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If you read the accounts of DeSoto's expedition through what would later become Arkansas, it is clear that there were sizable indian villages every few miles. The rural population might not have been that much less than it is today. By the time the first traders and settlers started getting there in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was practically a wasteland as far as human habitation went. There were very few indians and vast amounts of game.

Historians, even historical authors, skip stuff regularly. Which is why I try to read several authors on any historical subject. It takes time and several viewpoints to come up with what I can consider a relatively true and accurate picture of a historical period and place. If Gwynne has presented a slanted picture of events in "Empire", he at least opened my eyes to aspects of the history of this part of the world that I had no clue about before, and has piqued my curiosity to the point where I want to read and know more.

Careful, turns out Smithwick (seen below) was a PC apologist fer the Disney Channel (prob'ly no accident he ended up in California).



I mean he partnered with a White guy who had married a Black woman, lived with Comanches, rode with Cherokee, and the Lipans who rode with Jack Hays used to hang out at Smithwick's gun shop. Nary an attempted smallpox infestation or razor stropping or head removal at all. Even had the nerve to call a fresh In'jun scalp a "loathsome trophy" and says that his attempted recapture of some runaways slaves was "the meanest thing he ever did".

To top it all off, the wrote THIS...

The storm abated on the fourth day, but the snow had obliterated the Comanches' trail, so I took a Lipan and went on in the direction they had been heading. We kept on up the Colorado on the east side till near the mouth of the San Saba, when on ascending a rise overlooking the valley, we saw smoke rising some miles up the San Saba.

The Indian said he knew it was from camp fires because it ascended in columns; if it were prairie fires it would spread out in clouds. He said it was no use to go any farther, as he knew exactly where the camp was located. It was then late in the day, but not caring to tarry, we turned back, riding on far into the night.

While riding along about dark we heard a wolf howl behind us. My guide stopped short and assumed a listening attitude. In a few moments another answered, way to the right. Still the Indian listened so intently that his form seemed perfectly rigid. Then another set up a howl on our left. "Umph, lobo," said the Lipan, in a tone of relief. I can't say that I admired the music of the wolf at any time, but it certainly never had a more unmusical sound than on that occasion, and when I saw that even an Indian's ears were uncertain whether it were wolf or Comanche, I felt the cold chills creeping over me.

Some distance ahead we entered a cedar brake, just in the edge of which we came upon a turkey roost. We had nothing to eat, so with the approval of my guide, I shot a turkey. Securing our prize, we hurried on, putting many miles behind us before we ventured to draw rein. Several times I suggested stopping, but the Indian said "No; there was no suitable place." Late in the night we came to a dry ravine, and the Indian said we might stop.

Selecting a spot where there were no trees to reflect the light, he started a fire and prepared to roast the turkey. "You go to sleep," said he, and I was glad to obey the order, feeling perfectly safe in his care. At daybreak he roused me up to breakfast, having roasted the turkey while he kept guard. I doubt if he slept at all. A few hours' ride brought us into camp.


As if all that weren't enough, the poor deluded fool thought the War Between the States was actually about slavery.

Next.... John Salmon Ford: Secret Liberal.

Birdwatcher

Fehrenbach was channelling Walter Prescott Webb in tone and bias, but Gwynne's ommission is puzzling.

Anyhoo... I had thought "Savage Frontier Volume 1 1835-1837" was tedious before now, but now I want to get Volume Two.

Consider this quote from George Bernard Erath and twelve companions: January 7th, 1837 and its references to weaponry. Here they are, on foot, discovering a trail..

Their fires were still there; they had erected eight or ten shelters out of sticks and grass; each could shelter eight or ten men. The trail made a plain road, it was no trouble to follow.

An Indian, or an old hunter, could have told by the cut of the moccasin soles as to what tribe they belonged; but we did not have the art, and were perplexed on the subject.

It was agreed that if they were wild Indians we could manage them; but if Caddos, or the like, we might finds our hands full

The meaning of the quote being that Caddos, or the like, would be carrying rifles whereas the prospect of bows/clubs spears etc weren't that frightening....

Erath's men found the Caddo camp the next morning and did deliver a surprise first volley, afterwards being compelled into a rapid fighting retreat with the loss of two of their own, total Caddo casualties being about ten.

Of that action Erath writes... Had we all had pistols, or the six-shooters of the present-day we could have charged them and kept them running

But here we had a group of Indians on foot, leaving their fires burning and "a plain road" of tracks anyone could follow as well as talking loudly among themselves the next morning. Gotta wonder if they were travelling to raid at all.

Birdwatcher

Gwynne does a good job of pointing out the high casualty rate among the early Ranging Companies, about 50% a year. But given their aggressive tactics; commonly tracking and assaulting larger groups of Indians head-on, perhaps that is no surprise.

Also noted as per Gwynne how such an enviroment and such heavy casualties could further make them "een rougher, more brutal, and more aggressive".

Gwynn, like Fehrenbach, makes much of the arrival of the revolver in changing the balance of power, but I aint convinced. It is worth noting that, on the "official" inauguration of the revolver against Comanches at Walker's Creek in 1844, wherein fifteen Rangers attacked seventy-five Comanches (not unusual odds even in the 1830's, see Erath's account above), the Rangers at Walker's Creek suffered four men down.

IIRC three of those lived, but that surely was just by chance from not actually having been struck in a vital spot. And just as surely two or three Walker's Creeks a year could easily whittle Hays Rangers down by half, even with revolvers.


I do think one part of the Ranger legend is a tad overblown, re: the way the Texas Rangers travelled and camped. Gwynne writes....

Each man had a rifle, two pistols, and a knife. He had a Mexican blanket secured behind his saddle. That was all.

Like Comanches, the Rangers often travelled by moonlight navigating by river courses and the north star, and dispensing with fires altogether, making "cold camps" and eating hardtack or other uncooked rations.

Hays men would sleep fully clothed and fully armed, ready to fight at a minute's notice. They crossed rivers even in freezing weather, swimming by the side of their horses.

None of this behavior had any precedent in American military history. No cavalry anywhere could bridle and saddle a horse faster than the Rangers.

Pardon me, does no one else still make cold camps, eat uncooked rations and sleep with weapons at hand? Sounds about like any number of motorcycle trips I've been on, and any number of times me and the missus have crashed out in the woods.

Also, for the "none of this behavior had any precedent" part; I would say the ultimate of historical frontier military hardship that I know of was George Rogers Clark's taking of Fort Vicennes in February of 1779. CLark and his men basically marching through heavy rains across frigid, ankle deep floodwaters for more than 200 miles. Towards the end they traversed deeper spots up to their shoulders, and continued on for two days of this without any food at all, right before going into battle.

Amazing that ANY survived that ordeal to meet the British....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_campaign


Of the Texas Rangers, what CAN be said is that they merely followed standard wilderness travelling procedures for moving though country where danger was expected. The same sort of things that men, women and children all over this continent had been doing forever.

Only us would make a production out of this.

Birdwatcher

Holy smoke! Found it...

re: Native marksmanship standards circa 1709.....

Our Indian having this Day kill'd good Store of Provision with his Gun, he always shot with a single Ball, missing but two Shoots in above forty; they being curious Artifts in managing a Gun, to make it carry either Ball, or Shot, true.

When they have bought a Piece,and find it to shoot any Ways crooked,they take the Barrel out of the Stock, cutting a Notch in a Tree, wherein they set it streight, sometimes shooting away above 100 Loads of Ammunition, before they bring the Gun to shoot according to their Mind.

A New Voyage to Carolina, John Lawson , 1709

Note... modern BP smoothbore shooters STILL do this today, tho' this is the earliest mention I am aware of.

Birdwatcher

I dunno, Mike. The fact that the duly constituted military authorities repeatedly sent large infantry units as well as standard (i.e., heavy dragoon) cavalry units out to fight the plains Indians despite repeated and documented failures using these tactics suggests the Ranger way was not orthodox by any means.

As for accuracy with smoothbores, I concur. Modern hunters have been brainwashed into thinking that only rifled barrels are accurate. Not true.

When I lived in northern Alberta I'd hunt ruffed grouse with a load of birdshot in one barrel and a slug in the second, because grouse season overlapped deer season on both ends. I could hit a paper pieplate at 100 yards 9 times out of 10 with that barrel and slug combo. I did take a forkhorn muley buck with that barrel, too.

The reason military smoothbores weren't accurate is because they generally just dumped the powder, used the paper cartridge for wadding, and then rolled the ball down the barrel. It was necessary for the ball to be smaller than the barrel in order to load quickly, so the ball just kind of bounced down the barrel. THAT is what modern people think of when they think of smoothbore muskets.

But you take the same musket and use a ball of the proper size with an actual patch around it, and you have a completely different animal.

In one of my books George Erath said his English wasn't very good. The only command he knew was "Charge, boys, Charge!" Erath County is up there between Comanche and Lipan Tx.

The large metropolis of Dublin is in Erath County, original home of Ben Hogan and current home of my aunt and uncle.

I just finished this book and recommend it as one of the best books I've ever read. Very well written...and very interesting. Amazing stuff that time in history....

Bringing it back around in case someone missed it. Thanks to DocRocket for recommending it in the first place. Excellent...

Elwood

Hey Doc, what I meant was, the Rangers were merely following standard common-sense modes of travel for most EVERYONE crossing hostile country; travelling fast, wary and light, actually not a whole lot different from the common practice of illegals trying to cross our wild country today.

One thing I'm ready to be disproved on here is the legendary and oft-quoted role of the Colt's revolver in Ranger hands in "changing the balance of power on the Plains".

I have got to dig up my much thumbed-through copy of Ford's "RIP Fords Texas", in it he gives a sober assessment of the revolver vs. the Comanche bow.

First off, most everyone here will correctly pronounce even a modern handgun as a short-range weapon even when deployed on foot from a two-handed Weaver stance. In the case of the Colt's revolver in the hands of Rangers the common supposition seems to be that the Rangers on running horses were somehow knocking off opponents at a distance.

Jack Hay's hisself acknowldeged the fact that revolvers were a short-range proposition at best with his famous command of "powder-burn them!" at Walker's Creek.

Where revolvers DO excel is in reports of exceedingly close-range actions, as in Hays at Walker's Creek in 1844 and the action of future Confederate General John Bell Hood on the Devil's River in 1857...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Devil's_River

In both instances the Indians closing to hand-to-hand range. The other instances being when charging a camp of an enemy caught by surprise, riding in and amongst the tipis doing rapid-fire execution (sorta like where Gus in "Lonesome Dove" "reads them from the book" in that famous scene where he surprises the renegade Comanche camp at night).

In his biography Ford states how Comanche archers fired purely by instinct, from a bow held flat, and how they could fire several arrows in rapid succession and with a considerable degree of accuracy hit another running horse at 100 yards and reliably hit a mounted opponent from 50 yards or less. Ford hisself puts the bow-mounted Comanche and the revolver-armed Ranger essentially on a par.

Which leads to the conclusion that a bunch of Rangers charging and shooting in the open at a full gallop about like the Lone Ranger and Tonto in the opening of that show would end up with quickly-emptied revolvers while suffering at least as many casualties as their opponents.

OTOH both Fehrenbach and Gwynn cite the famous 1839 incident where Ranger Captain John Bird found himself facing far-superior numbers as the textbook case of the supposed inefficacy of the rifle.

In that fight Bird and the thirty-one rifle-armed men in his company pursued a like number of Comanches out onto the open plain only to find themselves facing a whole bunch. Gwynne gives a figure of forty rangers vs 300 Comanches, Fehrenbach has fifty rangers encountering 200 Comanches, I myself tend to give credence to the "Texas History Online", it being put out by UT. That account gives thirty-one rangers vs. 300 Comanches.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbi15

Frankly, per Fehrenbach I find the spectacle of FIFTY Rangers abjectly fleeing from just four times their number of Comanches to be a tad improbable, given the customarily near-suicidal boldness of rangers when facing superior numbers in other actions we know of.

Bird's REAL problems seems to have been that his horses played out, and that he turned and fled, inviting mounted attack from the rear by far superior numbers.

There are a number of printed accounts of rifle-armed Eastern Indians out on the Plains standing off and inflicting heavy losses against mounted Plains Indians even while both parties were engaged in the open... by dismounting and reserving their fire such that all the rifles were not emptied at one time.

Neither are guys on horseback with rifles necessarily immobile and static as those accounts espousing the virtues of the revolver are prone to state. Heck, in fiction I'll give you both Robert Duvall and Jason Patrick dismounting, rifle in hand, to take out mounted Indian opponents in "Geronimo, an American Legend" AND a dismounted Robert Duvall doing the same again against mounted Comanches in "Lonesome Dove".

Hays and his fifteen revolver-armed companions in 1844 at Walker's Creek suffered about 30% casualties while facing seventy five Comanches. Bird and his thirty-one rifle-armed companions suffered a similar casualty rate against three hundred Comanches while, like Hays at Walker's Creek, inflicting about SIX TIMES their own losses on the Comanches.

The only real difference being that Bird hisself died in his battle, one wonders how that fight would be percieved if he had not. Seems a safe assumption that the Comanches themselves would much prefer that either engagement never happened.

Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, Hay's famous revolver victories occurred that same year of 1844, against opponents as-yet ignorant of the existence of repeating firearms, said Indians colsing on what they logically assumed were emptied handguns.

Birdwatcher

Your last sentence defines the early-on advantage of the revolver.

I'm not going to argue contrariwise. We know that small-unit irregular actions had been incorporated into North American military forces as early as the 1740's, with Rogers' Rangers being the most famous example (although the French had adopted the Indians' tactics a century before, and the eastern Indians had been fighting that way for centuries or longer!). So the adoption of such tactics by Jack Hays and his Texas rangers in the 1840's was not really innovative in the larger scheme.




Well, I'm not sure we can prove or disprove in retrospect the supremacy of the role of Colt's revolver in the conquest of Comancheria, but it did unquestionably help change the balance of tactical advantage. My library is still mostly packed in cardboard boxes from my move so I can't quote direct passages (most of my books are secondary sources and histories anyway), but more than a few authors have commented on the concept that the revolving pistol gave white men a weapon that allowed them to finally fight the Comanches on a more equal footing.

The Comanches were wizards with their short bows, as you've said. It seems that in order to be considered competent with a bow and therefore suitably skilled for war, a Comanche boy had to be able to hit a post while galloping past it at full gallop, shooting from under his horse's neck. The fact that a warrior could fire a dozen arrows in half a minute with that kind of accuracy put whites, armed with muzzle-loading single-shot pistols and rifles only, at a huge disadvantage unless they possessed superior numbers and fought on foot. Reloading muzzleloaders on horseback was highly problematic (but not impossible... I have a reproduction of a Frederic Remington painting of a buffalo hunter reloading his rifle at full gallop with a ball held in his mouth, a practice Remington observed many times). As such, prior to the advent of the revolving pistol, whites were at a distinct disadvantage in terms of weaponry.

Samuel Walker placed his order for Colt's revolvers in 1842 or 1843. There is some speculation as to how they were initially employed, but it seems Hays and Walker and their Rangers spent a lot of time training with the weapons before they were ever employed in combat. It seems they realized the revolvers were not very accurate, but were devastatingly effective at close range. Each Ranger carried two revolvers with two spare pre-loaded cylinders, giving him 10 readily available shots, more than enough for most close engagements, and another 20 rounds at his disposal if he chose to reload and re-engage the enemy. The strengths and limitations of the revolving pistols no doubt dictated the tactics Hays developed for battle. The Rangers would attempt to sneak in as close as they could to their Comanche enemies as they could, then they would charge into them, pistols drawn, and once inside effective range, twenty yards or less, they would open fire. A troop of 20 Rangers had 200 rounds of .44 caliber ball ready at hand, which could be discharged very rapidly. The effect on their enemies was devastating.

And yes, Gus's attack on the Kiowa renegades in Lonesome Dove was quite illustrative of that sort of tactic.

Changing cylinders wasn't easy or quick, therefore unlikely to have been undertaken in the heat of battle. I have some experience with this, having used black powder revolvers exclusively in my Cowboy Action shooting career over the past 12 years or so, and most of that with cap and ball revolvers. Even if you have pre-loaded cylinders at hand, it takes a minimum of two to three minutes to break the pistol down, remove the spent cylinder, mount the fresh cylinder, reassemble the revolver, and cap the nipples. If a Ranger ran out of ammo during a melee, he would have no choice but to holster his handguns and draw his sword.

Some people disparage the accuracy of the cap and ball revolver. Such people are simply ignorant of the capabilities of the weapon. I don't have a Walker Colt, but I do have a number of big pistols: a Colt 3rd Dragoon, a pair of 1860 Army revolvers and a pair of 1858 Remington revolvers (Italian replicas, of course, not originals) and I've trained with these pistols for years. I have found that because of their heavy weight and long barrels they can be fired very rapidly and very accurately, even while moving. The Walker revolver, being even heavier, would be a stable and very accurate weapon with which to engage enemies at close range from horseback. Furthermore, the flash, smoke, and roar of these big revolvers is impressive, to say the least, even when it's only a single Cowboy Action shooter taking his turn at the firing line; a troop of Rangers, all discharging their hand-cannons at once, would be terrifying to face.

The Colt revolving pistol may well have been the most important technical innovation in the Rangers' success against the Comanches, but I think it was the tactics Jack Hays developed for implementation of the revolver that was the real key to victory. He and his Rangers so impressed the Army in the Mexican War in 1848 that it became the model for light cavalry tactics in the Civil War, particularly among the Confederate guerillas. I have a photograph of one of Quantrill's raiders in which he displays no less than four Remington revolvers on his person. Confederate horse soldiers were known to carry as many as eight loaded revolvers on horseback. The records show that this was a highly effective fighting technique.

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

It is unfortunate that the specifics of the first employment of revolvers against Comanches in a pitched fight seems clouded with uncertainty. At least most agree on the time... early June 1844, a still green and pleasant time down here, tho' this shortly transitions into at least three months of intensely sunny and hot.

Fehrenbach puts this battle in 1840 and has Hayes and fourteen Rangers charge through "a blizzard of Comanche arrows". That seems unlikely, given the vaunted accuracy of Comanche archers.

Likewise even with revolvers in hand Ford, who would know, puts the bow and revolver on parity, hard to imagine anyone charging through said blizzard on purpose even if the arrow was a tad less lethal than the lead ball.

Anyhow, all accounts agree... fifteen Rangers versus seventy-five or more Comanches. The Rangers were camped near to the Guadelupe River near the present-day hamlet of Sisterdale, today a pleasant spot on the road between Boerne and Luckenbach, like most everthing in that area slowly getting overrun by high dollar housing "estates".

Everyone but Fehrenbach states the Comanches tried to bait the Comances in to a charge, retreating to high ground in their rear and actually dismounting behind cover.

Interesting that, and counter to the Plains Indian "ride in circles around the wagons" stereotype. Perhaps these guys had already participated in a number of engagements wherin they charged guys with rifles, with disatrous results.

From here, accounts differ on what happened next, Gwynne in "Empire" gives a version based upon one presented in the Houston Morning Star newspaper based upon an interview with Hays. UT gives substantially the same account...

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btw02

...wherein the rangers enter a ravine just in front of the Comanche postion deep enough to hide them, and use it to flank the Comanches, gaining access the the back fo the Comanche line, at least partially dismounted on a hilltop. Sounds odd that the Comanches didn't anticipate this.

What happens then is a bit unclear, the rangers forming into a wedge and assaulting the hilltop, the fighting according to Ben McCullough becoming "hand to hand", dismounted or mounted unclear, but "attacks on both flanks" by the Comanches.

From there the fight devolves into a long chase, Comanches repeatedly turning to face the rangers only to be dropped by revolvers, the Comanche leader Yellow Wolf being finally dropped at 30 yards with the Rangers' last bullet.

I find this other account more credible, still involcing a ranger flankng attack as it does, and mention of ten Comanche bowmen having stationed themselves in cover on what they had anticipated would be the rangers' flank makes sense.

Note that rifles from cover was a usual prior Ranger battle tactic, suckering the Comanches within pistol range would be logical too...

http://www.classicballistx.com/HistoryWalker_Colt.html

When, at sixty yards distance from the band of Indians, he saw a second and a third rank behind the first, Hays wheeled and ordered his men into a stand of timber to the side. As
they approached the timber, concealed Comanches showered them with arrows. Hays plunged into the position, surprising a dozen bowmen who sprinted in flight for their horses.

Now in a defensible position, three Texans held horses while the others deployed to meet the charging Comanches.

The first line of Comanches absorbed a rifle volley then the main body raced to attack as the Rangers supposedly reloaded. But the Texans stood up and poured a hail of pistol balls into the startled Comanches. Warriors and ponies fell and the Indian charge was shattered.

Quickly, while the chiefs assembled their position at a distance, Hays� men reloaded their two pistols each
with their extra cylinders, charged their rifles and shotguns, mounted, and counterattacked....

During the fight, Sam Walker and his good friend R. A. "Ad" Gillespie were separated from the other Rangers and both suffered wounds from Indian lances.

Birdwatcher

bump

Doc, thanks for the recommendation---I finished it a couple of weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Keep the recommendations coming!!
Greg

Just got into the first few chapters of this book and WOW, I'm hooked. I gotta finish this one before deer season (Oct. 28) starts.

Uncommon warriors with a VERY different set of morals. Hard for us to understand nowadays. They didn't just do a few years of military service, they lived a warrior's life.

Thanks,