I think it was the tactics Jack Hays developed for implementation of the revolver that was the real key to victory
But where's the victories?
Colt Pattersons were fragile, Walker Colts blew up, so it aint surprising that they had a short service life. But by the late 1850's however all sources agree that the White male population of Texas was uncommonly well armed, with '51 Navy Colts being prominent.
So... THOUSANDS of Texans on horseback, well armed with revolvers..... One might assume that they would fan out across the Plains hunting down the steadily diminishing supply of Comanches with their game-changing revolvers.
Except they didn't.
In fact, far Comancheria remained as forbidding and deadly as ever to the unwary or unlucky traveller. Once again DESPITE the proximity of THOUSANDS of mounted Texans with revolvers.
Perhaps such variables as tracking skills, endurance, the quality and stamina of one's horses, and the ability to get within even long rifle-shot of any Comanches you might see trumped what you actually shot 'em with if you got within range.
Fehrenbach moves the Battle of Walker's Creek up four years to 1840 so that he can have the indefagitable Hays and his men harrying Southern Comanches everywhere out of Central Texas. Driving them in desperation to seek the treaty at the Council House. Didn't happen, at least not like that.
Gwynne, in contrast, presents the awful statistic of ONE HUNDRED Rangers alive in San Antonio in 1839 dead in combat shortly thereafter.
One hundred dead guys like that would be completely unsustainable losses for any Indian group. Indeed, the only way we could have done it was with a veritable population explosion behind the Frontier feeding an endless pool of young men, which is exactly what was happening.
Certainly, at least some of those hundred dead guys would have taken one or more Comanches out with them. But just as significant must have been a dawning realization on the part of the local Comanches that it didn't really matter how many White guys you killed.
(And read Ford ("RIP Ford's Texas), he goes into it in depth and puts the Comanche bow and the revolver at a rough parity, and this from a guy who started with Pattersons and later used Walkers in the Mexican War.)
Birdwatcher
