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Ronin, from somewhere I'm recalling that at least some 1842 rifle-musket conversions were retrofitted with folding leaf sights, that would be a sure sign if yours has those. In any case, the trajectory of that big, slow .69 cal Minie musta been wicked, about like throwing rocks.

Chuck... I have alsways read that Texas was about 1/3 slave at the time of independence. Makes sense, given the importance of the cotton economy in the State.

Anyways....

Now we come to the legend.... John Coffee Hayes hisself... seen here in 1844, at the height of his rangering years.





The odd thing is how little we know about him, the man himself being having been notably disinclined to write anything down. A real pity that.

The first surprising thing is that, unlike most all of our Frontier heroes, Jack Hays came from money, a prominent family with close ties to Andy Jackson.

Online at http://www.theoutlaws.com one can find a somewhat awed and breathless biography. Much of which account must be taken with a grain of salt, for example if Jack Hays really did go, as the account states hunting with seventeen Delaware friends to the Pecos River... travelling on foot, leaving their horses at home they woulda had to walk about four hundred miles just to get there, followed by this....

The Delaware and Hays ran for two days and nights, making only brief stops for food, drink, and rest, while the everlasting pounding of feet set Jack to wondering how much longer he could endure. Finally, he surpassed the point of no return, and his screaming muscles and depleted lung power somehow remembered his days at Davidson Academy in Nashville. He had run further than he had ever run before, but he had kept up. At dawn on the third day, they attacked, surprising the Comanche, who ran frantically to the river to escape. It was a victory for the Delaware and Jack, who fought hand-to-hand with only a knife and tomahawk.

...coulda happened I guess, but I dunno that many White guys woulda found the time for all of that, even back then.

Like most accounts, the biography in the link implies that Hays started leading his own ranger force in 1840. Moore in "Savage Frontier" points out that the confusion here originated with Hays himself.

In 1844 Hays wrote an account of his Indian fighting exploits for Mirabeau Lamar, problem is the events he related as happening in 1840 conoicide exactly with the events describe in his own combat reports written immediately after action in the year 1841.

An easy point of confusion for the rest of us. Hayes came to Texas at age nineteen in 1836, narrowly missing participation in the Battle of San Jacinto. He did join several expeditions prior to 1841, and was reportedly present on Moore's failed expedition of 1839 and again at Plum Creek in 1840. Plus his chosen employment as a surveyor frequently brought him into contact with hostile Indians.

Just an excerpt here from the account of Hays' priviledged youth (from the link)...

Jack Hays had a fabulous childhood. Andrew and Rachel Jackson had no children of their own, although they did adopt one of Rachel�s nephews, naming the child Andrew Jackson, Jr. They also took in another of her nephews, Andrew Jackson Donelson, sending him to the academy at West Point.

They both adored Jack. He was a constant visitor at The Hermitage, listening enthralled as Rachel regaled him with all sorts of incredible stories of his great uncle. Rachel Jackson died of a heart attack 22 December 1828, and it was a grief-stricken Andrew who took the Office of President on 4 March 1829. It was also a severe blow to young Jack, who had idolized his great aunt.

So, Jack arrived in Texas as an educated young man, in his case having narrowly missed attending West Point and going on to a military career. Unlike most young arrivals of any description however, young Jack then chooses the two most dangerous of pastimes; fighting Indians and surveying the outer fringes of the Frontier.

The accounts we get from all sources agree on the basics; a slim, soft-spoken, unpreposessing young man. Yet a man who reportedly had a natural aptitude for combat and who easily commanded the respect and friendship of dangerous and deadly men from among all three competing races in Texas at that time.

It is interesting to guess what sort of occupations that small minority of young men who chose rangering as a profession would occupy today. For many one might guess "outlaw biker" or some such. In Jack Hays' case I'm guessing Navy SEAL or some other elite Spec Ops unit. Like most of them a young man of education and careful raising who seemed drawn to seek out combat in its most extreme forms.

Evidence of Jack Hays' intellect too that when confronted with the new and confounding problem of Plains warfare, he so readily emulated and learned from the masters of the art around him; the Indian allies alongside whom he fought.
Yet at the same time this remarkable young man would later be directly responsible for some of the bloodiest reprisals against non-combatants in Mexico.

Hays' most active period of rangering in Texas against the Comanches would last only about five years, from 1841 until February of '46. After he returned from Mexico he left the service for "personal reasons". Maybe he had grown tired of combat after the bloodletting in Mexico. Like I said, its a real pity he never wrote a book.

At age thirty he married a Seguin girl then hurried out to California in the Gold Rush years, his relatively brief sojourn in Texas passing into history.

A year later we find him elected Sherrif of San Francisco County, a former Ranger colleague servng as Chief Deputy. In 1860 he was back in the field again, against the Paiutes.

Mostly though, during his nearly forty years in California he was notable both for his accumulated wealth (founded in real estate) and for his philanthropy. In wealth and prominence he was not alone, his own nephew in those years became one of the richest men in the world, through speculating in South African diamond mines.

He died in 1883 aged sixty-six.

Just a postscript though, from that link but also supported in the gist by other accounts:

During his Texas years, Jack Hays and the famous Comanche leader Buffalo Hump developed a friendship of sorts. To the point that, nearly ten years later, Hays would keep a promise and nickname his firstborn son "Buffalo Hump". Buffalo Hump himself, though at that time living in a tipi somewhere out on the plains of far-off Oklahoma, sent the infant a gold-plated spoon inscribed "Buffalo Hump Jr."

Now there's a story I wish Hays woulda seen fit to write down.

Birdwatcher