Ed Chase: Gambling King at Fort Morgan

Edward Chase.

Edward Chase, Denver’s gambling king had a short history with the military and Junction Station as Fort Morgan was at the time and the Sand Creek Massacre. In August 1864, he volunteered with Company F of the 3^rd Colorado Cavalry. The men in the militia were called “100 day’s men” because their enlistment in the militia lasted for 100 days. 


The 3^rd Colorado Cavalry was officially organized on August 20, 1864 and the last men were mustered out on December 31, 1864.

In August 1864, the overland trail stations at Valley Station (Sterling) and Junction Station (Fort Morgan) became military outposts formed to protect settlers and emigrants traveling along the South Platte River Road and Company F marched for the Junction on September 13, 1864.

Captain Edward Chase, one of the original gold-seekers in Colorado and known as Denver’s gambling king and became a notorious leader of Denver’s underworld. By all accounts, he was handsome and influential. Thomas Noel described the man:

The first “czar” of Denver’s gamblers was tall, hawk-faced Edward Chase. Chase came to Denver at the age of twenty-two in 1860. For the next half century he made it his business to organize the underworld into a voting bloc whose support could be traded for protection of his numerous sporting houses. “Big Ed” Chase had Denver’s first billiard table hauled across the plains…. Tall, immaculately dressed Ed Chase perched on a high stool with a shotgun across his elbow, surveying the room. Chase prided himself on keeping an orderly house…

Edward Chase.
Photo in Denver Public Library. Published in From the Grave: A Roadside Guide to Colorado's Pioneer Cemeteries.

Ed Chase and Company F would be at the Junction for only two months. In November, the unmounted Company L made up of men from Gilpin County replaced the mounted Company F at the Junction. Company F marched for Sand Creek. Nearly 100 days had passed since the militia was formed and few of the soldiers had seen action, lending the regiment the nickname the “Bloodless Third.” Almost exactly 100 days from when the first volunteers joined the militia, the “Bloodless Third” would turn into the “Bloody Third.”

       

The Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864 happened near what is now Eads, Colorado on the banks of the Big Sandy Creek, approximately 130 miles southeast of Fort Morgan. The U.S. military under the command of Colonels Chivington and Shoup attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village killing hundreds of Indians. For more information about the battle itself, see the post “Fort Morgan and the Sand Creek Massacre” Though many officers were outraged by the battle, at first the military and Colonel Chivington were treated as heroes. When the sketchy news of the battle first reached Denver, there seemed to be a general rejoicing. “Bully for the Colorado Boys!” wrote the Rocky Mountain News:

This noted, needed whipping of the “red skins,” by our “First Indian Expedition,”…was the chief subject of comment and glorification through the town today. The members of the Third, and First…”cleaned out” the confederated savages on Sand Creek, have won for themselves and their commanders…eternal gratitude of dwellers on these plains.

The return of the Third Regiment boys from the victorious field of Indian warfare was the grand feature of to-day [December 22]…. Headed by the First Regiment Band, and by Colonels Chivington and Shoup, Lieut. Col. Bowen and Major Sayr, the rank and file of the “bloody Thirdsters” made a most imposing procession…. As the “bold sojer boys” passed along, the sidewalks and the corner stands were thronged with citizens saluting their old friends: and the fair sex took advantage of the opportunity, wherever they could get it, of expressing their admiration for the gallant boys who donned the regimentals for the purpose of protecting the women of the country, by ridding it of red-skins….

Although covered o’er with dust, and suffering from the hardships of the tented field, the boys looked bully, and the general appearance of the whole was soldierly and service-like.

Chase, however, did not appear in the mood to celebrate. Muster rolls indicate that he resigned his commission on November 29 – the day of the massacre - and seven days short of his 100 day enlistment. There’s no mention of when or why he resigned and Chase is not mentioned in any of the subsequent reports of the battle nor did he testify before Congress as many dissenting officers did.

'The Sand Creek Massacre' by Robert Lindneux, 1936

We can only speculate on Chase’s quiet resignation especially as Company F of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry is hardly mentioned in the reports of the battle. This is not necessarily suspicious as the battle was chaotic and the company was placed under the command of Lt Col. Leavitt L. Bowen instead of their normal commander Col. George Shoup. Bowen's report of the battle written November 30, 1864 was less than enlightening:

I have the honor to enclose you the reports of the company commanders of the first battalion, commanded by myself, in the action of yesterday. I fully indorse all contained in these reports; all behaved well, each vieing with the other as to who could do the enemy the most injury. This, I think, can truly be said of the whole regiment. I was in position during the action to see most of the regiment, and did not see one coward. 

Permit me to congratulate you upon the signal punishment meted out to the savages on yesterday, "who so ruthlessly have murdered our women and children," in the language of the colonel commanding, although I  regret the loss of so many brave men. 

The third regiment cannot any longer be called the "bloodless third." From the most reliable information, from actual count and positions occupied, I have no doubt that at least one hundred and fifty Indians were killed by my battalion. I cannot speak in terms of too high praise of all the officers and men under my command.  

The war flag of this band of Cheyennes is in my possession, presented by Stephen Decatur, commissary sergeant of company C, who acted as my battalion adjutant.

There doesn't seem to be a report written by Ed Chase.

The man who would replace Ed Chase as captain of Company F, Joseph A. Foy seemed to have participated fully in the Sand Creek Massacre. According to news reports, Captain Joseph A. Foy opened an exhibit in 1865 to display his “trophies” from Sand Creek to the public including scalps and letters between Silas Soule and Joe A. Cramer indicate that officers including Colonel Bowen took body parts as trophies from the battlefield. 

A month after the battle, the Daily Mining Journal reported: 

A good many of the Third Regiment boys are returning to their old haunts. Some of them do no scruple to say that the big battle of Sand Creek was a cold-blooded massacre.... Many stories are told and incidents related by the actors in the bloody scene, which are too sickening to repeat.

It's unknown what Ed Chase experienced, but he seemed to anticipate the public outrage as details of the massacre became public. Before the year was out Congress there would undertake an investigation and Colonel Chivington would resign.

While Ed Chase did not publically speak out against the massacre (he reportedly did not like to talk about his experiences at Sand Creek) nor testify in Congress, his actions speak to his opinions.

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Sources:

1. “Arrival of the Third Regiment – Grand March Through Town,” Rocky Mountain News, 22 December, 1864, p. 2.
2. Colorado's Legendary Lovers: Historic Scandals, Heartthrobs, and Haunting ...By Rosemary Fetter
3.  “Troops in the Department of Kansas, Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, commanding,” in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 41, Part 4 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893), 375.
4. Forbes Parkhill, The Wildest of the West (New York: Holt, 1951) 66.
5. Thomas J. Noel, The City and the Saloon: Denver, 1858-1916 (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1996), 37.
6. Raymond G. Carey, “The ‘Bloodless Third’ Regiment, Colorado Volunteer Cavalry,” Colorado Magazine 38 (1961): 275-300.
7. Carey, “The ‘Bloodless Third’ Regiment,” 275-300.
8. Big Indian Fight!,” Rocky Mountain News, December 7, 1864, p. 2.
9. “Arrival of the Third Regiment – Grand March Through Town,” Rocky Mountain News, December 22, 1864, p. 2.
10. Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the United States Army for the Years 1861, '62, '63, '64, '65, Volume 8: Territories of Washington, New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado, Dakota… (Washington: Adjutant General’s Office, 1865), 26.
11. Daily Mining Journal January 4, 1865
12. Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native By Chip Colwell
13. Western Voices: 125 Years of Colorado Writing By Colorado Historical Society
14. Daily Mining Journal, December 30, 1864