He was a founder of the University of Denver and of Northwestern University.

The university buildings and streets and institutions that bear his name were established without particular attention to his role in Sand Creek.

The military officers who participated in the attack but were not senior enough to be held responsible disappeared into ordinary military careers.

The soldiers who had been most violent — who had taken scalps and mutilated bodies — faced no accountability at all.

The silence of the condemned tells us something about how the American political system processed the moral horror of Sand Creek.