Group photo of Camp Weld Council. Soule kneeling in the front right (Denver Public Library).

We recently learned that Pingree Hill and Pingree Park were being renamed Soule Hill and Soule Park. The decision was made by the US Board on Geographic Names (Domestic Names Committee) which operates under the US Secretary of the Interior. A group of Fort Collins citizens formed the No Pingree Park Task Force a few years ago and requested the name change in 2023. Arapaho and Cheyenne tribal leaders and county and city officials supported the name change. The change was approved at a March 12 meeting.

But who was Silas Soule? Turns out he was a fascinating man who packed a lot into his short life. Silas Stillman Soule was born July 26, 1838, in Bath, Maine and raised in Massachusetts. His family were staunch abolitionists whose ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. The family headed west when the Kansas Territory was opened up for white settlement May 30, 1854, as part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Act stipulated that the territory’s settlers could determine by vote whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state. This led to pro-slavery and anti-slavery activists descending on the territory and a violent era known as “Bleeding Kansas”. Silas’s father Amasa Soule was one of the founders of the Emigrant Aid Society whose goal was to settle the Territory as a free state. Amasa and one son arrived in the territory in November 1854 and Silas, his mother and two sisters came the next summer. The family settled at Coal Creek, a few miles south of Lawrence. The Soules were one of the founding families of Lawrence and their home was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. When Silas was 17, he was escorting escaped slaves from Missouri north towards freedom in Canada. As tensions within the Territory grew, Silas became an expert at hit-and-run tactics, and his name became well known around Kansas.

One of Silas’s better-known escapades took part on the Missouri border. Twenty pro-slavery soldiers crossed into Kansas to look for escaped slaves. They encountered Dr. John Doy, a Lawrence physician who was escorting twelve slaves and proceeded to arrest Dr. Doy and once back in Missouri they sold the twelve slaves. Dr. Doy was tried and convicted of assisting escaped slaves and he was jailed. Silas and a group of older men from Lawrence decided to free Dr. Doy and Silas volunteered to visit the jail where he was being held. Silas convinced the jail-keeper that he had a message from Dr. Doy’s wife. The message was actually a note that read “Tonight, at twelve o’clock.” The group arrived at the jail at midnight, overpowered the guard, freed Doy and escaped back to Kansas. To commemorate the event, they had their photo taken as “The Immortal Ten”.

This was not the only time Silas entered a jail under false pretenses. When John Brown (a close friend of the Soule family) was captured and hung after his raid on Harper’s Ferry, Silas traveled to Charles Town, Virginia and posed as a drunkard and got himself jailed where several of Brown’s followers (Albert Hazlett and Aaron Dwight Stevens) were incarcerated. He managed to charm the jailer into releasing him from his jail cell so he could contact the two and hatch an escape. But they refused his help, choosing instead to die as martyrs to the cause and they were hung on March 18, 1860. After his release from jail, he traveled to Boston and met with other abolitionists and befriended poet Walt Whitman.

Silas then decided to head west. He arrived in Colorado in 1860 with his brother William and a cousin. They searched for gold with little luck and eventually Silas found himself working in a blacksmith shop. In 1861, after the Civil War had started, Silas enlisted in Company K, 1st Regiment, Colorado Infantry. He was involved in the Battle of Glorieta Pass during the New Mexico campaign in 1862. That battle was pivotal in stopping the Confederates from overtaking the gold fields in Colorado to finance the war. By November 1864 he had moved up the ranks to commander of a Calvary Company, Company D, 1st Colorado Calvary. Commanding Officer Colonel John Chivington had promoted Soule and assigned him to Fort Lyon along the Santa Fe Trail.

Silas was described as “handsome and headstrong” and “a great favorite with the men of his own military company”. He had a devilish sense of humor” and “a sharp tongue, cynical nature and charming wit; wise beyond his years and able to differentiate the wheat from the chaff on matters of politics.”

In September 1864 Silas and his commanding officer, Major Edward Wynkoop, participated in the Smoky Hill peace talks with Cheyenne and Arapahoe Peace Chiefs, including Black Kettle. He, Wynkoop and the Chiefs traveled to Denver to meet at Camp Weld with Governor John Evans and Chivington. No doubt his involvement in these meetings impacted Silas’s actions at Sand Creek.

It was on November 29, 1864, that Silas Soule and his company found themselves at Sand Creek, Colorado under Colonel John Chivington. The night before Silas had tried to talk Chivington out of attacking the peaceful camp, to no avail. Silas saw the Union flag flying over the camp as a sign of peace and ordered his men to hold their fire and stay put when ordered to attack. Silas had told his men before the attack that “any man who would take part in [such] murders, knowing the circumstances as we did, was a low lived cowardly son of a bitch.”  Chivington ordered the cavalry to attack the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment. As the attack began Silas reminded his troops that the “enemy” was actually a peace chiefs’ band and they jointly refused to fire a shot. They remained on the banks above the settlement and watched the slaughter unfold. They were able to rescue a few individuals, including Charlie Bent the half-Cheyenne son of William Bent.

The Sand Creek Massacre was one of the largest massacres in US history. Elders, women and children were killed indiscriminately. Peace Chiefs Black Kettle and Left Hand were among the dead. Chivington lauded the massacre as a great victory and lambasted Silas for “saying that he thanked God he killed no Indians, and like expressions, proving himself more in sympathy with the Indians than the whites.” Silas became an early day “whistleblower” writing letters to Wynkoop, members of Congress and his friend Walt Whitman describing the massacre in chilling and explicit detail. His letter to Wynkoop is difficult to read but gives you an idea of what actually transpired. When the truth about the “battle” was reported the nation was outraged. Congress created a congressional committee to investigate the massacre and testimonies by Silas and others led to the dismissal of John Evans, Colorado’s second territorial governor. Chivington resigned from the military to avoid being tried in military court, and his political aspirations were dashed. He was known as the “Butcher of Sand Creek” and never forgave Silas for his betrayal. George Pingree engaged in the attack and bragged about scalping 13 people. He felt no remorse for his involvement and stood by his actions until his dying day.

On April 1, 1865, Silas married Hersa Coberly. Sadly, the marriage only lasted twenty-two days before his death. On April 23, 1865, two months after testifying before a U.S. military commission about the Sand Creek Massacre, Silas was on duty as provost marshal in Denver City. He heard shots fired and went to investigate. He encountered Charles Squier, who had served under Chivington. It was an ambush and Silas managed to get off a shot and injured Squier in the arm before Squier shot him through his cheek and Silas fell to the ground and died. Silas was only 27 years old. The murder occurred on what is now 15th Street between Lawrence and Arapahoe Streets. Squier and an accomplice (who had also served under Chivington) escaped. Squier was eventually caught and brought back to Denver City for a court-martial. However, the officer who captured Squier was found dead in a hotel of a presumed staged drug overdose. Squier high tailed it back to New York where his influential family lived. He tried rejoining the Army but was rejected and then fled to Central America to avoid recapture. His legs were crushed in a railroad accident, and he died of gangrene in 1869. Many believed that Chivington was behind Silas’s murder, but it was never proven.

Silas’s funeral was held on April 26, 1865, and was attended by a large crowd. A journalist described the funeral as “the finest ever seen in this country.” Silas was posthumously assigned the rank of major in recognition of his service. He was first buried at Denver City Cemetery (now Cheesman Park) and later moved to Riverside Cemetery in Denver.

The two-hundred-mile Spiritual Healing Run/Walk is held in November to honor those killed at Sand Creek. Tribal members from Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado and beyond run and walk to honor their ancestors. It begins at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in southeast Colorado and concludes on the west steps of the Colorado State Capitol. Starting in 2003 a memorial ceremony has also been held at Silas’s grave site, and a memorial plaque honoring Silas has been installed near the location of his murder. Although he was only on this earth for a brief time, Silas Soule was a man of principal who put his own life on the line to protect the innocent.