My great-great grandfather enlisted in May of 1847 in Austin with Jack Hays's First Mounted Texas Volunteers, but his company was deployed north to the Brazos country in the vicinity of Waco to fight Indians. I wonder if he was issued a Walker, but tend to doubt it as there were so relatively few available.



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Interesting article Nolanco. Thanks for sharing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Walkers were earmarked for those fighting down south. He sure may have carried a Paterson though. He would have had at least a single shot pistol stuck in his belt.

He was enlisted in Capt. Samuel Highsmith's Company of the 1st Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers from May 1 1847 to May 1 1848.
I found this in a master's thesis on ""The Highsmith Men, Texas Rangers," by Cody Edwards, UNT, 2012.

There is no indication that Samuel Highsmith took another job in the months between his
enlistments. After he mustered out of federal service in September 1846, he may have spent his
time recuperating with his family. It was not uncommon for Rangers at this time to campaign
continuously between enlistment contracts which, according to many frontier defenders, were
mere formalities. By 1847 Samuel was nearly forty-three years old. The fact that he remained in
Ranger service at this age is a testament to his tenacity and dedication to Texas. According to
figures produced by the Economic History Association, the life expectancy of Caucasians during
this time period was only approximately forty years. Highsmith met and exceeded this, and he
was not yet through with active service.
17
Without his son Malcijah by his side, Samuel mustered back into service in the spring of
1847, signing up for a twelve month stint as a captain for the 1st Regiment, Texas Mounted
Volunteers, led by the revered Col. John C. Hays. Hays was the ranking officer among the
Rangers in Mexico and commanded all ranger units in federal service that served south of the
Rio Grande. Since he was fighting with the regulars in Mexico, Hays entrusted the immediate
command of Texas’s frontier defenders to Lt. Col. Peter H. Bell in an order issued on August 11,
1847. Highsmith led Company D, which apparently became Company A when Hays detached
Bell for service on the Texas frontier. Elements of this regiment began mustering into federal
service on May 10, 1847, and served generally to May 14, 1848. Highsmith’s company remained
detached from Hays’s regiment throughout the war and served under the command of Bell on the
Texas frontier. The company, like Highsmith’s previous command, protected the area around the
Llano and San Saba Rivers. It headquartered at Enchanted Rock, an area that Colonel Hays had
patrolled before joining the federals in Mexico.18
According to the Texas Democrat, Highsmith expected the Comanches of his region to
begin hostilities anew at any time. Acting on information provided to him by John Conner, a
famous Delaware Chief and Texas Ranger captain, Highsmith vigilantly patrolled his ranging
area. The warring in northern Mexico was at an end and the area which Highsmith and his
company patrolled—being able to return to some sort of normalcy in the winter and spring of
1847-1848—saw an influx of settlers. The people of the southwest plains, eager for land, were
either returning to the area or establishing new settlements. Consequently, they began to push
further west and into the lands traditionally controlled by the Comanches.19
In attempts to keep the continuing stream of settlers that came into his patrol area safe,
Highsmith continually scoured his district looking for hostile Native Americans. In early April
1848, he found some. One of his Delaware scouts, possibly Connor, or another one of his two
lead scouts, Jim Shaw or Jim Ned, notified the Captain of a party of Native Americans that were
camped in a valley south of the Brazos River. Historian Gary Clayton Anderson argues that at
this time Highsmith and his men attacked a peaceful band of Wichitas and Caddos, who were
returning from a hunt. Anderson asserts that the attack was a massacre as none of the Rangers
were hurt, though twenty-six Native Americans lost their lives. Highsmith was certainly capable
of such a vengeful attack as he was a champion of Anglo settlers, but did he purposefully commit
the atrocity knowing that the Caddos and Wichitas had only peaceful intentions? He undoubtedly
wanted quarrelsome bands of Native Americans to leave Texas to the Anglos, but an attack as
devastating as this does not fit his established character.20
The Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register offered a somewhat different account of
the attack:
A large number of friendly Indians have recently visited Torrey’s Trading House, and
among them were several Wacoes. They stated that the Indians that were killed on the
Llano a few weeks since, by the Rangers under the command of Capt. Highsmith were
not Wacoes, but were a renegade party from the Towiash village.
The newspaper added that:
They further stated, that those Indians were invited by the Lipans, with whom they were
found encamped, to accompany them on an expedition to the towns west of Bexar to steal
horses, and when the Rangers came upon them, the Lipans abandoned them to their fate.
The author of the article finally noted that the Native Americans that visited Torrey’s Trading
House after the attack believed Highsmith and his men were justified in killing the supposed
renegades since the Rangers had reason to believe that raiders would commit depredations in the
area. This single incident appears to have been the extent of Highsmith’s troubles with Native
Americans. He did not know, however, that his days of frontier defense were numbered.21
After his federal enlistment expired on May 14, 1848, Samuel re-enlisted in Bell’s 1st
Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers, and was once again elected as a captain. He mustered
back into federal service on May 15, 1848.

The history of the Texas frontier in those days could be described as "Fast and Furious" because of the very dynamic nature of the conflicts raging at the time.

What Hays did revolutionized warfare, and set the stage for the development of modern cavalry tactics...and it was all because of the sixgun. The Comanche, even though they were touted as the finest light cavalry in the world (and very justifiably so) at that time had a limited tolerance for losses on the battle field. When first confronted by Rangers who would attack, even when outnumbered, the Comanche were dumbfounded. Up until the sixgun made its appearance, there were no formations that could effectively carry out an offensive effort against the Comanche. There were mounted troops, but they were dragoons and were basically just mounted infantry. They could speed to the scene of battle on their horses, and then dismount only to be outfought by Indians who could fight from horseback. But when armed with the sixgun, the Rangers were a terror...and especially when led by men like Hays. The sixgun changed everything.

Over the last eight months or so, I've read perhaps 8000 to 10000 pages of history on the Comanche, the Lipan, the Mescalero, the Rangers, the Spanish/Mexican/Texican/American evolution of the Southwest, the conflicts, and other subjects of distraction along the way such as the white captives taken by the Indians. Before I had the time to sit around and read this stuff I never had any idea just how influential the Lipan and the Comanche were in shaping the American Southwest as we know it today.

I think I've only scratched the surface, really. I don't think I'll ever get tired of reading about it.

It is no coincidence that hundreds of towns in west central Texas all sprang to life in the late 1870s and early 1880s -- virtually the minute the Comanches were defeated by MacKenzie at Palo Duro. Until then it was not safe to bring a family into the region.

Quite true. It all may seem like such a long time ago, too, but as you age and experience what a lifetime really is you begin to see the passage of time differently. I remember my great-great grandmother, and she was born while the Comanche (at least a few) were still trying to live the way they had for centuries. Except for a few of the old Spanish settlements on the Rio Grande, there's nothing really old in West Texas.

McKenzie was a badass. How he never achieved the kind of notoriety Custer, Sherman, and a few others did is beyond me. The man unfortunately lost his mind before his death, literally.

Yes. He was going to retire to Boerne, TX! Poor fella. Imagine what he must have seen. I think he was in the same West Point class as Custer. I believe he was first in his class. He is buried at West Point cemetery. I've told my pastor to look up his grave. The pastor's son is at West Point and is on the football team.

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

McKenzie wasn't a flashy self-promoter like Custer. I guess the fact that McKenzie crushed the most warlike people on the plains just doesn't garner interest like Custer and his Little Bighorn fiasco.

McKenzie was extremely effective, for sure but he was facing down the Comanche at a time when they had been beaten down by various events and disasters over the previous six decades or so. Had they been at the strength and status they'd attained by about 1795-ish, his job would likely have been much harder. I honestly don't know that much about the coalition that Custer faced, but if I ever begin to be bored with the history of the Southwest I'll have to look more in that direction.

I already got a good basic understanding of what went on in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio during the period after the American Revolution to the War of 1812. Tecumseh came within a hair's breadth of running white civilization back over the Appalachians during those days. He had been working on a plan for nearly ten years, but he had an idiot for a brother who screwed it all up during the last stages of preparation. A fascinating story, for sure.

I think we need a Southwestern History forum, or at least maybe a Texas History forum here. I'll betcha it would take off and stay pretty busy.

Hence General Sherman's name being "Tecumseh." The only man that truly knew, at the beginning, what the Civil War would cost us. May God rest his soul.

You're doing what no one who lived in that time period ever did, underestimate the Comanche. Those same beaten down Comanches managed to depopulate multiple western counties during the Civil War and pushed the frontier back at least 100 miles. Those hardy settlers that did stay forted up and hoped for the best.

In no way do I underestimate the Comanche. Maybe you misread what I wrote, or maybe I was not clear enough.

By the 1860s, the Comanche had been decimated by numerous forces and were only a shadow of what they had become in the late 1700s when there were around 20,000 (some say many more) Comanche on the southern plains. Even so, Mackenzie had his hands full when he took them on. The Comanche were still a force to be reckoned with at that time.

I am fully aware of what took place on the frontier as a result of the War of Northern Aggression, and how politics played into it.

There was another revolver that became somewhat popular with the Texas Rangers and the only one made in Texas. The J.H.Dance and Brothers .44 revolver.
https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/artifacts/dance-brothers-revolver

jdickey: Thanks for that link. I for some reason thought the Dance revolvers were all in .36. Now I see Pietta makes one in .44.

https://www.taylorsfirearms.com/1862-dance-8-44-rb1-200092.html

RiverRider, when I was a volunteer at Oliver Lee State Park just south of Alamogordo off Highway 54 to El Paso, I had time to read from a binder of collected historical materials related to the Sacramento Mountains, the Mescaleros and Dog Canyon in particular. The Mescaleros were adept raiders all across southern New Mexico and into Chihuahua, and from time to time the Spanish had a belly full and would send a punitive expedition to punish the behavior. The effect was of course always temporary. But there was an expedition mounted about the time the plucky Colonies back east were at war with the British, and the soldiers were successful in driving the Mescaleros out of their stronghold in the Sacramentos in the vicinity of present Mescalero, Ruidoso and Sierra Blanca, their holy mountain. The Mescaleros fled northeast. When the Spanish finally caught up with them, they were horrified by what they encountered. The fleeing Mescaleros had been caught by their enemies the Comanches and absolutely butchered, men, women and children.

I've backpacked into and camped in OLSP, that was back in the '80s. It has been a long time, but as I recall you go a few miles in up the trail we took and come to a very pleasant area where there is a small waterfall and a great little camping area. I can imagine it being very well known to the Indians. We didn't have time to venture further up into the mountains, but I'm sure it would have been great.

That's a very interesting bit of history. Over the last year or so I have read a stack of books maybe four or five feet tall, all about the Spanish, the indigenous tribes, the history of Texas, etc. etc. etc. and I never heard about this event, but that does not surprise me because I know I've barely scratched the surface.

I wish we had a section for Texas and Southwestern History here. I'll betcha there's a lot of knowledge to be shared amongst the contributors here. Had I realized in my youth how much I would come to love history, I might have lived a completely different life...but here we all are!

Dance was the only company that made both the .36 and .44 calibers at the same facility.

RiverRider, that place you describe is where the Fairchild Ranch built a line shack before WWI. Very pleasant indeed. Dog Canyon is an enchanting place. I have not ventured beyond it up what is called "The Eyebrow" section because it is so steep. The Mescaleros would wait until pursuing soldiers -- Spanish or ours -- were horribly exposed on the eyebrow and then would roll boulders down onto them, knocking them and their horses far down the canyon. Pretty wretched way to die, battered, broken and possibly bleeding out like a pincushion stuck on a Spanish dagger. This is how a foreign tourist died after a fall while hiking the trail a few years back.
Next time I am back at the park, I will be sure to look up and hopefully copy those pages describing the various Spanish entradas in the second half of the 18th century.
The top photo is from the trail just above the visitor center looking south down the west face of the Sacramentos toward El Paso. Second photo is the approach to the canyon from the west looking east. The park as at lower right, and is by far the best place to camp or bring your RV as a base for visiting White Sands National Park. If some of y'all are unfamiliar with that glorious son of Texas, Oliver Lee, I highly recommend Charlie Sonnichsen's "Tularosa, Last of the Frontier West." You simply won't believe the history packed into that small place.





jdickey I just watched Duelist54's Youtubes on Pietta's copy of the Dance .44 and it looks like a very fine percussion sixgun well worth owning.

That would be very cool. I'd love to read all that.