The Worcester Daily Spy's front page is dominated by a scathing critique of America's Indian policy, detailing the spectacular failures of recent military campaigns in the Northwest. The anonymous correspondent reports that General Sully's seven-month expedition with 1,063 officers and men marched over 1,500 miles without killing a single Indian—except possibly one "friendly and foolish" rider shot after the campaign ended. The math is brutal: with six regiments costing $2 million each annually, the government spent $12 million to kill perhaps 25 Indians total—roughly half a million dollars per death. The piece reserves particular condemnation for Colonel Chivington's massacre at Sand Creek, where 700-800 well-armed soldiers with artillery attacked a peaceful Cheyenne camp. Despite being completely surprised, 65 Indian defenders held off Chivington for hours, allowing 800 women and children to escape before 20 warriors finally broke free alive. The writer argues this "extermination policy" has failed because Indians "are human" and "will die rather than yield a cowardly submission to oppression." Meanwhile, tucked below this serious political commentary is a whimsical poem about having a head cold, complete with references to stuffed noses and running eyes.

This brutal assessment of Indian policy appears just seven months after the Civil War ended, as America grappled with how to handle its western expansion. The Sand Creek Massacre had occurred in November 1864, and by late 1865, the public was beginning to reckon with reports of military atrocities against Native Americans. This critique reflects a growing debate about whether the U.S. should pursue extermination or accommodation with Indian tribes—a question that would define the next three decades of westward expansion and ultimately lead to the reservation system.

• Minnesota's legislature actually passed a law paying bounties for Indian scalps, and one officer reported seeing six scalps taken from a single Indian—each just "a tuft of hair and a piece of skin about the size of a dollar"
• Minnesota sent south to get bloodhounds to hunt Indians at great expense, but "the Indians shot the dogs and then cooked them—a great luxury"
• The correspondent traveled 300 miles through Indian territory and felt "in no more danger of being molested than they would have felt in Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D. C."
• A humorous poem about having a cold includes the line "I'm able yet to follow my own nose, Though that is running" and references "Micawber" needing his famous red nose
• The Congregationalist newspaper advertises that it pays its contributors rather than offering subscriber premiums, declaring "we wish it understood, that though new subscribers cannot obtain the Congregationalist at a reduced rate, and will not be hired to take it by the offer of some 'splendid present'"

• Colonel Chivington, mentioned in the Sand Creek Massacre account, was actually a former Methodist preacher who had declared it his duty to "kill and scalp all, little and big" because "nits make lice"
• The Navajo success story mentioned—15,000 surrendering peacefully—refers to the Long Walk of 1864, when Kit Carson forced them to march 300 miles to internment at Bosque Redondo
• General Sully's failed expedition was part of a larger campaign that included building a chain of forts along the Missouri River, costing the equivalent of about $400 million in today's money
• The Worcester Daily Spy, established in 1770, was one of America's oldest newspapers and had been reporting for nearly a century by this date—it actually covered the Boston Tea Party
• That whimsical cold poem's reference to "Micawber" shows how popular Charles Dickens was in America—David Copperfield's optimistic character was instantly recognizable to readers just 15 years after the novel's publication