Anthony fires first to spite Soule

This tidbit appears in a letter in the Feb. 4, 1865 News attacking Major Anthony's well-known tendency to change his tune back and forth between two seemingly incontrovertible positions. Anthony was the commander at Ft. Lyon after Wynkoop was sent away for jacking up the program. The anonymous writer 'D.' reports that Anthony was the first to fire upon some group of Indians (it's unclear to me which engagement the writer is referring to here, perhaps to the Sand Creek massacre itself), and did so to spite Soule. It seemed strange to some folks when he later spoke against Chiv/Sand Creek as the tide of opinion turned. Anthony is one of those epic bootlickers who doesn't seem to hold any of his own convictions. That made him the man for the job at Ft. Lyon in the fall of '64.

It's true that Soule 'commenced sympathizing' with the Indians. But only after he had 'walked through the fire.' Most of the rest of the officers at Ft. Lyon sympathized with Black Kettle's band as well, and are on record supporting Wynkoop and speaking out against the massacre, although none followed through in quite the same way when the shit was going down.

Maybe somebody knows who this 'D.' is, but I sure don't. It could simply be Byers making stuff up. It could be his co-editor John Dailey, who had enlisted in the 3rd. It might be Downing, whose opinion Byers seemed to value highly. It could also be Dee from What's Happenin for all I know. Later the Daily Mining Journal joked about tweedledum and tweedledee.