Were the firearms issued or privately owned?
Privately owned on these early expeditions. Ford a decade or more later on his ranging patrols in South Texas would be using State-issue Mississippi rifles (in the original .54 slow twist round-ball configuration) as well as old single-shot "horse-pistols" at one point, their revolvers for the most part having become unserviceable.
Anyhow, a number of sources corroborate that about half the Texans were still using flinters in 1840.
how much ammunition did the owner bring with him?
Dunno on this one, but IIRC in 1841 Jack Hayes would specify a good rifle, a pistol, a hundred rounds of ammunition, and at one point three horses per man.
Mary Maverick (a San Antonio resident) wrote of the Rangers....
Each volunteer kept a good horse, saddle, bridle and arms, and a supply of salt, coffee, sugar and other provisions ready to start at any time on fifteen minute's warning in pursuit of the marauding Indians.
At a certain signal given by the Cathedral bell, the men were off, in buckskin clothes and blankets, responding promptly to the call. On some expeditions the men drew provisions but I have never heard of resupply expeditions. With the possible exception of the militiary road, a trail being cut between San Antonio and the present-day Dallas area. But I dunno that this road has much to do with Comanches and the combat thereof.
They brung everything with 'em, which lasted Howard about six weeks in that other 1840 expedition. Dunno about the cost of ammunition or supplies, but cost likely kept a bunch of otherwise willing guys at home.
No word on rifles fouling out of comission in these fights. The consensus seems to be that loads were looser back then than what we squeeze down rifle barrels today. I suspect too that fouling was quickly swabbed if necessary with a damp rag fragment or such.
Smoothbores are easier to load fouled as you are not trying to spiral a patched ball down rifling, but smoothbores do not seem to have been nearly as prominent out on the Plains as rifles. One gets the impression that accuracy was even more of a requiremnt than it had been in the forests back East a generation or two earlier.
Most of these fights were brief, with a few notable exceptions like Brushy Creek. This Moore fight would be over in about thirty minutes, dunno how many shots were fired, by some more than others one supposes. But if all 100 guys were making hits, if they hit an average of just two Indians each that would give about the death toll that resulted.
Birdwatcher
