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Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek
by Louis Kraft
Published by: University of Oklahoma Press
Imprint: University of Oklahoma Press
354 Pages | 6 x 9 | 28 b&w illus., 2 maps
$24.95
$24.95
When Edward W. Wynkoop arrived in Colorado Territory during the 1858 gold rush, he was one of many ambitious newcomers seeking wealth in a promising land mostly inhabited by American Indians. After he worked as a miner, sheriff, bartender, and land speculator, Wynkoop’s life drastically changed after he joined the First Colorado Volunteers to fight for the Union during the Civil War. This sympathetic but critical biography centers on his subsequent efforts to prevent war with Indians during the volatile 1860s.
A central theme of Louis Kraft’s engaging narrative is Wynkoop’s daring in standing up to Anglo-Americans and attempting to end the 1864 Indian war. The Indians may have been dangerous enemies obstructing “progress,” but they were also human beings. Many whites thought otherwise, and at daybreak on November 29, 1864, the Colorado Volunteers attacked Black Kettle’s sleeping camp. Upon learning of the disaster now known as the Sand Creek Massacre, Wynkoop was appalled and spoke out vehemently against the action.
Many of his contemporaries damned his views, but Wynkoop devoted the rest of his career as a soldier and then as a U.S. Indian agent to helping Cheyennes and Arapahos to survive. The tribes’ lifeways still centered on the dwindling herds of buffalo, but now they needed guns to hunt. Kraft reveals how hard Wynkoop worked to persuade the Indian Bureau to provide the tribes with firearms along with their allotments of food and clothing—a hard sell to a government bent on protecting white settlers and paving the way for American expansion.
In the wake of Sand Creek, Wynkoop strove to prevent General Winfield Scott Hancock from destroying a Cheyenne-Sioux village in 1867, only to have the general ignore him and start a war. Fearing more innocent people would die, Wynkoop resigned from the Indian Bureau but, not long thereafter, receded into obscurity. Now, thanks to Louis Kraft, we may appreciate Wynkoop as a man of conscience who dared to walk between Indians and Anglo-Americans but was often powerless to prevent the tragic consequences of their conflict.
"Ned Wynkoop—one of Colorado's most fascinating forgotten heroes—is finally resurrected in this crackerjack biography by Louis Kraft. To those familiar with Sand Creek, the worst U.S. Army slaughter of Native Americans in our history, this book will show you that there was one good white guy involved."—Thomas J. Noel co-author of Colorado: A Historical Atlas
“Occasionally a writer comes along whose labor-of-love research and fine body of work on a historic western figure make him the authority on that particular Westerner. . . . Well, you can now put California author Louis Kraft and his connection to Ned Wynkoop in that same category. Kraft . . . has produced the first full biography of an unusual fellow whose humanitarian stance toward Indians, empathy and ‘brave act of conscience’ made him, in the eyes of many, a villain or a traitor.”—Wild West
Louis Kraft’s special skill as a biographer is taking a figure from western history—one whom the general public should know but does not—and telling the story of a meaningful, significant life. He . . . now has repeated the feat with frontiersman Edward Wynkoop. In an American history that trumpets great ‘last stands,’ Wynkoop spoke out against the mistreatment of the Plains Indians and made his own stand of conscience, one to be studied, remembered, and admired.”—R. Eli Paul, co-author of Eyewitness at Wounded Knee
“This impressive work is not only a biography of the man, but also a concise, thoroughly documented account of the Sand Creek Massacre. Louis Kraft has added an important volume for all researchers in this area of American history.”—True West
“[Kraft] has brought to life the remarkable story of a man who defied his times by advocating peace and fair treatment for Indians during a period when most, if not all, of Wynkoop’s race stood against him and his advocacy. Kraft is to be applauded for bringing to scholars and the general public alike this much-needed biography.”—John H. Monnett, author of Where a Hundred Soldiers Were Killed: The Struggle for the Powder River Country and the Making of the Fetterman Myth
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