Well the Walkers did a pretty fair job on the Comanche in the hands of the Texas Rangers.
Those were some pretty lively gun fights to my way of thinking.
As stated, the .36 Paterson was the first revolver to make it to Texas, revolvers and carbines both.
At the time they were ruinously expensive on the private market, about $200. The first mention I have heard of them in combat were at least two present during the chaotic events following the Council House Fight in San Antonio in March of 1840.
One of these guns, IIRC in the hands of one Texas Officer Lysander Wells, was as yet so unfamiliar to him that he found it binded when he attempted to use it, the wedge being driven in too far.
Mention of a revolver or two also show up in reports of skirmishes with Comanches later that year.
The major bloodletting of that or any year though, the Great Comanche Raid and Plum Creek notwithstanding, was Texas Ranger Captain John Henry Moore's attack on a Comanche Village on the Red Fork of the Colorado in October 1840.
Drawing on his experience leading the generallly bungled attack on Comanches he led on the San Saba the previous year, Moore's tactics were flawless and surprise complete.
As many as ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY Comanches died in that attack, one of THE major bloodlettings in our Frontier History, and certainly of Plains history, more Indians reportedly died there than at Sand Creek. And yet another incident of a major event being entirely ignored in the popular Texas narrative.
Almost all the slaughter was accomplished with muzzleloading rifles, most of them presumably flintlock. One Paterson Colt revolving carbine was present, and Moore himself probably had a revolver.
The "first" use of revolvers against Comanches by Rangers under Jack Hayes wasn't until 1844, that was the Battle of Walker's Creek, with a famously lop-sided outcome, something like thirty Comanches dead. There apparently was at least one other similar engagement, also on the Guadalupe, during that same general time period.
After that the Comanches apparently wised up to revolvers and there are no more one-sided victories. The problem with Comanches always was getting within even rifle range anyway, let alone pistol range.
Jack Hays left Texas for California right after the Mexican War, fortunately for us John Salmon "RIP" Ford took up the slack, AND left us detailed memoirs.
RIP Ford likely survived more mounted combat with Plains Indians than any man of his generation. In his collected memoirs ("RIP Ford's Texas")he rates the revolver as being on a rough parity with the Comanche bow, the two opponents being about equally well-armed.
Interesting to relate, in this late 1840's early 1850's period, most of Ford's combat was accomplished with rifles, specifically Mississippi Rifles (at that date in their original .54 cal round ball configuration) his revolvers generally being "unservicable".
Yet just a few years later in 1857 Olmstead ("A Journey Through Texas") reported that virtually every man in Texas was armed with a Colt's revolver, specifically the '51 Navy.
That for me is the REAL significance of the '51, in addition to being the world's first really practical combat sidearm as we understand the term today, it also introduced production line techniques and parts interchangeability that brough the price down to the point that most guys could afford one.
JMHO,
Birdwatcher
Well I use my NAVY in competions (target shooting at 25 meters at state level ) and always manage to wipe the floor with the Remy shooters and the cheatres with ROA's :rotf: :stir:
