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You read me the wrong way. To be clear I should have said "...carried redundant weaponry prior to the Colt, not to mention afterwards."

Josey Wales carried five, IIRC.
I would have too, no doubt.

Supply and demand of course.

Moore (the author) gives a cost of $200 for a Paterson Colt in the years being discussed here. About seven month's salary for a Ranger, assuming they were getting paid, who IIRC got around $30 a month.

Assuming Ranger pay was pretty low, say, equivalent to a $25,000 salary today, that would put the relative cost of Patersons way-high, like around $20,000 for us today.

Here's an invaluable account of the cost of firearms about this time from another forum...

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/256994/pid/985479/

A bit later but it gives a good idea of the variety being used in the area by Texans.
In 1843 Captain Philip St. George Cooke, in command of a dragoon detachment patrolling an area along the north bank of the Arkansas River, encountered a band of Texas "irregulars/freeboters" who were threatening a Santa Fe caravan. Anticipating trouble from the captain and his frontier-toughened troops, the Texans hastily concealed a number of their best weapons (including some
Colt repeating rifles), but Cooke nevertheless relieved them of various other guns, including muskets, shotguns, pistols, and rifles.
Among the rifles Cooke confiscated and later turned in at Fort Leavenworth were:
30 flint lock rifles, valued at eighteen dollars each, including the barrel of one which has no stock, which appears to have been lost in
transportation.
12 percussion rifles, valued at twenty two dollars and fifty cents, including the barrel of one which has no stock. . . .
3 half stock Middletown rifles, percussion lock, valued at eighteen dollars each.
1 full stock percussion lock [Middletown rifle], valued at eighteen dollars.
1 halfstock flint lock Middletown rifle, valued at eighteen dollars.
NOTE: The "Middletown rifles" were probably altered U.S. Model 1817 contract arms made by Simeon North
Totals: 31 flinters and 16 percussion

So, by 1840 standards, a Paterson in Texas cost about as much as ten regular rifles. Maybe an important clue there as to why Colt went broke.

Interesting to note too that the cost of a hand-made muzzleloading rifle (they were all hand-made back then of course) was about equivalent to what it is now; pretty much most of a month's salary for a not-very-well-paid individual, or ballparking $1,500 to $2,000 for a plain example.

Also of interest to note is that Smithwick, a gunsmith and blacksmith, went rangering in 1839 precisely because "cash money being scarce in those days", he needed the money.

Ten years later, Colt revolvers would still be rare enough that RIP Ford's group of Rangers operating in South Texas didn't have any much of the time, using Mississippi rifles and, at one point, multiple old single-shot "horse pistols", as many as eight per man.

Frequenting 18th Century reenactor boards I have learned that the expected life of a conventional Frontier longarm was about twelve years. We can be pretty certain that the first round of Colt Patersons didn't even come close to that. After Colt retooled again, his Colt Walkers were pretty short-lived too, which is part of the reason originals are so scarce and valuable today.

Yet, by the end of the 1850's, Frederick Law Olmstead in his classic travelogue "A Journey Through Texas" would report that virtually every Texas male carried a Colt's revolver.

Prob'ly a major study here doable re: advances in manufacturing and the quality of steel in the 1850's. I have read that the 1851 Navy, produced in England as well as here, revolutionized the manufacturing industry, Colt being the Henry Ford of his day.

Next question is, how did the guys going out into the boonies into what was then exceedingly dangerous country compare to just regular Texans? Browsing around I came up with a population of 100,000 in Texas in 1840. I'm gonna float a WAG that 40,000 of these were slaves, leaving about 60,000 White folks.

I'm also gonna guess that the proportion of combat-age males was higher than it is in most normal populations. Ordinarily you would estimate a 5 to 1 ratio, as in 12,000 combat age males available out of those 60,000 Texas Whites in 1840. I'm gonna ballpark 24,000 combat age White males in Texas in 1840.

If you can come up with as many as 3,000 of those under arms in organized ranging companies or Republic of Texas military units at any given point in 1840 you're doing good. About 12%, one in eight, of the available pool of White men.

So, even as early as 1840, seems like the guys going out against Comanches weren't your average people and that those who went were drawn from among the minor percentage of the population who were attracted to such endeavors.

That, and cost. Rangering can't have been cheap for the average Joe. A rifle and a brace of pistols would cost about the equivalent of about $5,000 today, and perhaps an equivalent cost in horses and supplies, with the propects of reimbursement by a broke Republic being iffy at best.

So, in the space of just about a month a young man who lost his horses and/or lost/broke his guns could be effectively ruined financially, while running a considerable risk of a lonely and brutal death somewhere way out there in the boonies. I dont know if rangering impressed the young women of that era, if not, there'd be scant motivation to go, except possibly for revenge if one had lost kin.

Not hard to understand why relatively few young men got involved with these endeavors. Perhaps even fewer older men, having a wife and family to worry about, could afford to.

Birdwatcher

birdie
i have a 1842 springfield musket in my collection. I will have to pull it out of the secret hidey hole and see if the barrel is rifled. I hadn't thought of a texas connection, but certainly had thought of it being used in mexico.
ron

Looks like you did a pretty good WAG on the 1840 population.

I was just reading "The Road to Disunion" by William Freehling.

(It's a book about how the South moved towards Secession. Can't say as how I recommend it as it took 3 months to get through the first volume of 550 pages. And am about to start the equivalent sized Volume 2.)

Freehling notes that getting figures on the population in Texas during the Republic days is extremely hard. Particularly regarding number of slaves.

There were the usual record keeping issues of a new country without a lot of money and with a small population scattered across huge distances.

Another problem was that as the Texas Republic was a seperate country, slaves could not be legally re-imported into the United States.

Additionally, if Texas decided to stay a Republic, there were a lot of pressures for abolition. England, for example was talking about making its support conditional upon abolition. And Mexico, iirc, had already declared abolition.

Freehling estimates somewhat fewer slaves and the same white population. And he provides some sources. But he fully admits that nobody really knows. He also wrote his book back in the 1980's

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

Since the Comanche were notably hospitable to strangers, at least according to Wallace&Hoebel, it isn't too surprising that Devil Jack and Hump had a mutual respect for each other. Don't know as I'd call it friendship though.

From contempary accounts I have read Comanche could be very friendly if they were not actively trying to kill you at the moment.

"I knew the 18th Century Creeks were regarded as surviving remnants, but I was surprised to learn recently that even the Cherokees as we know them in our own history were assembled as a tribe from the remnants of earlier peoples in the aftermath of the catastrophic post-DeSoto round of epidemics (Kaywoodie, feel free to step in here if I err). "

Pretty spot on. Basic thing that kept most of these folks together were their linguistics. "Tslagi" (we say Cherokee)lingustics are generally all from the Algonquin groups. Funny to watch that flick "Last of the Mohicans" and see all the Cherokee and Muskoegean, two seperate linguistics group, being slung all over the place! LOL!

Another thing to note is the whole Seminole thing. They were ALL made up of remenants from somewhere else due to the Euro encroachment. Mostly from the Florida panhandle and places north like Alabama, Georgia, and S. Carolina.

You also saw several groups in southern Louisiana and Mississippi who's language was of the Souian groups. The Tunicas were one such group.

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Lots of computer issues...

Bob N.

Glad to have you back K'.



...about like the Eastern Screech Owls and Tufted Titmice all over the friggin' place in that Costa Rican jungle scene in "Acts of Valor".... The REALLY surprising thing being that with all that fmj flying around they didn't hit any tourists

Anyhoo... on with the thread.

Curses, my copy of Frederick Law Olmstead's "A Journey Through Texas" is nowhere to be found, but will doubtless surface the minute I don't need it.

Olmstead traversed the state in 1857-58, leaving detailed descriptions, including of San Antonio. An indication of the paucity of recorded detail in that we have to go ten years after Jack Hays had moved on for the closest available description of Texas during the years when he and his rowdy crew were holding court in old town San Antonio.

Interesting thing is how empty Texas was, even as late as that date. Much of the country between Houston and San Antonio didn't really fill up until a bewildering variety (to me) of German/Eastern European immigrants flooded in the in the 1870's.

New visitors to Texas will be puzzled, as I was, by all sorts of cultural and cuisine references in regional communities that do not tie in to popular Texas history as they know it, even after allowing for the Hill Country Germans (Wends? Czechs? Polish Catholics?). One good thing about all these peoples however being that they firmly esconsed the blue-eyed blonde into the Texas human landscape... (Oh, Miss C. Moczygemba, where are you today??? )

Out of sequence I know, but just now google books is giving me the pages of Olmstead's description of his weaponry circa 1857. Bears repeating while I have it...

For arms, expecting to rely on them for provision as well as defense, we selected a Sharp's rifle, a doulbe fowling piece, Colt's navy revolvers, and sheathed hunting knives. IN this, we found we had not gone wrong as every expert who inquired highly approvng our choice...

The Sharp, in sure hands (not ours), threw its ounce ball as sure, though far deeper, into the mark, at one thousand three hundred yards, as a Kentucky rifle its small ball at one hundred.... By the inventor it can be loaded and fired eighteen times in a minute, by us, without practice, nine times. Ours was the government pattern, a short carbine...

Two barrels full of buck shot make, perhaps, a trustier dose for any squad of Indians than any single ball, when within range, or even in unpractised hands for wary venison, but the combination of the two with Colts, makes, I believe, for a travelling party, the strongest means of protection yet known.

Of the Colts we cannot speak in too high terms. Though subject for six to eight months to rough use, exposed to damp grass, and to all the ordinary neglects and accidents of camp travel, not once did a ball fail to answer the finger. Nothing got out of order, nothing required care, not once, though carried at random, in coat pocket or belt, or tied thumping at the pommel, was there an accidental discharge.

BW note, is this the first use of the term �accidental discharge�?

In short, they simply gave us perfect satisfaction, being all they claimed to be. Before taking them from home we gave them a trial alongside every rival we could hear of, and we had with us an unpatented imitation, but for practical purposes we found one Colt worth a dozen of all others.

Such was the testimony of every old hunter and ranger we met. There are probably in Texas about as many revolvers as male adults, and I doubt if there are one hundred in the state of any other make.

Heck, he sold me, I went out and bought one, prob�ly the only firearm purchase I will ever get to make on the word of old Texas hunters and rangers.

For ourselves, as I said, we found them perfect. After a little practice we could surely chop off a snake�s head from the saddle at any reasonable distance and across a fixed rest could hit an object the size of a man at ordinary rifle range. One day one of our pistols was submerged in a bog for some minutes, but on trial, though dripping wet, not a single barrel missed fire.

A border weapon, so reliable in every sense, would give brute courage to a dyspeptic tailor.

Birdwatcher

I had to go back four pages to find you. Thought you had fell in a hole.

"Interesting thing is how empty Texas was, even as late as that date. Much of the country between Houston and San Antonio didn't really fill up until a bewildering variety (to me) of German/Eastern European immigrants flooded in the in the 1870's."

Texas was big wide and lonesome even moreso earlier.

The survivors of the Ft Parker raid had to go to Ft Houston, present day Palestine to find people. The left from near present day Grosebeck. That is almost a hundred miles and there was nobody in between those points.

That made me smile. Should we all be so well read and able to pen such prose.

I should have mentioned that all those natives in LOTM were suppose to be speaking something other than Cherokee and Muskoegean! LOL!

BCR, I found it interesting that there were pronghorns on the Attwater prairie as late as the 1830's! At least I think it was Smithwick that mentioned shooting them (prairie goats?) on the way back from San Jacinto.

On the subject of languages, Evidently La Salle had no issues making himself understood by the natives here using a form of sign language. I do not think it was the same as the plains Indians, but I'm not sure. Joutel mentions he learned it in Canada, so it could very well have been. And his Huron "Nika" was able to somewhat understand the languages of several Caddoan groups. These guys had 1000's of years to figure stuff out.

I do not know at what time the trade jargon "Mobilian" became common. But I'm pretty sure a form of it was being used for a very long time in the south and southeast. It is muskoegean based, and is a true pidgin language. By the 18th century it had incorporated many French, English, and Spanish words.

Examples
Chapeau = shapo
Vaca = Waka
turnip = tanip

The language was know to the natives as "Chicasakala"
The question being asked would be "Akosta nichi Chicasakala?"
"Do you understand Chicasakala?" It wasa very univerally used pidgin.

Just some of my rambling...... Sorry...

BN

Gonna get through this thread sooner or later...

I've been curious as to the setting wherein Jack Hays and his crew held court for those six years in San Antonio, 1841-1846.

It so happens there's an exibit on locally, featuring the
paintings of one Theodore Getilz.

Gentilz was a Paris-trained painter who arrived in Texas in 1844, finding early work as a surveyor he later spent his career as an intructor at a local university. More to the point, he painted the San Antonio area he saw in the 1840's.

Here's his depiction of the Alamo, as it appeared in 1844...



One thing common to his paintings is the depiction of the background as being open plains, in commonality with the eyewitness descriptions at that time. Intersting that he had what appears to be an Anglo talking to the local woman balancing the pot on her head.

Here's his depiction of a surveying party, note that given my old camera, pics were taken from an angle to avoid the flash...





Two rifles visible, and possibly a number of the men carrying revolvers. Some of the party remaining mounted, probably as guards.

One more from outside of town, this time at a horse race. It is known that the area "east of the Creek" (San Pedro Creek), later a notorious red light district, was in the early days used for horse racing, later serving as the site of what has been termed the first rodeo...



Note the jockeys have all stripped to the waist, lining their horses up behind a rope held by two guys.

Birdwatcher

Others have speculated along the same lines.

In Mike Cox's Ranger history, he touches on that, as do other authors here and there. The degree and volume of butchery committed by Texas Rangers in Mexico during that war are often alluded to, but I've read no real details. I suspect that a very young (which he was, as you've pointed out!) and educated man would realize after such a horrific experience that killing folks ain't all that glorious a job, and decided that with a whole life ahead of him he could move on to a new career.

Looks a whole lot different now, don't it?

I too am curious as to what San Antonio looked like in those days. One of the things I find a bit surprising about Texas is that there are very few building still standing that are much older than 100 years. Quite a change from Wisconsin, where buildings and houses pre-dating the Civil War are fairly common.

You know if you visit the "Alamo Village" north of San Antonio where the Alamo (the real one with John Wayne ) was filmed, you get a pretty good idea as to what the real Alamo's surroundings must have looked like in 1836/

I didn't know that! Puttin' it on my list...

It's a pretty neat place, there is even a small town where they've filmed a bunch of movies. I think they might be closed but I'm sure you can google it.

That would be north of Bracketsville (Ft Clark Springs, where the Black Seminole Cemetery is at). Closed down a couple of years ago IIRC, disputes between surviving heirs.

Here's a diagram of the Alamo at the time of the battle.

The natural assumption is to assume that the defended compound lay inside the present Alamo grounds, behind the low barracks.

Instead the present Alamo grounds lie mostly OUTSIDE the defended compound, the defended area centered upon where the modern street crosses out front.



As luck would have it, I was hauling a busload of kids around today.

The Alamo is one of five San Antonio Missions. Mission Conception is the only one that never collapsed, been an active parish the whole time IIRC.

This is how it looked to Gentilz....



Not sure if that same angle is doable today, there's a public restroom and a National Park Service Visitor Center.

Here's what it looks like from the street...



Notable in that maybe 200 yards the other direction from the photograph a battle between Mexican forces and Texians, in part under Jim Bowie was fought on the San Antonio River. Smithwick was there, its in his autobiography.

Further south again, on Roosevelte Ave on the South Side, Mission San Jose. This was where the Comanches came in spoiling for a fight after the Council House debacle.

In Gentilz's time....



...and today, and Gentilz is right, considerable topsoil was added to level the grounds in the CCC era when the place was being restored, such that the really interesting archeological strata lies about four feet under, a situation the Park Service is comfortable with. Protected by dirt, it'll be there if and when they decide to excavate.

Note the facade is undergoing restoration...



About the only section of original outside plaster left, showing how colorfully the missions were painted in their heyday...



Next one south, and across the river, Mission San Juan.

My favorite, not sure why. Pertinent to this thread, elements of the Frontier Regiment were stationed at all these different missions at one time or another, all except the Alamo laying south of town as it was at that time.

The church at this mission was never finished, the original granary was used as the church throughout. Still an active parish today, continually IIRC until 1890 or so when a hurricane stalled out over San Antonio, tearing the roof off.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/Hays7.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/hays34.jpg[/img]

Note, this mission facade is being restored too.

Maybe a mile behind this mission, across the San Antonio River, lies Stinson Field and the Texas Air Museum, wherein resides one of only eight surviving Focke-Wulf 190's

Finally the southernmost mission, Mission Espada....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/Hays5.jpg[/img]

Attached now are presently occupied priest's quarters, notable for the quality of their gardens and hummingbird feeders. All except the Alamo are presently active Catholic churches and several among their congregations can trace their ancestry to the original mission era.

Note the line of some original internal compound walls, restored in the CCC era.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/Hays36.jpg[/img]

Not bad for a bunch of 270+ year-old churches

Birdwatcher

Very cool BW. My best friend's son lives in Uvalde but has a Hunting/Outfitting business just north of Fort Clark (where he also hunts), Southern Outdoor Experience and also has a TV show by the same name. The ranch sits in what was the southern edge of the Comancheria and the lodge is up on a cliff with quite a few caves around and it's easy to find indian arrowheads and stuff. Also there are a couple of neat historical sites we found. One is on route 58(?) where two Texas Rangers were ambushed and killed by Comanches and then right on their next door neighbor's property are two graves, one of a small child and another Ranger who died pritecting the homestead that was there at the time. Fascinating.

Outstanding review of the old missions of San Antonio, Birdwatcher! I need to do more exploring in SA next time I'm down there.