Silas Soule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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SILAS SOULE
(July 26, 1838 - April 23, 1865)
If anyone is looking for good historical subjects to represent in film, here is a colorful and meaningful life of high adventure and moral principle. Born in Maine, at 16 his family moved near Lawrence Kansas to help settle the Territory and bring it into the Union as a free state. Father established the house as a stop on the Underground Railroad and son became an expert in the hit and run tactics of the border wars known as Bleeding Kansas. Silas helped execute jail breaks for those convicted of assisting runaway slaves. He gained access to John Brown in prison although the old man insisted on being martyred and refused to be rescued. Soule fought the Confederates at Glorieta Pass, southeast of Santa Fe where Union troops used ropes and tackle to scale cliffs and flank the rebs. The climax approaches as Soule rides with Col. Chivington and his volunteers to Sand Creek where our hero refuses to attack the Indians camped there. His subsequent testimony against Chivington led to his murder in cold blood on the streets of Denver. National outrage at the massacre influenced the US Congress to refuse the Army's request for thousands of more troops for a general war against the Native Americans of the Plains.
(July 26, 1838 - April 23, 1865)
If anyone is looking for good historical subjects to represent in film, here is a colorful and meaningful life of high adventure and moral principle. Born in Maine, at 16 his family moved near Lawrence Kansas to help settle the Territory and bring it into the Union as a free state. Father established the house as a stop on the Underground Railroad and son became an expert in the hit and run tactics of the border wars known as Bleeding Kansas. Silas helped execute jail breaks for those convicted of assisting runaway slaves. He gained access to John Brown in prison although the old man insisted on being martyred and refused to be rescued. Soule fought the Confederates at Glorieta Pass, southeast of Santa Fe where Union troops used ropes and tackle to scale cliffs and flank the rebs. The climax approaches as Soule rides with Col. Chivington and his volunteers to Sand Creek where our hero refuses to attack the Indians camped there. His subsequent testimony against Chivington led to his murder in cold blood on the streets of Denver. National outrage at the massacre influenced the US Congress to refuse the Army's request for thousands of more troops for a general war against the Native Americans of the Plains.
