leader was told

of his people's role
in the slaughter is unclear.

Publicly, Young
blamed it all on the Paiutes.

Meanwhile, winter had stopped
Buchanan's army's advance,

and the "Mormon War" ended
before it really began.

In a negotiated settlement,
the president pardoned Young

and his followers for inciting
a rebellion,

and Young in turn resigned
as governor.

But he remained in effective
control of his people.

The attempt to divert the
nation's attention from slavery

had failed.

Four years later, Brigham Young
stopped at Mountain Meadows.

Federal troops,
outraged at the massacre,

had erected a makeshift monument
to those who had been murdered.

On it were the words,

"'Vengeance is mine,'
saith the Lord,

and I will repay."

Young gazed at it for a time,

then ordered the monument
torn down.

"Vengeance is mine,"
he muttered,

"and I have taken a little."

JUAN CORTINA (dramatized):
Mexicans!

It would appear that justice had
fled from this world,

leaving you to the caprice of
your oppressors,

who have become each day more
furious toward you.

My part is taken, the voice of
revelation whispers

that the Lord will enable me,
with powerful arm,

to fight against our enemies.

Juan Cortina.

NARRATOR: The treaty that ended
the Mexican War in 1848

had promised all the benefits
of United States citizenship

to Mexican-Americans.

But as civil war neared, the
federal government proved unable

or unwilling
to keep its promises.

In California, New Mexico
and Texas,

many Mexican-Americans were
denied the right to vote,

lost their lands in court

and often found themselves
persecuted,

rather than protected,
by officers of the law.

On July 13, 1859, a rancher
named Juan Cortina

rode into Brownsville, Texas,
to buy supplies.

He was a member of an old,
landed Mexican family

that had seen its power and
influence decline

with the arrival
of the Americans.

On the main street, he saw the
city marshall pistol-whipping

a Mexican laborer who had once
worked for his family.

When the sheriff refused
to stop,

Cortina shot him in the
shoulder, swept the prisoner

onto the back of his horse
and rode off with him.

A little over two months later,
with some 75 armed followers,

he rode into town again,
freed 12 prisoners from jail,

seized arms and ammunition,

and shot dead three Americans
whom he said

had killed Mexicans while
the law looked the other way.

Then, Cortina returned to his
ranch and issued a proclamation.

CORTINA: When the State of Texas
became part of the Union,

flocks of vampires,
in the guise of men,

came with corrupt hearts and the
most perverse intentions.

Because your industry excited
their vile avarice,

many of you Mexicans have been
robbed of your property,

incarcerated, murdered
and hunted like wild beasts.

Mexicans!

Is there no remedy for you?

NARRATOR: For several months,
despite constant pursuit

by American settlers and Mexican
national guardsmen,

Cortina and his men held onto
the lower Rio Grande valley.

Sympathetic Mexicans on both
sides of the border

secretly provided them
with food and supplies.

"Our personal enemies,"
Cortina vowed,

"shall not possess our lands
until they have fattened it

with their gore."

Finally, the state militia,
known as the Texas Rangers,

was sent against him.

RICARDO ROMO: Well, Juan
Cortina, he was their hero.

To the individuals who were the
small ranchers and so forth,

he was the only one that was
able to stand up and say,

"You're taking our land and now
you take away our dignity,

"and now you mistreat us,
you push us around.

We've had it."

The Texas Rangers didn't allow
anyone to rise up

as the champion of the people.

When you took on the law, you
usually got lynched

in that border region.

And that's exactly what they had
intended for him,

just to catch him and lynch him
as sort of an example

of how you don't defy
the new government.

NARRATOR: The Rangers, now
backed by federal troops,

pursued Cortina's men
to Rio Grande City

and closed in for the kill.

COLONEL FORD (dramatized):
Cortina was the last

to leave the field.

He faced his pursuers, emptied
his revolver

and tried to halt
his panic-stricken men.

One shot struck the cantle of
his saddle,

one cut a lock of hair
from his head,

a third cut his bridle rein,

a fourth passed through
his horse's ear,

and a fifth struck his belt.

But he galloped off unhurt.

Colonel J. S. Ford.

NARRATOR: Cortina fled across
the Rio Grande.

For another 15 years, he and
others continued to launch raids

on American settlers

and steal Texas cattle.

The border region remained
a "no-man's-land."

As his legend grew, Anglos
denounced Cortina

as a murderous rebel,

but to Mexican-Americans he was

"the Robin Hood
of the Rio Grande."

ROMO: My grandfather talked
about him

and my uncle claims him as a
relative,

and I was sort of struck
by that.

To every family he was part
of us in one way or another.

His legend is passed on.

His life lives on.

JULIA LOVEJOY:
Our New England friends

may wonder that
the warlike spirit

has taken such hold upon those
who, until they came to Kansas,

were as complete pacifists as
the most orthodox Quaker.

But sir, such individuals only
need a little Kansas experience

to understand the matter.

Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

NARRATOR: On October 16, 1859,

John Brown brought his Kansas
brand of abolitionism

east to Harper's Ferry,
Virginia,

where he tried to start
a slave rebellion.

Ten people were killed.

Brown was captured, tried
and sentenced to hang.

As he was led to the gallows, he
handed a guard a slip of paper.

"I am now quite certain,"
it read,

"that the crimes of this guilty
land will never be purged away

but by blood."

The whole country was now
beginning to experience the fear

that had gripped Kansas
for so long.

In 1860, the Republican
candidate Abraham Lincoln

was elected president,

pledged to halt slavery's
further spread in the West.

One by one, southern slave
states left the Union.

And on April 12, 1861, rebel
guns fired on Fort Sumter.

The Civil War that had already
begun in the West

now exploded in the East.

(gunshots)

MAN (dramatized): July 15, 1861,
washday in camp.

We went to Dempsey's ranch
after two cows

and borrowed a small fragment
of a newspaper

that Tolman and Jackson brought

from Fort Owen
on the Bitter Root.

Bad news from the states.

The North and South
are fighting.

NARRATOR: In Colorado, regiments
of Union volunteers

were recruited to protect
the rich mining districts

from the Confederates.

One of the first to step forward

was a big, bearish
Methodist minister

named John M. Chivington.

He was six and a half feet tall,
weighed 250 pounds,

and sometimes delivered sermons

with a revolver resting
on the pulpit.

Chivington, one acquaintance in
Denver said,

"is a crazy preacher who thinks
he is Napoleon Bonaparte."

Offered a chaplain's commission,
Chivington refused.

He wanted to fight for the
Union, he said,

not just pray for it.

Meanwhile, in January of 1862,

a confident rebel army of 3,500
soldiers had marched west

out of Texas into New Mexico,
where it defeated Union forces

at Valverde, seized Albuquerque,

plundered Santa Fe and moved
north toward Colorado.

Their plan was to capture Denver

and the Rocky Mountain
gold fields,

then sweep all the way west
to take California

and its mother lode
of mineral wealth.

Their motto was
"On to San Francisco,"

but they hadn't counted
on Chivington.

ALVIN JOSEPHY: Here's this army
of Texans thinking they can live

off the land and they move
through New Mexico territory

winning their battles, and they
get up there

to northern New Mexico and they
have no idea

that there's another army
coming at them.

NARRATOR: Chivington was now
a major

with the 1st Colorado
Volunteers,

hard-drinking miners,
eager for a fight.

They had marched 40 miles a day
through ice and snow

and freezing winds
to stop the Texans.

They met in a place
called Apache Canyon.

Chivington sent some of his men
scurrying up the canyon sides.

"They were up on the walls on
both sides of us,"

one Confederate remembered,
"shooting us down like sheep."

Then Chivington himself
led the charge.

OVANDO HOLLISTER (dramatized):
Major Chivington

with a pistol in each hand

chawed his lips
with only less energy

than he gave his orders.

Of commanding presence, dressed
in full regimentals,

he was a conspicuous mark
for the Texan sharpshooters.

But as if possessed of a charmed
life, he galloped unhurt

through the storm of bullets.

Ovando J. Hollister.

NARRATOR:
The rebels fell back.

The two armies met two days
later at Glorieta Pass,

and for five bloody hours they
slammed away at each other

amidst the boulders.

But while the battle raged on,
Chivington and some of his men

slipped 16 miles behind
the Confederate lines,

to a cliff that overlooked
the Texans' supply wagons.

There, they lowered themselves
by ropes, drove off the guards,

burned 85 wagons filled
with provisions

and bayoneted
500 horses and mules.

The Confederates, who had seemed
so close to victory,

now faced starvation and thirst,
as well as a hostile enemy.

JOSEPHY: And they had to turn
around and retreat,

get out of there.

And they panicked.

There they were, hundreds
of miles from their base

in San Antonio in Texas.

Nothing but deserts and
mountains between them

and their homes.

NARRATOR: Columns got lost.

Boots wore out.

Men had to stagger through
searing sand in bare feet.

Soldiers abandoned
their weapons,

collapsed from exhaustion,
dehydration, sunstroke.

3,500 men had marched
out of Texas

to conquer the Southwest.

1,500 of them never returned.

The dream of
a Confederate West was dead.

Glorieta Pass would
become known

as "the Gettsyburg of the West."

And John Chivington--
the "fighting Parson"--

was a Union hero.

JULIA LOVEJOY: Baldwin City,
Kansas, Oct. 8, 1862.

Our camp meeting in this place
was a glorious success.

Reverend Chivington,
who with his command

has accomplished such wonders
of late in New Mexico,

was present and preached from
the stand in his regimentals.

His persuasive eloquence, and
clear, ringing stentorian voice

swayed the multitude
like a Western tornado,

as it bends its massive oaks.

The work of God
is still going on.

Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

DUNCAN: The federal government
really didn't have

much of a grasp and control of
the West before the Civil War.

But once the war started,
they were concentrating

on all those battles
in the East,

and whatever control they had,
they lost it entirely.

RICHARD WHITE: The Civil War
does create more of a vacuum

in the West.

And the result is there's going
to be far more violence.

It's going to be far harder
to mediate things.

Things are going to be much more
out of control in the 1860s

than they ever would
have been otherwise.

NARRATOR: By the summer of 1863,

the North seemed to be winning
the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee's advance into
Pennsylvania had been stopped

at Gettysburg,

and Ulysses S. Grant had split
the Confederacy in two

by taking the Mississippi River
town of Vicksburg.

Yet for all the fighting
back east,

there had been few
civilian casualties.

In the West, it was
a very different war.

LOVEJOY: Guerrilla parties are
making dreadful slaughter

upon the Union men in Missouri

and stealing and destroying
their property.

The entire route
across the State

bears the marks
of the ravages of war.

Anarchy reigns in Missouri.

Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

NARRATOR: In Kansas and
Missouri, both sides waged

relentless guerrilla warfare on
innocent civilians,

as well as rival armies.

Union forces were led
by James H. Lane,

a cadaverous former senator
from Kansas

who wanted to see pro-slavery
Missourians

"cast into a burning hell."

He did his best to do just that,

haunting the trail of rebel
armies, ravaging the homes

of anyone who dared help them,

then sacking and burning
whole towns.

Confederate guerrillas
responded in kind.

Their most celebrated leader was
a former schoolteacher from Ohio

with limitless enthusiasm
for looting and killing

named William Quantrill.

Union farmers, he warned, should
not bother to plant crops;

they would not live
to harvest them.

And he swore he would burn
Jim Lane at the stake.

And of course, if you're a
guerrilla fighter

and you fight under the flag of
the Confederacy,

they impart to you legitimacy.

From the Union point of view,
these were sheer criminals.

NARRATOR: One of Quantrill's
raiders was

an accused horse thief known
as "Bloody Bill" Anderson.

He wore a necklace of Yankee
scalps into battle,

laughed as unarmed prisoners
were gunned down,

then ordered his men to mutilate
their corpses.

"I will kill you,"

he wrote to the readers of one
anti-slavery newspaper.

"I will hunt you down like
wolves and murder you."

On the morning
of August 21, 1863,

Quantrill, Anderson and 450 men

rode towards the anti-slavery
stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas,

home of Jim Lane.

With her husband serving
in the Union army,

Julia Louisa Lovejoy and her
children now lived

in a little house
just outside of town.

LOVEJOY: At an early hour
Friday morning,

I rushed out
and I could then see

every house this side
of Lawrence,

with a volume of dense smoke
arising from them

as they advanced, firing every
house in their march of death.

NARRATOR: The raiders surrounded
a downtown hotel.

A guest hung a white sheet
from the window

and asked Quantrill
what he wanted.

"Plunder!" he answered.

The guests were ordered out
and robbed.

The hotel was set afire.

Quantrill, waving two of the six
pistols he carried,

rose in his stirrups
and shouted, "Kill! Kill!

"Lawrence must be cleansed,

and the only way to cleanse it
is to kill!"

Then, while Quantrill demanded
that the terrified staff

of another hotel cook him
a big breakfast,

Anderson and his men began to
carry out Quantrill's orders.

(gunshots)

LOVEJOY: All the business
houses, banks, stores

in the city were robbed
and burned save one,

and most of the businessmen
killed.

Mrs. Reed put out the fire six
times to save her house,

and they would fire it anew,

but she, by almost superhuman
exertion, saved it.

One lady threw her arms
around her husband

and begged of them
to spare his life.

They rested the pistol on her
arm as it was around his body

and shot him dead,

and the fire from the pistol
burnt the sleeve of her dress.

NARRATOR: 183 men and boys
were killed--

fewer than 20 had been
soldiers--

and 185 homes were burned

before Quantrill and his men
rode out of Lawrence,

leaving behind 80 widows,
250 fatherless children.

Jim Lane, the principal target
of the raid,

had managed to escape through
a cornfield in his nightshirt.

LOVEJOY: The fires were still
glowing in the cellars.

Here and there among the embers
could be seen the bones

of those who had perished.

The sickening odor of burned
flesh was oppressive.

NARRATOR: To avenge
the Lawrence Massacre,

Federal troops forced from their
homes every man, woman and child

living in three Missouri border
counties and half of a fourth.

They drove thousands of people
onto the open prairie,

while Union guerrillas followed
in their wake,

burning and looting the empty
houses they left behind,

raiding the refugee columns,
stealing even wedding rings.

LOVEJOY: The very air
seems charged

with blood and death.

Pandemonium itself seems to have
broken loose

and death runs riot
over the country.

NARRATOR: During the course
of the Civil War,

no civilians would suffer more

than the people of Kansas
and Missouri.

SAM CLEMENS (dramatized):
We jumped into the stage,

the driver cracked his whip
and we bowled away

and left "the States" behind us.

There was a freshness
and breeziness

and an exhilarating sense
of emancipation

that almost made us feel that
the years we had spent

in the close, hot city, toiling
and slaving,

had been wasted and thrown away.

Sam Clemens.

NARRATOR:
Back in the spring of 1861,

24-year-old Sam Clemens and his
elder brother left Missouri

for the newly created
Nevada Territory.

Two weeks in the Confederate
militia had convinced Sam

that he was not cut out
for combat.

Like thousands of other young
men, North and South,

he preferred to go west
rather than to war.

And so he skedaddled.

CLEMENS: Ham and eggs
and scenery,

a "down grade," a flying coach,

a fragrant pipe
and a contented heart.

It is what all the ages have
struggled for.

NARRATOR: They made eight to ten
miles an hour

through an unbroken sea
of grass.

A pony express rider
galloped past.

Coyotes howled.

They saw buffalo, encountered
their first Indians,

talked with a real-life outlaw.

Sam Clemens loved it all.

It took them 20 days to reach
Carson City, the small town

that was the capital
of Nevada Territory.

CLEMENS:
Dear Mother,

Our city lies in the midst
of a desert

of the purest, most
unadulterated

and uncompromising sand--
in which infernal soil

nothing but the fag-end
of vegetable creation,

"sage-brush,"
is mean enough to grow.

Nevada Territory is fabulously
rich in gold, silver, lead,

coal, iron, quicksilver,

thieves, murderers, desperadoes,

lawyers, Christians, Indians,
Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers,

sharpers, coyotes, poets,
preachers and jackass rabbits.

NARRATOR: Still, there was
little to do in Carson City,

so Clemens set out on his own.

CLEMENS: By and by I was
smitten with silver fever.

"Prospecting parties" were
leaving for the mountains

every day.

Plainly this was the road
to fortune.

NARRATOR: He spent six months
with three partners

in a ten-by-twelve-foot cabin,
panning, digging, drinking,

going more and more heavily
into debt.

CLEMENS: We were stark mad
with excitement,

drunk with happiness,

smothered under mountains of
prospective wealth,

arrogantly compassionate toward
the plodding millions

who knew not our marvelous
canyon,

but our credit was not good
at the grocer's.

NARRATOR: Clemens would later
boast that he became

a multimillionaire
for just ten days

until 14 armed men
jumped his claim.

Next he tried his luck in
Virginia City, Nevada.

It was a tiny mining town
that had grown

to a full-fledged industrial
city in less than two years.

15,000 people lived there.

They had put in gas lights,
built stock exchanges,

three theaters, four churches
and 42 saloons.

And there was a newspaper,
the Territorial Enterprise.

Sam Clemens talked himself
into a job as a reporter.

CLEMENS:
Dear Mother...

I have just heard five pistol
shots down the street.

As such things are in my line,
I will go and see about it.

P.S. The pistol did
its work well.

One man, a Jackson County,
Missourian,

shot two of my friends (police
officers) through the heart.

Both died within three minutes.

Murderer's name
is John Campbell.

NARRATOR: Soon, he was covering
everything from Indian attacks

to theatrical performances,

always in his own
distinctive style.

"I have had a 'call' to
literature of a low order--

i.e., humorous,"
he told his mother.

"It is nothing to be proud of
but it is my strongest suit."

In the West, while sitting out
the war, Sam Clemens had found

a new calling.

And he began to sign
his articles

with a new name, "Mark Twain."

CLEMENS:
It is by the goodness of God

that in our country we have

those three unspeakably precious
things: freedom of speech,

freedom of conscience

and the prudence never to
practice either of them.

SWEET MEDICINE (dramatized):
Listen to me carefully

and truthfully follow up
my instructions.

You chiefs are peacemakers.

Though your son might be killed
in front of your tepee,

you should take a peace pipe
and smoke.

Then you would be
an honest chief.

Sweet Medicine.

HENRIETTA MANN: A peace chief
assumed the role of a father

to all members of the tribe.

He was selected because of his
goodness, his generosity,

his bravery, his courage,

his concern for the well-being
of others.

He never acquired wealth
for himself.

He acquired wealth to give
to those less fortunate.

So that you got a father,
a spiritual leader,

a true servant of the people--
a person that had to live

a morally upright life
in every respect.

NARRATOR: One of the most
respected peace chiefs

of the southern Cheyenne
was Black Kettle.

As a young man, he had proved
himself as a warrior.

Now, he had come to believe

that maintaining peace with the
whites was the best way

for his people to survive.

In 1861, Black Kettle and other
peace chiefs had signed a treaty

and agreed to move onto a small
reservation along Sand Creek,

southeast of Denver.

But the reservation
was empty of game.

Whites trespassed on it.

Some Cheyenne were reduced
to begging settlers for food.

Soon, even Black Kettle left
for the old hunting grounds.

And young Cheyenne warriors
began attacking stage coaches

and destroying outlying ranches.

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL:
The young men's exuberance

sometimes would get out of hand

and some of the old chiefs just
simply couldn't control them.

You have to remember that before
the coming of the white soldiers

and before the reservation days,
boys had a way to become men.

And the way boys became men was

through proving themselves
in hunt

or proving themselves in battle.

And so, when things
began to change

and some of the old chiefs began
to go the peaceful way and say,

"We can't keep on with this.

"We've got to find a peaceful
way of resolving differences"

and so on, sometimes the young
men felt left out.

They felt that they were being
denied manhood.

MAN (dramatized): The Denver
Commonwealth, June 15, 1864.

The bodies were brought to town
this morning.

It was a most solemn sight
indeed

to see the mutilated corpses

stretched in the stiffness of
death, upon that wagon-bed.

The general remark of the
hundreds of spectators

was that those that perpetrate

such unnatural, brutal butchery
as this

ought to be hunted
to the farthest bounds

of these broad plains and burned
at the stake alive.

NARRATOR: The governor of
Colorado Territory

asked Washington for troops, but
with the Civil War still raging,

there were none to spare.

He then called
for civilian volunteers

and hundreds signed up.

In command once again would be
the fighting parson--

John Chivington, the hero
of Glorieta Pass.

Now a Colonel, he burned with
political ambition

and saw a winning issue in
ridding his region

of its Indians.

Meanwhile, an old trader
named William Bent

desperately tried to make peace.

He had been living among
the Cheyenne

for nearly four decades;

four of his children had
Cheyenne mothers.

He told Chivington that the
chiefs wanted to be friendly.

Chivington replied that he was
not authorized to make peace.

In September of 1864,

Black Kettle and six other
Cheyenne chiefs

came to Fort Weld,
near Denver, to talk.

As evidence of their good faith,
they brought with them

four white captives they had
ransomed from other bands.

BLACK KETTLE (dramatized):
We have been traveling

through a cloud;

the sky has been dark
ever since the war began.

We want to take good tidings
home to our people,

that they may sleep in peace.

I want all the chiefs
of the soldiers here

to understand
that we are for peace

and that we have made peace,

that we may not be mistaken
for enemies.

Black Kettle.

NARRATOR: When Black Kettle
agreed to return to Sand Creek,

on the reservation,

regular Army officers
led him to believe

his people would be safe.

But Chivington was not an
officer in the regular Army.

His new command, the Third
Colorado volunteers,

had yet to fight a major battle.

Scornful Denver newspapers were
calling them

"the Bloodless Third,"

and their enlistments
were about to run out.

One way or another, Chivington
was determined to have his war.

At dawn on November 29, 1864,
he and 700 men reached the edge

of Black Kettle's camp
on the banks of Sand Creek.

Many of them were drunk from
the whiskey they had swallowed

to warm them during
an icy all-night ride.

One of William Bent's sons,
Robert,

was riding with Chivington,

commandeered at gunpoint to show
the way to the Cheyenne camp.

Bent's other children--
Charles, Julia and George--

were all inside the camp.

Some regular army officers
protested

that to attack the peaceable
village would betray

the army's pledge of safety.

Chivington ignored them.

"Damn any man who sympathizes
with Indians," he said.

"Kill and scalp all, big
and little; nits make lice."

He ordered the attack.

GEORGE BENT (dramatized):
From down the creek,

a large body of troops was
advancing at a rapid trot.

In the camps, all was confusion
and noise--

men, women and children rushing
out of the lodges

partly dressed;

women and children screaming
at the sight of the troops;

men running back into the lodges
for their arms.

Black Kettle had a large
American flag tied

to the end of a long
lodgepole and kept calling out

not to be frightened--

that the camp was under
protection

and there was no danger.

Then suddenly the troops
opened fire

on this mass of men, women
and children

and all began to scatter
and run.

White Antelope, when he saw
the soldiers shooting

into the lodges, made up his
mind not to live any longer.

He stood in front of his lodge
with his arms folded

across his breast, singing the
death-song:

"Nothing lives long," he sang,

"only the earth
and the mountains."

George Bent.

MAJOR SCOTT ANTHONY
(dramatized): I never saw

more bravery displayed by any
set of people

on the face of the earth
than by these Indians.

They would charge on the whole
company singly,

determined to kill someone
before being killed themselves.

We, of course,
took no prisoners.

BENT:
After the firing,

the warriors put the squaws
and children together

and surrounded them
to protect them.

I saw five squaws
under a bank for shelter.

When the troops came up to them,
they ran out

and showed their persons to let
the soldiers know

they were squaws
and begged for mercy,

but the soldiers shot them all.

(gunshots)

Robert Bent.

MANN: My great-grandmother was
in the band of Black Kettle

when they were attacked.

There's one little child that
was walking up the creek bed,

and there was a soldier there
that was using the little boy

as target practice.

He took one shot, aimed,
missed him.

A second came along, tried and
missed him, and a third said,

"Let me kill the little devil,"
and the little boy dropped dead.

You had pregnant women whose
bodies were being cut open

and the fetuses being taken
from them.

The private body parts of men
and women were cut from them,

and some of them used as saddle
horns, hat bands,

tobacco pouches,

and put on public display
in Denver City

in such a way that you would
begin to ask,

"Who is savage in this case?"

It certainly was
not the Cheyenne.

NARRATOR: When the killing
stopped, nearly 200 Cheyenne,

most of them women and children,
lay dead at Sand Creek.

Black Kettle was among those
who had managed to get away.

Regular Army officers were
appalled

by what Chivington's
volunteers had done.

General Grant himself privately
declared the massacre

nothing less than murder.

The Congress and the Army

launched separate
investigations.

MAN: The Committee on the
Conduct of the War:

As to Colonel Chivington, your
committee can hardly find

fitting terms to describe
his conduct.

Wearing the uniform of the
United States, which should be

the emblem of justice
and humanity,

he deliberately planned
and executed a foul

and dastardly massacre which
would have disgraced

the veriest savage among those

who were the victims
of his cruelty.

NARRATOR: But by the time the
tribunals reached their verdict,

Chivington was a civilian again

and beyond the reach
of military justice.

In the end,
no one was ever punished.

Nor did Chivington ever admit
he had done anything wrong.

Speaking before a reunion of
Colorado pioneers

nearly 20 years later,
he declared,

"I stand by Sand Creek."

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL:
One time I went

to the Sand Creek site years ago
to put a sign up

to commemorate where
that massacre happened.

And I was alone there.

It was about six in the morning,
just as the sun was coming up.

And it was very, very quiet, and
I swear I heard babies crying.

And it was such a strong
emotional experience for me,

I left there.

But I've talked to several of my
cousins who have also gone there

really early in the morning.

They say the same thing.

NARRATOR: All of William Bent's
children

had survived the massacre.

Robert, who had been forced to
show Chivington the way

to Black Kettle's village,
testified against him.

Charles joined the Dog Soldiers,

the society made up of the
Cheyennes' most feared warriors,

and went on a rampage
of torture and killing.

All whites, he now believed,
were his enemy.

He even tried to kill
his own father.

HENRIETTA MANN:
After the massacre,

there were many Cheyennes that
wanted to take revenge

and join the Lakota and conduct
raids along the Platte.

Black Kettle instead chose
to take his band south,

into safer territory.

BLACK KETTLE:
Although wrongs have

been done me, I live in hopes.

I have not got two hearts.

I once thought that I was
the only man that persevered

to be the friend of the white
man, but since they have come

and cleaned out our lodges,
horses, and everything else,

it is hard for me to believe
white men anymore.

Black Kettle.

SAM WATKINS (dramatized):
America has no North, no South,

no East, no West.

The sun rises over the hills
and sets over the mountains.

The compass just points
up and down,

and we can laugh now
at the absurd notion

of there being a North
and a South.

We are one and undivided.

Sam Watkins.

NARRATOR: On April 9, 1865,

four bloody years of Civil War
finally ended

when Robert E. Lee surrendered
his army

at Appomattox Courthouse
in Virginia.

JULIA LOVEJOY: Baldwin City,
the state of Kansas.

Mr. Editor:

Towns are starting up as by
magic all along the valley

and the sound of the hammer is
heard on every hand.

I wish to say to our friends
in New Hampshire, one and all,

we have never regretted
coming to Kansas.

We have never wavered,
never flinched,

not even when three times in 24
hours we were compelled to flee

from our house.

I tell you all, though we have
felt the horrors of war,

if we were not in Kansas
already, we would come

as soon as steam could bring us.

Yours respectfully,
Julia Louisa Lovejoy.

NARRATOR: The newly reunited
nation now turned its attention

to the West as never before.

Hundreds of thousands
of settlers,

many of them war veterans,

rushed west to start new lives.

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
(dramatized): At the end

of the Civil War, most of the
troops were mustered out,

nearly a million strong,
vigorous men

who had imbibed the somewhat
erratic habits of the soldier.

They naturally looked for new
homes to the great west.

These men flocked to the Plains

and were stimulated by
the danger of an Indian war.

William Tecumseh Sherman.

NARRATOR: In the winter of 1866,
troops of the 18th Infantry--

the regular army unit that had
suffered more casualties

than any other
in the Civil War--

occupied a brand-new post
in Dakota Territory

called Fort Phil Kearny.

But a Lakota leader named Red
Cloud and other warriors

were determined to drive
the soldiers away.

RED CLOUD (dramatized): Whose
voice was first sounded

on this land?

The voice of the red people
who had but bows and arrows.

When the white man comes
in my country

he leaves a trail of blood
behind him.

I have two mountains
in that country.

I want the Great Father to make
no roads through them.

Red Cloud.

NARRATOR:
Four days before Christmas,

the Lakota and their allies
attacked a wagon train

bringing firewood
back to the post.

Many inside the fort feared for
their lives,

but a 33-year-old lieutenant
named William J. Fetterman

saw his chance.

He asked to lead
a rescue mission.

"Give me 80 good men,"
he boasted,

"and I can ride through
the whole Sioux nation."

N. SCOTT MOMADAY:
Fetterman went out with 80 men

and there's a ridge just near.

You can see the top, you can see
it there, from the fort.

And his commanding officer,
Carrington, gave him orders

not to go beyond that ridge.

What happened was that the
Indians under Red Cloud

had amassed 2,000 soldiers
on the other side of the ridge.

They were all hidden in gullies
and ravines,

the Sioux, the Arapahoe,
and the Cheyenne.

And from these three groups,

two men were chosen from each
to be decoys.

This is a very dangerous,
but a very honorable thing.

So the decoys rode up on the
ridge in sight of the fort.

NARRATOR: The Indians began
taunting Fetterman

from horseback, even getting off
their ponies

and adjusting their bridles

despite the army bullets buzzing
all around them.

When they raced over the ridge,

Fetterman hurried in pursuit...
and disappeared.

MRS. FRANCES DRUMMOND
(dramatized): A few shots

were heard, followed up
by increasing rapidity.

A desperate fight was going on
in the valley below the ridge,

in the very place where the
command was forbidden to go.

Then followed a few quick
volleys, then scattering shots,

and then, dead silence.

Less than half an hour
had passed,

and the silence was dreadful.

Mrs. Frances Drummond.

NARRATOR: A nervous search party
found Fetterman and his command

late that afternoon.

They were all dead.

JOHN GUTHRIE (dramatized):
We packed them

on top of the ammunition boxes
in the wagons.

Could not tell Cavalry
from the Infantry.

All dead bodies stripped naked,
crushed skulls, with war clubs,

ears, nose and legs
had been cut off,

scalps torn away and the bodies
pierced with bullets and arrows,

wrists, feet and ankles leaving
each attached by a tendon.

We walked on their internals

and did not know it
in the high grass.

Picked them up--
that is, their internals.

Did not know the soldier
they belonged to,

so you see the cavalry man got
an infantry man's guts

and an infantry man got
a cavalry man's guts.

Private John Guthrie.

MOMADAY: There was a bugler
whose name was Adolf Metzger,

and he was pinned down, and he
expended all of his ammunition,

and then he took his bugle

and started fighting with it
fiercely.

And his body was the only one
that was not defiled there.

And indeed, the Indians placed
a buffalo cloak over it,

because he fought
with such bravery.

And they paid him homage
for that.

WOMAN: The ladies clustered

in Mrs. Wan's cabin as night
drew on.

All speechless from absolute
stagnation and terror.

Then the crunching of wagon
wheels startled us to our feet.

The gates opened.

Wagons were slowly driven
within,

bearing their dead, the precious
harvest from the field of blood,

and carrying the lifeless bodies
to the hospital.

The heartrending news, almost
tenderly whispered

by the soldiers themselves,
that no more were to come in.

PHILIP SHERIDAN (dramatized):
Dear General Sherman,

In taking the offensive,

I have to select that season
when I can catch the fiends;

and if a village is attacked and
women and children killed,

the responsibility is not
with the soldiers,

but with the people whose crimes
necessitated the attack.

General Philip Sheridan.

SHERMAN: Dear General Sheridan,

I will back you with
my whole authority.

I will say nothing and do
nothing to restrain our troops

from doing what they deem proper
on the spot

and will allow no mere vague
general charges of cruelty

and inhumanity
to tie their hands,

but will use all the powers
confided to me

to the end that these Indians,
the enemies of our race

and of our civilization,

shall not again be able
to begin and carry out

their barbarous warfare.

General William Tecumseh
Sherman.

NARRATOR: For three years,
the federal government wavered

between a policy
of negotiation or war

with the Indians of the Plains.

But in 1868, the problem was
turned over

to two of the men whose military
strategy had brought

the South to its knees.

During the Civil War,

Philip Sheridan had
so thoroughly stripped

the bountiful Shenandoah Valley,
he liked to claim

that a crow wishing to fly
over the valley

had to carry its own rations.

And William Tecumseh Sherman had
cut a swath

from Atlanta to the sea, leaving
the blackened chimneys

of hundreds of homes

as testimony to the
effectiveness of his methods.

Together, they would try to do
to the Indians

what they had done to the South.

And they would start with the
Cheyenne on the southern Plains.

The campaign they devised would
be waged in the winter,

when the Indians were
most vulnerable.

It called for three separate
columns to force the Cheyenne

back onto their reservation.

The soldier meant to do
the real fighting

was Sheridan's favorite officer,

one of the Union's most
celebrated generals--

George Armstrong Custer,

who had built his reputation
leading daring cavalry charges

against the Confederates.

Custer leaped at the chance.

EDWARD S. GODFREY (dramatized):
November 23, 1868.

Reveille at 3 o'clock.

Snowed all night and still
snowing very heavily.

Daylight found us
on the march.

All landmarks were invisible.

Then General Custer, with
compass in hand, took the lead

and became our guide.

Second Lieutenant
Edward S. Godfrey, 7th Cavalry.

NARRATOR: Custer drove his men
relentlessly, until one night

his Indian scouts reported they
had found a Cheyenne village

of some 50 lodges.

He ordered his men to prepare
for a dawn attack,

though he didn't know how many
Indians were there

or whose village it was.

As it happened, it was
Black Kettle's.

He and his band
were now encamped

along the banks of the Washita
River in what is now Oklahoma.

A white flag flew
above his tepee.

BLACK KETTLE (dramatized):
I have always done my best

to keep my young men quiet,
but some will not listen,

and since the fighting began,

I have not been able to keep
them all at home.

But we want peace, and I would
be glad to move all my people

down this way.

I could then keep them all
quietly near camp.

Black Kettle.

NARRATOR: Some of his young men
had slipped away

to steal livestock
and raid settlers.

There were four white captives
being held in the village.

It was the pony tracks of one of
the war parties that had led

Custer's scouts to the edge
of the camp.

November 27, 1868, dawned.

Two days short of the fourth
anniversary

of the slaughter at Sand Creek.

HENRIETTA MANN:
My great-grandmother

was among about 400 individuals
that followed Black Kettle

and were camped
along the Washita,

when the soldiers came in
from the four directions

to the tune of the military band
playing "Garry Owen"

on such a bitterly cold morning
that the instruments of the men

froze to their lips as
they went about the slaughter.

NARRATOR: Custer and more than
600 soldiers

charged through
Black Kettle's camp.

KATE BIGHEAD (dramatized):
It was early in the morning

when the soldiers began
the shooting.

All of us jumped from our beds,

and all of us started running
to get away.

I was barefooted, as were
almost all of the others.

Kate Bighead.

NARRATOR: The killing went on
for half an hour.

The survivors hid
in the tall grass.

MANN: My great-grandmother
escaped, again, fortunately,

but Black Kettle and his wife
did not.

He brought his pony up alongside
of her and told her

to get behind him.

She climbed up behind him

and as they started to ride
across the Washita,

were killed.

He died fighting for what he
believed in; that was peace.

NARRATOR: In the spring,
the last Cheyenne holdouts

from the relentless winter
campaign began to surrender.

One band was led by a chief
named Rock Forehead.

Custer decided to try to talk
him into giving up

rather than risk an attack.

He entered the village
with only an interpreter

and was taken
to the chief's tepee.

There, seated under
the sacred arrows,

the Cheyennes' most honored
and powerful medicine,

the Indians passed along
a ceremonial pipe

for Custer to smoke.

He told them if they returned
to the reservation,

no one would be harmed and peace
would be restored.

Eventually, Rock Forehead would
agree to give up.

But on that day,

he was not convinced that Custer
was trustworthy.

And he tapped out the pipe's
ashes on the general's boots,

to bring Custer bad luck
and to drive home a warning.

KATE BIGHEAD (dramatized):
They told him then

that if ever afterward he should
break that peace promise

and should fight the Cheyennes,

the Everywhere Spirit surely
would cause him to be killed.