How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

by Heather Cox Richardson

News of these atrocities spread back to the East, but rather than sparking widespread outrage, the outcome of the Sand Creek Massacre hardened American perceptions of Plains Indians. Westerners resented congressional disapproval and the condescension of those who recoiled from the bloody realities of life there. Easterners simply didn’t understand the conditions in the West, didn’t get just how bad Indians were. The massacre forced easterners, too, to adjust their ideas about Indians. In 1864, most Americans had a son or a brother or a father wearing an army uniform. No one wanted to believe that a soldier—someone who could be their kin—would cut off a man’s testicles to use them as a tobacco pouch. So they dehumanized the victims of the massacre. Indians were not people; they were savages who had forced the soldiers to kill them and treat them so brutally.