In early September 1864, a few Indians brought in a note from hostile tribes that indicated their desire for peace talks, and Wynkoop was determined to pay them a visit. He was well aware that he was now under the command of General Blunt, for in August 1864, Blunt ordered Wynkoop to ‘confine your operations to the defense of your post and give such protection to the road and mail coaches as you can afford.’ Both Blunt and Curtis had issued orders that the Indians were to be punished, not treated with. Wynkoop knew expeditions were currently in the field looking to fight the Indians. He had been chastised before for going outside district lines, for not asking permission for his actions and for not keeping his own superiors informed of his movements.

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Wynkoop took 125 men of the 1st Colorado to the Smoky Hill River without informing Blunt or Curtis. John Smith accompanied them. Sam Colley stayed behind to send the news to Evans and Chivington. The Indians threatened Wynkoop’s expedition with annihilation, and some of his men demanded that Wynkoop return immediately to the fort. It was a close scrape, but they did return with four of seven white captives the Indians had, plus some chiefs, including Black Kettle and White Antelope. Then they went to Denver for a peace conference. The problem was that neither Evans nor Chivington wanted a peace conference while prosecuting a war.

The day after the council, Evans told Colley in a letter that he had not made any peace with the Indians, as it might embarrass the military operations against them–which apparently Wynkoop did not understand. ‘You will be particular to impress upon these chiefs,’ Evans wrote, ‘the fact that my talk with them was for the purpose of ascertaining their views, and not to offer them anything whatever. ‘ Evans did not want the agent to furnish the Indians with any means to continue the war, but he was afraid that Colley would not listen. The Indians returned from Denver realizing that they could not make any peace treaty. Wynkoop, nevertheless, told them that they should bring their people closer to the fort.

At Fort Lyon was another Sand Creek villain, Captain Silas S. Soule, who had a more polished exterior than Wynkoop, but who was crafty under the veneer. A poetry-quoting friend of Walt Whitman’s, Soule was self-righteous and uncompromising. He lived by his favorite phrase: ‘You may have the argument, but by God, I know I am right!’ While still in his teens in Kansas, he had become a jayhawker. He was attracted to the cause of John Brown and the Free-Soilers, and on one occasion went into a jail and broke free a man accused of stealing slaves. When insurrection-minded John Brown was captured at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and thrown in jail, Soule tried but failed to break him out. Soule has been historically pictured as a man of principle, honesty and sobriety, but he proved several times that he would resort to trickery, lies and lawbreaking to achieve his ends.

While stationed at Fort Lyon, Silas Soule was not easily taken in by friendly Indians, at least not before the Sand Creek fight altered his judgment. In a letter to his sister, he wrote: ‘The Cheyennes also know a trick or two. Some of them steal a girl…out of Kansas, trade her from lodge to lodge, then come up with her at our parley on the Smoky Hill last month. A gift they say. They want to seal a peace `forever.’ Of course they’d killed the father, [and] the mother hanged herself.’ Soule was also disenchanted with Indian agent Colley and his wife. Mrs. Colley was proprietor at the sutler’s store at Fort Lyon and assisted in selling the Indians their annuities. Soule said: ‘The Indian agent’s wife sells pies she makes with Cheyenne flour allowance. Mrs. Colly [sic] got more rations on her hands than the U.S. Cavalry and Northern tribes combined.’

Wynkoop and Colley got orders not to feed or give supplies to the Indians, but Colley disregarded Governor Evans, preferring to communicate directly with William P. Dole, the commissioner of Indian Affairs, whom he addressed as ‘Dear Cousin.’ While the authorities in charge were still looking for a military solution to the war, their subordinates were sending out contrary messages. Wynkoop, perhaps feeling sanguine about what he thought he had accomplished, was soon to find out that his superiors were not happy with him.

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