The early reports, based on Chivington’s own dispatches, described a successful operation against hostile Indians.

It was only when officers who had refused to participate began providing their own accounts, and when the congressional investigation began, that the full picture emerged.

The shift in press coverage of Sand Creek — from military victory to civilian massacre — reflected the genuine capacity of American democratic institutions to produce reckoning when the institutions were functioning properly.

Congressional investigation, newspaper reporting, and public testimony by military officers who had witnessed the attack produced a public understanding of Sand Creek as a crime within roughly six months of its occurrence.

The Washita generated no similar reckoning.