Witness at Sand Creek: The Life and Letters of Silas Soule

What compels an ordinary person to stand against atrocity? Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero captures the soul of a man who bore witness to genocide and chose to speak out in her new book, Witness at Sand Creek: The Life and Letters of Silas Soule.

This powerful volume brings to life the story of Captain Silas Soule, a young abolitionist turned Union officer raised in a Congregational family who refused to obey orders during the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Rather than participate in the slaughter of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho families, Soule defied his superiors and later testified to what happened. His act of conscience would make him a target: he was assassinated just months later.

Part biography, part spiritual journey, Witness at Sand Creek blends historical detail with personal pilgrimage, offering readers both rare primary sources and a contemporary call to moral clarity. From Soule’s early abolitionist work alongside John Brown to his final days as a whistleblower, this book is a profound meditation on history, integrity, and the price of truth.

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SPEAKER BIO

Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero graduated with her Doctor of Ministry degree in May 2023 from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is ordained in the United Church of Christ. She has had a 15-year career in hospice and hospital chaplaincy-bereavement and created grief work as an important companion with racial justice work. Prior to her call to ministry, she was a historic preservationist and journalist. Rev. Dr. Niero lives on the ancestral land of the Squaxin Island people, People of the Water, who lived along the shores and watersheds of the seven southernmost inlets of the Salish Sea, near what is known today as the Puget Sound in Washington.