Black Kettle

Black Kettle had been invited to Washington, D.C. where he spoke with both President Lincoln and Colonel Greenwood about making peace. President Linclon gave him some medallions and Greenwood presented him with a large United States flag decorated with 34 stars and the promise that as long as this flag flew above his camp, no soldier would fire upon his people.
A year later, in the early morning of November 29, 1864, over 700 U.S. soldiers ambushed this small Cheyenne encampment at Sand Creek as the U.S. flag whipped in the cold winter wind in the aftermath.
Survivors of this massacre say that White Antelope sang the Cheyenne death song as he died. These words are inscribed in the flag on this picture, "Nothing lives long, Only the earth and the mountains."