Month of the Freezing Moon: The Sand Creek Massacre, November 1864 (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The summer of 1864 was an uneasy one in Colorado Territory. Raiding bands of Arapaho and Cheyenne "dog soldiers" attacked settlers and travelers; the U.S. Army was authorized to burn lodges and kill Indians wherever it found them. A proclamation from Governor John Evans offered to provide friendly Indians with places where they would be safe from attacks by Americans. Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, who had sued for peace earlier, applied for protection for his band and was directed to Sand Creek. In late November, Colonel John Chivington led 700 cavalry troops in a daybreak attack on the unsuspecting Indians; more than 100 old men, women and children were killed, their bodies mutilated, the camp looted. In recounting this atrocity, Schultz ( The Doolittle Raid ) focuses on Indian-white relationships, the fears of the settlers and three white men who were determined to "finish" the Indians. He describes the aftermath of the massacre: official investigations that discredited Chivington, and the start of the Plains Wars that would culminate at Little Big Horn. This is a gripping account of a shameful event in American history.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Poor communications, slow supply flow, unfamiliar native Americans, ambitious personalities, and an overall rugged way of life contributed to the lifestyle revealed in this well-researched book about the territory west of the Mississippi in the 1800s. Specifically, the study revolves around the massacre of friendly Cheyenne Indians near the Kansas-Colorado border. The findings not only provide background of the massacre but also introduce such personalities as J. M. Chivington, commander of the U. S. troops that led the charge; Colorado Governor John Evans, who aspired to national office; Major Edward Wynkoop, who unsuccessfully attempted to represent the Indian population of the Colorado territory; and Indian chiefs such as Black Kettle, who struggled to keep peace between his people and the white man. The Indian slaughter is described, yet undue emphasis is not placed upon it; rather, the atmosphere preceding it allows readers to better comprehend the times. Schultz does a fine job illuminating the American West during the 1860s, and he also provides a perspective on the Civil War and Little Big Horn. Extensive notes, a bibliography, and a thorough index conclude this well-written book. --Diane Goheen, Topeka West High School, KS
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (December 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312064179
• ISBN-13: 978-0312064174
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,259,925 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Balanced account, July 24, 2007

By	Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

November 29, 1864, will always remain a dark day in American history. It was on this day that the 3rd Colorado Volunteers, under Colonel John Chivington ("the Fighting Parson"), attacked a docile and noncombatant village of Cheyenne Indians encamped on Sand Creek in Colorado. The resultant massacre of over 200 Indians, mostly women and children, brought condemnation down on Chivington after a number of investigations were conducted in Washington. Duane Schultz is fair in presenting all sides of the circumstances leading up to the disaster, including establishing the political motivations of Governor Evans in favoring the attack, the fear of residents of Denver and the surrounding area after numerous Indian deprivations were made against ranchers the summer before the attack (many Denverites thought Chivington a hero), and the failure of sympathetic army officials to protect the Indians after offering that protection in the first place. There are a couple of glaring errors in the text - Schultz places Bent's Fort at Pueblo, CO, when it's actually 70 miles to the east and he implies that the slaughter of the buffalo by hunters that was actually a post-1870 phenomenon occurred by 1864 - but basically the book relates a good, straight-forward account of the massacre, the events leading up to it, and the results of the investigations that followed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Civil War we don't want to remember, January 28, 2008

By	Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When Americans hear the term "Civil War," we think first and foremost about the northern-southern conflict between 1861-65. But the other American civil war, the one none of us likes to remember, began before Fort Sumter was fired on and continued until the closing days of 1890 at Wounded Knee. It's the civil war between whites and native Americans.

Duane Schultz's excellent Month of the Freezing Moon tells the story of one of that unremembered civil wars ugliest chapters: the 1864 Sand Creek massacre.

In 1861, some Cheyenne and Arapaho braves in the Colorado Territory, angered by yet another violation of the latest treaty between their tribes and the U.S. government (in this case the Treaty of Fort Wise), began to steal cattle and horses from white ranchers whom they considered intruders. After a couple of Cheyenne chiefs were gunned down by a nervous militia while they were trying to make peace overtures, the Cheyenne declared war. Territory governor John Evans, hoping to make a name for himself, ordered the 3rd Colorado Volunteers, a rough and rowdy bunch of thugs commanded by Colonel John Chivington, an ex-Methodist preacher, to clean up the mess.

On 29 November 1864, Chivington, who was already notorious for his insistence that Indians needed to be killed and scalped, led the 3rd Colorado against a Cheyenne village at Sand Creek. The chief, Black Kettle, was a longtime advocate of peace, and he had an American flag flying outside his teepee. But Chivington nonetheless ordered his men to encircle the village and kill everyone--men, women, and children--in it. Over 125 Cheyenne, most of them women and children, were butchered and their bodies mutilated. A few of Chivington's men were killed and wounded, but most probably from friendly fire in the frenzy of the massacre.

The Sand Creek massacre prompted fullscale war between white settlers and the Plains Indians that would last for the next 25 years, and pull in dozens of men who had made a name for themselves in the Civil War (most notably, perhaps, George Armstrong Custer). Public opinion in the east, to its credit, condemned the slaughter. But most people in the west applauded it, and insisted that only "Indian lovers" who'd never seen an Indian could deny that the action was justified. Astoundingly, neither Chivington nor any of his men were ever tried for murder, although he was forced to resign his colonecy and his dreams of a brigadier's star. In fact, a lieutenant who testified against Chivington in a military court of inquiry was subsequently murdered, almost certainly by a Chivington supporter.

Schultz's book chronicles the events leading up to the massacre as well as its aftermath. Schultz quotes extensively from the transcripts of official investigatory hearings, and at times the descriptions of the massacre are almost more than the reader can bear. But that's precisely why they need to be read, and why the forgotten civil war needs to be remembered.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fair account of Sand Creek but has flaws, October 5, 1999

By A Customer

The book does a fairly good job of describing the massacre of Cheyenne Indians at Sand Creek and the rampant butchery done to their bodies. However, the book does have some flaws. Among them is the anti-Custer bias that it displays toward the end. It slams Custer for being stupid to meet with Indians yet it praised another officer for doing the same thing earlier in the book. It assumed that Custer knew nothing of the Cheyenne warning given to him during the meeting even though he had AN INTERPRETER with him. Also the book contains factual errors. Specifically: 1) it doesn't give the correct body count for either the Indians or the US army at the Battle of the Washita. 2) it maintained that the Washita was the only victory Custer scored over the Indians. (Custer repelled a pair of spirited attacks made against him in the Yellowstone region.)