Silas Soule and the Duty to Disobey

The Decision That Defined a Man

Editor’s note: Citation superscripts have been removed to align with The Havok Journal’s formatting. Full references remain listed at the end.

On November 29, 1864, Captain Silas Stillman Soule of the 1st Colorado Cavalry faced a moral crossroads. Below his position on the high ground along Sand Creek lay a Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment flying both an American flag and a white flag of truce. Colonel John M. Chivington’s volunteers—nearly seven hundred men—had been ordered to attack.

Soule refused. While the rest of Chivington’s force opened fire, Soule kept his company’s weapons cold. He later wrote, “any man who would take part in such murders, knowing the circumstances as we did, was a low-lived cowardly son of a b—.”

By the end of the day, more than two hundred Native people were dead, most of them women, children, or the elderly. Soule’s decision not to fire would define the rest of his short life.

A Stand Against the Current

After the massacre, Soule documented what he had witnessed in letters to Major Edward “Ned” Wynkoop and later gave sworn testimony to Army and Congressional investigators. His account described women and children begging for mercy and soldiers mutilating corpses. He made clear that his men had refused to participate.

Soule’s integrity came at a cost. On April 23, 1865—barely two months after the war’s end—he was gunned down in Denver by an associate of Chivington’s supporters. The killer escaped, and no one was ever brought to justice.

Soule died at twenty-six, leaving behind a paper trail that forced the United States to confront one of the darkest events in its frontier history. His choice to disobey an immoral order stands as one of the earliest documented examples of a U.S. officer refusing to carry out what we would now call an unlawful command.

From Moral Instinct to Codified Law

In 1864, there was no legal doctrine protecting a soldier who refused an illegal order. Under the Articles of War, disobedience could be punished by death. Soule relied only on conscience.

Nearly a century later, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM) would formalize what Soule understood intuitively. Articles 90–92 of the UCMJ make it a crime to disobey lawful orders, and the MCM clarifies that an act performed under an unlawful order is excused only when the accused neither knew nor reasonably should have known it was unlawful. In other words, obedience ends where unlawfulness begins.

The principle was reinforced after World War II at Nuremberg and later written into Department of Defense policy. DoD Directive 2311.01 establishes a department-wide Law of War Program that trains every service member to recognize, refuse, and report unlawful orders. It is no longer just a matter of conscience—it is a matter of law.

The Enduring Gray Zone

Every service teaches the duty to disobey unlawful orders, yet the moral tension remains. Modern conflicts still produce moments when legality and loyalty collide—when the right answer risks a career, or worse.

Soule had no judge advocate to consult and no ethics handbook to cite. He had only the evidence before his eyes: unarmed civilians pleading for mercy. Today’s warfighters have the protection of codified rules and institutional channels, but the underlying question has not changed. What happens when the order itself feels wrong?

The Manual for Courts-Martial offers legal clarity; it does not offer courage. That still comes down to individual character.

The Cost of Conscience

Soule’s refusal did not stop the slaughter at Sand Creek, but his testimony ensured the truth could not be buried under euphemism. The official investigations condemned Chivington’s actions as a massacre rather than a battle. More than a century later, Congress established the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site to honor the victims and to recognize the few soldiers, like Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, who refused to participate.

Soule’s grave at Denver’s Riverside Cemetery remains a pilgrimage site for historians, descendants, and service members who study moral courage. His story endures because it forces an uncomfortable reckoning: heroism sometimes means saying no.

Law, Doctrine, and Leadership

The UCMJ and MCM provide the legal scaffolding for ethical action; DoD Directive 2311.01 ensures every command trains to prevent violations of the Law of War. Air Force Instruction 51-401 translates those requirements into daily practice—training, compliance reviews, and procedures for reporting suspected violations.

Doctrine goes a step further. Army ADP 6-22 defines moral courage as the willingness to stand firm on values and convictions regardless of consequences. That description could have been written for Silas Soule. Moral courage is what turns legal principles into lived behavior.

Lessons for Modern Leaders

1. Obedience has limits. A lawful order loses authority the moment it violates law or conscience.
2. Moral courage is teachable but never easy. Every PME, every ethics brief, and every command climate should reinforce that truth.
3. Truth has endurance. Soule’s actions outlived both his killers and the men who condemned him. Leadership rooted in integrity leaves a longer legacy than rank or ribbon.

The Final Parallel

Soule stood on the banks of Sand Creek without the legal vocabulary we have today, yet he acted on the same principle the UCMJ now codifies. The Manual for Courts-Martial calls it the standard of “ordinary sense and understanding.” Soule simply called it right and wrong.

The modern military has policies, directives, and legal protections he never knew, but the ultimate safeguard of honor still rests with the individual in uniform. Laws describe behavior; character determines it. When that moment comes—and it always comes—remember Captain Soule. He didn’t have a manual to tell him what to do. He just knew.

References

1. National Park Service. (2024). The Life of Silas Soule. Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.
2. National Park Service. (2025, Apr 24). Stories of the Sand Creek Massacre. Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.
3. History Colorado / Denver Public Library. (2023). Silas Soule biography and Denver marker files.
4. Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (2024 ed.). Part IV (Punitive Articles), Discussion to Arts. 90–92.
5. Department of Defense. (2020, Nov 4). DoD Directive 2311.01 – DoD Law of War Program. §1.2(c), §2.6(b–e).
6. U.S. Air Force. (2018). AFI 51-401: The Law of War. Headquarters U.S. Air Force.
7. U.S. Army. (2019, C1 Jul 2019). ADP 6-22: Army Leadership and the Profession, paras. 5-66 to 5-67.

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Dave Chamberlin served 38 years in the USAF and Air National Guard as an aircraft crew chief, where he retired as a CMSgt. He has held a wide variety of technical, instructor, consultant, and leadership positions in his more than 40 years of civilian and military aviation experience. Dave holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA, as well as a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Science. He currently runs his own consulting and training company and has written for numerous trade publications.

His true passion is exploring and writing about issues facing the military, and in particular, aircraft maintenance personnel.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.