Colt Revolver
The Colt Paterson Revolver and the Winning of the Texas West
The Colt Paterson Revolver and the Winning of the Texas West
The Comanches originally stormed out of the northern plains in the early 1700′s and drove every other tribe including the war-like Apaches out of central Texas from the Llano Estacado to the Balcones Escarpment. One historian compared the fierce warriors to the hordes of Genghis Khan. Horsemen of the first order and armed with a long war lance and a bison-hide shield hard enough to turn a musket ball, Comanche warriors could fire arrows from their powerful short bows with deadly accuracy even at the gallop.
The Spanish and later the Mexicans were certainly no match for the “Lords of the Plains”. In fact, the primary reason the Mexican government permitted men like Stephen F. Austin to settle Americans in central Texas was to provide a buffer between the Comanches and the Mexican settlements from San Antonio south to the Rio Grande. A plan that locked the Comanches and the Texans in a bloody struggle destined to continue for more than fifty years.
Initially the contest for supremacy was heavily weighted in favor of the Comanches, so much so that they prevented white settlement from moving west of Austin for many years. In 1826 Stephen Austin created ranging companies to confront the Indian menace, a job they performed well when it came to protecting the settlements, and from 1836 on, the history of the Texas Rangers was only a little less than the history of Texas.
The Rangers were a unique form of mounted militia without uniforms, badges, or even government supplied horses and arms. With their highly accurate long rifles, the Rangers could fight the Comanches to a standstill when it came to defensive warfare, but they were at a severe disadvantage fighting the highly mobile Comanches on horseback. An average warrior could fire ten or twelve accurate arrows in the time it took a Ranger to reload his rifle. In the defense this advantage could be overcome by firing in volleys to keep the warriors at bay, but on horseback the Rangers were forced to dismount to reload.
The Comanches held this edge, and thus control of most of western Texas until Samuel Colt’s invention and manufacture of the revolving pistol at Paterson, New Jersey in 1838. The five-shot “Paterson“ was a .36 caliber single action cap and ball revolver. Each chamber of the cylinder was loaded individually with powder and ball, and a fulminate of mercury percussion cap was pushed onto a nipple at the end of the chamber. The revolver also had a unique appearance with no trigger guard and a trigger that only appeared when the hammer was in the cocked position.
Colt was unsuccessful in marketing his revolver in the east. There was simply no civilian need for the weapon, nor could he interest the military in its use. The only outlet for the sale of the revolver was in the west, and not suprisingly, Colt’s first working model was called “The Texas.” The Texas Rangers saw the significance of the Colt at once, and every Ranger desperately tried to beg, borrow, or steal one, even though the early model had many faults. First, it was far too light and fragile, and worse, it had to be broken down into three component parts to load ― a difficult task on horseback at the gallop. However, faults aside, the weapon shot five times. It gave one Ranger the firepower of five men, and most of the revolvers came with an extra cylinder.
The Battle of Walker Creek in present day Kendall County, Texas was to prove the effectiveness of the Colt Paterson. On June 8, 1844, Jack Hays and fourteen Texas Rangers encountered Chief Yellow Wolf and eighty Comanche warriors in a heavily wooded creek bottom. Instead of attacking the Rangers in the trees, the Comanches took cover on a slope above the creek, knowing that the Rangers would eventually have to come out in the open in order to return to San Antonio. Rather than waiting until he was forced to leave, Hays led his men along a dry ravine to the rear of the Comanche position. Quickly forming a V-shaped wedge, the Rangers charged the surprised Comanches and drove them out onto the prairie. In a running fight that covered more than three miles and lasted nearly an hour the Rangers killed twenty-three warriors and wounded thirty more. The Rangers suffered only one man killed and four wounded.
With the focus of Texas first on the Mexican American War and then on the American Civil War, the deadly struggle between the Texas Rangers and the Comanches would continue for another thirty years, but the Comanches were no longer masters of warfare on horseback. Thanks to Samuel Colt’s invention of the revolving pistol and the future refinements of the weapon, the winning of the Texas West was only a matter of time.
The above glimpse of Texas History was gathered during research for my historical fiction series, “Saga of a Texas Ranger”
About the Author
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jeffery Robenalt was born and raised in Tiffin, Ohio. He served in Vietnam as a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps and later served as a Platoon Leader and Executive Officer with the 101st Airborne Division. He has a BS in Sociology from Troy University, a BA in History from New York University, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Texas Tech University. After earning his law degree, Mr. Robenalt was an Attorney for the State of Texas for ten years. Saga of a Texas Ranger is his first novel, however, the second volume in the saga, Star Over Texas, will soon be ready for publication. Mr. Robenalt currently resides with his wife Lizabeth and his daughter Emily in Lockhart, Texas where he teaches Texas history at Lockhart Junior High School.
http://www.amazon.com/Saga-Texas-Ranger-Jeffery-Robenalt/dp/1609761731
Colt New Service Revolver ( .45 Colt)