Another thing about the Walker...many state that it was very accurate and could hit at great distances. They were also about as powerful as some of the rifles of the era...certainly not as powerful as all of them, but...
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/5MZTv5F.jpg)
RIP Ford states in his memoirs re: the Mexican War that the Walker Colt was comparable in power to a rifle, and later on in those same collected memoirs puts the revolver and bow on a parity. Certainly the 1851 Navy Colt was ubiquitous in Texas by 1858 according to Olmstead, and in 1860 (??) their ‘51 Navys certainly did save the lives of John Bell Hood’s 2nd US Cavalry patrol when ambushed at close quarters by Comanches on foot.
Problem is though with respect to Plains Indian warfare is finding altercations where revolvers made much of a difference in the overall scheme of things. Certainly there was no discernible Comanche death toll after the revolver appeared.
In 1860 there were 600,000 people in Texas, which would mean about 120,000 men of combat age, many of whom had revolvers and horses. If we estimate at least 60,000 mounted Texans with revolvers in 1860, almost none of these ever rode out against Comanches.
RIP Ford, the preeminent Indian fighter of his generation used rifles, including a lot of .54 cal round ball Mississippi’s in his battles with Comanches, if only because their revolvers were persistently “unserviceable”.
It’s been a while since I read Walter Prescott Webb but IIRC in his book The Texas Rangers includes but one or two episodes against Indians simply because after the Civil War Rangers didn’t chase Indians much. IIRC the Winchester rifles of the Rangers were the primary weapons used.
The Texas Frontier Battalion along with elements of Confederate Cavalry did go out against Comanches in 1864, decided to attack a camp of Kickapoos instead, and got their a$$es handed to them at Dove Creek by those expert Kickapoo riflemen.
Probably who was cutting the widest swathe in Comanche, Kiowa and Apache raiders in the 1850’s were the Seminoles and Black Seminoles based at El Remolino south of Piedras Negras on the Rio Grande, interdicting Indian raids in return for sanctuary in Mexico. Again primarily armed with rifles.
And of course the greatest slaughter ever of Comanches, an estimated 180 dead at the hands of 100 Texians and a handful of Lipan Apache Scouts occurred in the winter of 1840 on the North Fork of the Colorado under the command of Ranger Captain John Moore. After his disastrous foray on the San Saba the previous year Moore listened to his Lipan scouts this time and surprised the sleeping camp. Except for one revolving carbine and presumably a brace of Paterson’s in the hands of Moore, that historic slaughter was accomplished with muzzlloadig rifles, prob’ly ay least half flintlocks.
Of course all firearms pale into insignificance relative to the greatest Comanche killer of them all: cholera. Seeded across the Plains likely from San Antonio by emigrants in the Gold Rush of ‘49, killed an estimated 10,000 Comanches, half the tribe, in the winter of ‘49/‘50.
