The Civil War, which was just concluding in the years of Black Kettle’s post-Sand Creek peace efforts, had demonstrated that the American military could mobilize resources at a scale that no plains nation could match.

He believed that some American political leaders genuinely wanted peaceful resolution, and that the violence of people like Chivington and Custer reflected the failure of those leaders to control their own military and territorial officials, not the permanent position of the American government.

This belief was partially correct — there was a significant peace faction within American politics, represented by figures like Senator James Doolittle, who genuinely opposed the violent approach and who worked to expose and condemn Sand Creek.

The problem was that the peace faction was not strong enough to impose its approach consistently.