Savage Frontier Volume III 1840-1841: Rangers, Riflemen, and Indian Wars in Texas

Afterword

357 Captain Jack Hays had certainly become a role model in frontier fighting during 1841. He was respected by his peers and feared by his enemies. His rangers and minutemen were effective in quelling any threat, and with the Colt repeating revolver slowly making its way into their hands, the Texas Rangers would only become more efficient in combat. The Lamar administration ended in December 1841, and he was replaced by his predecessor, Sam Houston, as president. Houston would condemn Lamar’s Indian policies and his wasting of money. Under Lamar, the Cherokees and Shawnees had largely been purged from Texas. The Comanches had been aggressively attacked and driven further from the major settlements. For all of its merits, the new county minuteman system of 1841 had certainly shown some flaws. While those units in most Texas counties operated for brief periods of time, others gave the ranging service a bad name. One such example was Captain William Cairnes, who commanded minutemen and other volunteer companies from San Patricio County during 1841 and into 1842, but would not survive much longer. Cairnes’ men had routed a trader camp during the final days of December 1841, killing one trader and taking off much of their camp supplies and mules. Months later, in March 1842, Cairnes was down to eight men, after having discharged his formal company. According to the chief justice of San Patricio County Afterword SAVAGE FRONTIER and to a report from the Telegraph and Texas Register, Cairnes and his men were attacked on March 7 near San Patricio on the Nueces.1 The former rangers with Cairnes were: William Snodgrass, Seth P. Marvin, William Wells, John White, Alanson T. Miles, Ewen Cameron, and one other man. Mexican troops under Ramón Valera attacked and killed Captain Cairnes, Miles, Snodgrass, White, and a fifth Texan. Marvin and Wells were captured. Only Ewen Cameron managed to swim the river and escape.2 Cairnes, after sustaining a mortal wound, reportedly killed one of his Mexican attackers. Colonel Henry Kinney was able to negotiate the release of Marvin the day after his capture. Wells was carried as a prisoner to Matamoros, although Kinney would later obtain his release as well. During the late years of the Republic of Texas, the number of ranger versus Indian clashes began to decrease. Since 1839, there had been a sharp increase in expeditions more offensive in nature which sought to destroy the Indians and their entire villages. Some tribes were driven out of Texas, while others continued moving further from the settlements. Statistics show that Texian casualties of the Texas Indian began to decline in 1840–1. Between 1835 and 1839, the number of Texan casualties in Indian combat increased ever year, with 1839 being the climax of action on the Texas frontier. Thereafter, the numbers of casualties began to decline in 1840 and 1841. Year Killed Wounded 1835 2 3 1836 5 5 1837 25 4 1838 32 24* 1839 33 50 1840 15 21 1841 5 7 * The number of men wounded in 1838 fighting includes fourteen men whom I neglected to specifically list in the casualty list in the appendix of Savage Frontier Volume II. 358 Afterword In seven years, 117 men had been killed and 114 wounded in Indian encounters on the Texas frontier. These numbers do not reflect casualties of encounters with Mexican troops or civilians who were killed during Indian depredations against civilian homes or travelers. In return for these losses, the Texans boasted of killing and wounding several times this number of their Indian foes. Technology was beginning to swing into the favor of the Texans by 1840 and 1841. Samuel Colt’s .36 caliber “Paterson five-shooter” pistol with its revolving cylinder debuted in Texas battles during 1840 in small numbers. The Colt revolver and the subsequent Walker Colt––a .44 caliber six-shot revolver Samuel H. Walker helped Colt to design––would allow the Texas Rangers new freedom in fighting. With this new weapon, the Texans could continue to fire and charge on horseback. The Comanches would find that their foes were no longer the riflemen who had been forced to dismount to fight. Such advancements during the final years of the Republic of Texas would forever change the old backwoodsman style of frontier fighting and influence future generations of Texas Rangers. 359 ...