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Thank you for the recommendation!

It's outside of Cache getting in bad shape though.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the history guys.

Also one of the few times that I’ve heard reference to the Hall rifle. I sold a beautiful Hall rifle to a museum in South Carolina.iirc.

Thank you for the heads up on a good read. I’ve been looking for one myself...

US Dragoons were an elite unit stationed in Fort Scott, Kansas and patrolling the pre-Civil War frontier. They used the Hall's Carbine. The Hall guns were used extensively in the Mexican War and the Civil War.

EE,


Dragoons were pretty much stationed all along the frontier. Precursor to the US cavalry. Many future cav leaders served with the dragoons. Lt. St. George Cooke 2nd Dragoons captured the Snively expedition out of the Republic of Texas. The expedition were pretty much nothing but land porates raiding the Santa Fe trail.

Dragoons were not precursors to the Cavalry, the existed alongside it. They were basically mounted riflemen meant to move on horseback and then fight on foot.

One of these days we got to get together and do some land porating ourselves. Not at the Alamo though.

Exactly. But at this time they were the Army’s only real mounted entity. There were also mounted infantry units ( utilized mules) that existed along side the dragoons. As the case at Ft. Lancaster. as well as several other frontier garrisons Instead of carbines they packed standard infantry arms.

I concur on the land pirating! LOL! The merchants along the Santa Fe Trail then had great concerns for the Texas land pirates. They were a real problem and the Republic wasn’t going to curry any favor with the US by using them. Their orders were to attack and pillage caravans belonging to Mexican traders. (As a state of war still existed between the two republics). However, many American traders traveled with Mexican merchants and there really was no way to tell the difference between caravans.

These raids were kinda the brainchild of Prez Houston ( I’m pretty sure he was drunk at the time) to incur a bit of revenue selling the looted goods. This idea being only second to Prez Lamar’s illfated Santa Fe expedition a year or so earlier. Not only was it an utter failure, 2/3rds of that expedition were told ( lied to) they were on a friendly expedition to establish trade relations between Texas and NM. The intent was to have the "freedom seeking" New Mexicans join up with the Rep of Texas in independence and gird up against Mexico. The issue was NM liked being a part of the Mexican Republic and wanted nothing to do with the diablo Tejanos.

What is absolutely amazing is the Republic of Texas lasted as long as it did with the most inept and corrupt politicions that could be gathered under one roof. Especially in the days of the revolution 1835-36. There were exceptions, but for the most part they were all blackguards. Least IMHO

Birdy may wish to chime in on this.

Empire of the Summer Moon.
SC Gwynne

I, personally, have not read this book. And the reason I haven’t is all the professional anthropologist and historians (that have read it) I know have all told me the same thing. That I would not really appreciate it. It was well received when debuted, and here comes the but, while an entertaining book it makes way too many generalizations about the Comanche. And that much of it was probably plagerized from T. R. Ferenbach’s earlier works. And that there were better works available ( like the one Birdy mentioned above) that would probably be more to my liking.

That’s why I shy away from it. I know many here have read and enjoyed it. And that’s great. Not trying to make myself out as some kind of elitist as I am far from that. Just my two cents. I certainly would not talk anyone out of reading it. These are just my reasons.

Great thread !!!

kaywoodie,

You know of any good reads on Nolan or Glass? I'd only recently learned of their forays into Spanish held country to buy horses to drive back to Louisiana. I'm sure they must have had some exciting times trading with Comanches and trying to avoid the Spanish.

Glass left a journal. Very interesting but shory read. Several good side stories.

https://www.amazon.com/Journal-Indian-Trader-1790-1810-Southwestern/dp/1585440167

Nolan is a bit more enigmatic. Only really mentioned in other references. I’m trying to remember if Herbert Eugene Bolton Mentions him in any of his works. Dr. David Weber formerly of SMU hits on him some in his work on the Spanish frontier in North America.

Thank you!

Lonny,

I suggest looking into the book mentioned in the bibliography of this from Handbook of Texas.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fno02

Jack Jackson is a pretty good authority on early Texas history. I didn’t know this book existed.

I would like a recent work on the Tonkawas, the exuberantly cannibalistic guys of whom around thirty ran twenty-five miles overnight to fight on our side at Plum Creek, inflicted most of the Comanche/Kiowa casualties and captured all the horses. All this at Ed Burleson’s invitation, and Ed was a capable man.

Twenty years later RIP Ford took a fully half Tonkawa force (100 men) against Buffalo Hump’s Comanches, referring at that time to their leaders as ‘superior men with an encyclopedic knowledge of the west’ and won. Fourteen years later the dwindling Tonks were still at it, relentlessly guiding MacKenzie down on Quanah Parker’s bunch.

Never very many, always within raiding distance of the Comanches, yet the Tonkawas were killing and eating Comanches for more’n thirty years, Quanah Parker in common with the rest of his tribe hated and feared them.

After the big ‘74 sundance Parker had wanted to go and exterminate the few remaining Tonkawas rather than go after the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls (after all the Comanches had largely switched to cattle by that time) but got outvoted. Maybe the rest of his bunch chickened out.

Anyways Gwynn predictably went the Pop Texas History route and at the very start of "Summer Moon” says the Tonkawas were “always losing”.

Edward Burleson was an exceptionally capable man. Unfortunately he had politics pretty much thrust upon him. But still one of exceptional quality!!! One of the exceptions I alluded to. He reigned pretty damn surpreme on the battlefield!

Where Empire of the Summer Moon does shine is when it goes where most Texas Frontier history books do not. One of these being the sad fate of Rachel Plummer and the fact that for most Texans, even as early as 1838, other Texans were as much of a threat than were Indians.

Rachel Plummer (née Parker) was a Cousin to Cynthia Anne Parker and was seventeen and pregnant when she and her two year old son were likewise captured in 1836 at Parker’s Fort. Thanks to the Herculean efforts of her father Rachel was ransomed 21 months later. Only to die in part from the effects of exposure while giving birth outdoors in inclement weather while hiding from other Texans looking to kill her father.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Plummer

The other place where Summer Moon shines is following the later careers of Quanah Parker and failed “bullet proof medicine” medicine man Isa-Tai (“Coyote Droppings”) as rivals for elected office within the tribe. Isa-Tai coming across like a character only a Larry McMurphy would invent 🙂

Interesting.....thanks for your input. I’d never seen nor held a Hall until a Korean War veteran Marine in his 80’s contacted me about buying his collection. I bought everything he had for the price he was asking. He had a cartridge collection that was, in my opinion, a treasure trove of old, original, RARE cartridges. Everything from original Henry cartridges, Billinghurst Requa cartridges, original and oddball 1880’s 45-70 cartridges, 30-03, almost every version of 30-06 military loads including a “specialized” load that was meant for use against dirigibles in the Great War. I’ve got so many different cartridges from the pinfire, to inside primed, to Civil War paper wrapped ball and powder and everything in between but my problem is figuring out how to display it. I’ve always collected cartridges but the collection I bought would be impossible to put together today.

I bought some great things from him like the Hall carbine. I also bought a Johnson with original bayonet and scabbard. The only thing I passed on was a Spencer Carbine which I still kick myself over. It was in good shape but the markings were so faint as to be almost invisible so I reluctantly passed on it. I had already bought a dozen or so of his guns, his extensive cartridge collection and his bayonet and knife collection. The bayonet and knives he had were just as rare and desirable as his firearm collection. Revolutionary war bayonets, WWI and WWII training bayonets made from spring steel and leather wrapped for the 1903 Springfield and Bakelite training bayonet for the Garand. Ross rifle bayonets, 1866 Winchester bayonets, a BIG cleaver for the USMC (US Medical Corps) used for clearing brush to build quick MASH tents not for amputations which is what everyone mistakenly thinks it’s for.

I even bought his dad’s seabag from WWI. His dad was a Marine also and on his seabag he’d drawn a map of his travels throughout Europe during the war. Inside was his original issue gas mask and a few other odds and ends. That old man spent his life collecting that stuff and he wanted it to go to someone who’d appreciate, I assured him that it was. He made some good money from that liquidation sale and he was beyond thrilled with the wad of cash he ended up with. He told me that based on what he paid for everything versus what he sold it for that he made a rough average of 500% profit which was great because his asking prices were ridiculously low. I actually paid him more for some things than what he was asking. At the time I had no idea what a Johnson Automatic (semi) with bayonet and frog was selling for but I figured that it was at least worth the $250 that he was asking. He told me that he thought it had a broken extractor (or something) but I later checked it out thoroughly and realized that it didn’t and it functioned flawlessly. I had a customer that collected Garands, mostly Winchester Garands, and when he found out we had a Johnson he would not stop pestering me to sell it to him. When he got to $3500 with his offer I decided to sell it to the collector.

Thanks for the interesting thread...👍