How could someone who was so right on some issues be drastically, wickedly wrong on others? Colonel John Chivington hated slavery. But he massacred defenseless Indian women and children.

After his father died around 1826, five-year-old Chivington, his mother, and brothers ran the family farm. He worked hard and had little schooling. In his twenties, he became a Methodist minister. He spent the next decade living in various places, starting churches and helping congregations. His hatred of slavery sometimes got him into trouble. When some pro-slavery members of his congregation in Missouri sent him a threatening letter and ordered him to stop preaching, Chivington refused. He came to church with a Bible and two pistols. After that, people called him "the Fighting Parson."

When the Civil War began, he asked for a commission as a Union officer. He became a military hero for his bold attacks against Confederate strongholds. After the war, he moved to Colorado and got involved in politics. Some local people hated the Cheyenne who lived there. Chivington did not believe whites should make treaties with the Cheyenne. He wanted to kill them. He led some soldiers to a reservation on Sand Creek and massacred over two hundred Cheyenne men, women, and children. Chivington was court-martialed and an army judge called the Sand Creek Massacre "a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter." Chivington was forced to leave the military and stop running for political office. He died of cancer in 1892.