Samuel Walker's last charge at Huamantla with his new Colt six guns

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elhombreconnonombre

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While digging through the archives at the Austin History Center I came across a book published in 1849 "A Complete History of the Mexican War" by N.C.Brooks, which covers that war in much more detail than any more modern book, including the names of US and volunteers killed and wounded. Interestingly there is not much mention of Hays Ranger volunteers except for the Battle of Monterey in 1846. However Samuel Walkers exploits at the begining of the war and his final fight at Huamantla are covered in detail. Some excerpts:
"Of the four companies under his command, only his own company of seventy-five men responded to the call of their heroic leader."...."Firing his revolvers with a cool, steady, equable movement, his unerring hand brought down an enemy with every shot."...."Captain Walker stepped out a few paces from the gateway, and was in the act of diecting his men to draw the captured cannon nearer to the yard when ...the report of a single gun was heard...the treacherous ball fired from behind, had entered the shoulder, and passing obliquely downwards came out on the side. He fell instantly and was carried within the yard. In half an hour he was dead."
 
Good stuff Elhombre!!! I always enjoy reading your posts.
I wondering how many of his company were outfitted with Walkers? And how many still used the older Paterson revolver? Or troopers that were outfitted with 1 Walker and 1 Paterson.
 
This time period was nearly a year after he left the Rangers as a Lt Colonel under Hays and accepted a Captaincy in the US Mounted Rifles in the regular army, though he did teach his men Ranger fighting techniques. Per his last letter to his brother just prior to his death, he thanked him for the long range Wesson rifle sent by his brother and indicated he had just received his pair of boxed civie Colts and hoped to kill or capture Santa Ana himself. His men didnt call him "Mad Walker" for no reason. He was the only member of his company with a Colt Revolver of any kind as he had recruited hus company from the Maryland and DC area and trained them st Jefferson Barracks in Kentucky. His men fought both mounted and dismounted during this battle with regulation issue sabres, two Aston pistols, Mississippi and Halls rifles. His commanding officer Col. Wynkoop had refused his entreaties to travel to Vera Cruz to pickup the revolvers to issue to his troops and the Army said they had no wagons to transport them. Besides that, Colt and the Army had already committed to getting those revolvers to Hays Rangers first despite Walkers many letters over the previous six months pleading to Colt to get him just enough revolvers to arm his own C Co.If you read all of the correspondence between Colt and Walker and from Colt to the Army regarding Colts admiration of Col. Hays from Colts Own Record from 1847 you can get the impression that both Colt and the Army threw Walker under the bus so to speak. It is no secret fron these letters that he didn't have much respect for the Army brass. IMHO he basically used up his nickels from his Fort Brown
hero exploits from early in the war. He expressed his frustrations about not being allowed to get his military Colts and also blamed Wynkoop for a previous incident of inaction against Santa Ana that he headstrong charged the Mexican position without adequate support from his other 3 mounted companies and the infantry that were following behind. It is interesting to note there is another version of Walkers death: that he wad run through with a lance by the father of a young Mexican soldier who Walker had shot. There is a fanciful period newspaper illustration that seems to show both the sniper AND the lance assault on his person. 6 weeks after his death, the Army did allow his replacement Lt. Claiborne go to Vera Cruz to pickup the last 100 Colts of the 500 sent to Mexico. Reportedly these were by Army regulation and specific Army Ordnance orders issued to enlisted troopers only and only one Colt per trooper.
 
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I guess what I’m asking is what happened to all those experienced rangers and Col. Jack Hays that had their Texas Patersons from the years and the Indian wars prior to the Mexican War? I would think, probably incorrectly, that Lt Col. Sam Walker would go out of his way to recruit them being they were so experienced with this new weapon, no? :) :confused:
 
For what ever reason, from what I can determine, he did not recruit any of his old Texian pards, only new young recruits from the east. In his many entreaties to Colt in Colts Own Record of 1847 he essentially begs Colt to get him enough revolvers to train his company before the company ships out to Mexico. When designing the revolver Walker didnt bring a Paterson with him, Colt didnt have one, and they reportedly couldnt find one in any of the gun shops or smiths in New York to use as a starting design upon which to improve per Walkers ideas. Remember Colt at this point had been out of the arms business for several years, having gone bankrupt, and per a letter to an old friend now influential in the Polk administration asked his friend him to intercede on his behalf for an appointment as a Capt in the USMR as he was "as poor as a church mouse". Colt also sent a similar letter directly to President Polk in July 1846 requesting a military commision after Colt learned in the press that Walker had declined his Army commision. That was 5 months before Walker came east to recruit and the two met. Wait..what, first time I've heard of Walker declining his appointment...a press error?? - another rabbit hole research project. Anyway I digress, The two apparently started from old design drawings and went from there. Perhaps they also used a pre Paterson .52 caliber revolver prototype that Colt had made by a smith in 1835.


PS Hays was the commanding Colonel of the Texas Volunteers through the entire war. Walker had been his Lt Colonel but then resigned the Rangers and a accepted a captency in the USMR. Thats another interesting point to resesrch - why would he do that? Any of the Patersons used in the old Ranger days that were still working were used by the Rangers plus 32 Patersons in Army ordance supplies were issued to the Rangers in Port Isabel before the first major battles in
south Texas at Fort Texas, Palo Alto, and Reseca de Palma. None of the Olde Rangers cared to join the Army. They preferred to serve as volunteers under Hays as scouts, spies, and adjunct military assault units under Taylor and Scott in the many engagements in Mexico.
 
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elhombreconnonombre said:
While digging through the archives at the Austin History Center I came across a book published in 1849 "A Complete History of the Mexican War" by N.C.Brooks, which covers that war in much more detail than any more modern book, including the names of US and volunteers killed and wounded. Interestingly there is not much mention of Hays Ranger volunteers except for the Battle of Monterey in 1846. However Samuel Walkers exploits at the begining of the war and his final fight at Huamantla are covered in detail. Some excerpts:
"Of the four companies under his command, only his own company of seventy-five men responded to the call of their heroic leader."...."Firing his revolvers with a cool, steady, equable movement, his unerring hand brought down an enemy with every shot."...."Captain Walker stepped out a few paces from the gateway, and was in the act of diecting his men to draw the captured cannon nearer to the yard when ...the report of a single gun was heard...the treacherous ball fired from behind, had entered the shoulder, and passing obliquely downwards came out on the side. He fell instantly and was carried within the yard. In half an hour he was dead."
Click to expand...
I just down loaded for free the book, "A Complete History of the Mexican War" (1.8 KB) from https://archive.org/details/completehistoryo01broo to my Kindle. Should make for good bed time reading.
 
One has to remember that except in battle, the US army wanted as little to do with the wild undisciplined Texas Rangers as possible. The Rangers at that time had an unbridled hatred of all things Mexican and gave little to no quarter.
 
Yea verily. The Rangers hated order and discipline except in battle and the Army, especially officers, hated the independent and undisciplined Rangers, except in battle. So it all worked out. Hays had his hands full with keeping the Rangers under control due the animosity between the Texians and the indigenous population. On the other hand the Army had relatively good report with the population. The senoras y senoritas in occupied Mexico were quite enamored by the Dragoons in their dashing uniforms at the many fandangos. The rough edged Texians took offense to this.
 
Could it be possible that the Texans had a long memory of Santa Anna's atrocities against them years earlier? Some people have long memories especially when you are living on the edge. Ditto for the hatred of Comanche. Lots of bad blood on all sides.
 
Palehorseman
Thanks for the tip on the Library of Congress downloadable files. Its been a few years, back in the Windows 95 days since I went there looking for specific holdings. Back then there were no downloads, just searchable lists of holdings. Now I should be able to find all kinds of obscure volumes for my historical research projects.
BTW a major appendix in Brooks book is yet another book by another author with summaries of the various military engagements. Have fun reading this near 700 page book with its tiny print.
 
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SH
I guess we will never really know. There is yet another account that he was shot in the back by a Mexican
sniper wth an escopeta, but as you know these were short smoothbores with poor accuracy not exactly a precision instrument, which kinda is close to the account I qouted from the Brooks book.The death by Mexican lance is a more romantic version. Here's a rather heroic illustration from the time period I found. It portrays him mounted being both lanced and perhaps shot, losing his rifle, no Colts in sight. However, the left pommel holster adorned with a fur flounce in the European style (antigue US military issue holsters of this time had leather flaps I believe) is clearly shown perhaps containing a Walker, or an Aston percussion/1836 flintlock pistol (s)????..quien sabe?
 

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Brook says single shot was heard. Who heard it? That must have been at a lull in the battle. Kinda hard to hear a single shot in a shooting war. He calls it a treacherous bullet. Says it came from behind. Is he trying to say Walker was shot by one of his own?
 
jgh- I'm not seeing a ''Grassy Knoll" here; I believe the word "treacherous'' was used to indicate the author's own views of an enemy who would backshoot Walker.
 
"Some (Texas Rangers) wore buckskin shirts, black with grease and blood, some wore red shirts, their trousers thrust into their boots; all were armed with revolvers and huge Bowie knives. Take them altogether, with their uncouth costumes, bearded faces, lean and brawny forms, fierce wild eyes and swaggering manners, they were fit representatives of the outlaws who made up the population of the Lone Star State."
-Observations of an officer of the United States Mounted Rifles.
 
Greetings
Sounds like a good bunch of "warriors" to be with in a serious fight of any sort.
Well I have enjoyed reading this. Sheds alot of light into how badly the "politics" had already began ruin into our yet young country.
Mike in Peru
 
I just down loaded for free the book, "A Complete History of the Mexican War"


Ditto, thanks Pard.


Willie

.
 
Missionary
So true. The North Eastern power elites wanted the war the war to push their Manifest Destiny goals and the Southern power elite wanted Texas to add as a state where slavery was legal. Juan Seguin, the Tejano hero of San Jacinto, and who was a good friend of Travis and Bowie, during the preparations for the Alamo defense, had to leave his home in Bexar and go live in Mexico because he stood up for Tejanos land rights and against the poor treatment of Texas born Tejanos by emigrants from the US to Texas after the Texas Revolution before Texas entered the union. For whatever reason, Ranger Ben McCollough had a grudge against his old friend Juan for Juan's stance on Tejano rights, and tried to track "the traitor" down during the war. Juan eluded him. Bad blood indeed.
When Texas secceeded from the Union, it was not so much about states rights or the slavery question. Rather, many of the Texians just wanted to go back to beng an independent republic since they felt the US had cheated the Republc out of millions of acres of land in including much of New Mexico and stretching into Colorado , by the treaty between the US and Mexico. Per my gggpaws memoirs, that was his particular persuasion as a previous citjzen of the Republic of Texas.
 
to beng an independent republic

still a good idea. McCullough wanted to set up an independent slave country as a buffer between Texas and anti-slavery Mexico. It seems like Seguin would have been a less grumpy neighbor than BMc.- Who also had something to do with an order for the colt 1860 army revolvers that slipped in through Louisiana post secession but pre Ft. Sumpter. Most sources say that 500 actually made it in and others put the number at 350.
 
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