Terry's Texas Rangers 1862-1864

Arming The Mounted Ranger In 1851, Ben McCulloch was in California with hordes of other Americans, seeking his fortune in the Gold Rush that would transform the American West. McCulloch had made his reputation as a fighting man with the Texas Rangers, and he had done great service to his country in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 both as a scout and as a skilled partisan warrior. Anticipating “Indian trouble” in the “southern counties” of California, the Nevada Journal (Nevada City, California) in its December 11, 1851, edition, published an essay from McCulloch on the proper equipage of a Mounted Ranger, very much the way a cable news channel today might do a segment with a military expert: Historian and reenactor David Sifuentes scouted up this treasure trove of first-hand information on the weapons loadout of the mid-19th Century Mounted Ranger. McCulloch urges the use of a “German yauger rifle.” This is most interesting, for the jaeger rifle laid the foundations for the development of the American long rifle back in the mid-18th Century. But the Ranger Jaeger, as I shall call it, wasn’t a return to an old form so much as it was a whole new infusion of Germanic roots into the American frontier. There were many German immigrants into Texas in the 19th Century, and a great many Texas gunsmiths had German names. It seems evident that they brought with them direct from the Fatherland the stylings of the Jaeger, which were still in use as a hunting and military arm. Short and of heavy caliber, the Jaeger was perfect for the Trans-Mississippi West and had the characteristics that would Americanize into Plains Rifle styles like the Hawken. The perfect example of this rifle was presented to McCulloch’s fellow Texas Ranger, Col. John Coffee Hays, by the German Association of Texas c. 1844. It’s a .60 caliber percussion jaeger rifle, and it fits McCulloch’s specs nicely. One of my favorite Frontier Partisan rifles. McCulloch recommends a “speed-loader” for percussion caps, made simply out of a leather pad punched with holes to hold the caps, and he advocates for pre-cut patches to facilitate rapid reloads under combat conditions. McCulloch calls out a heavy revolver — a Walker or Dragoon in .44 caliber — in a saddle holster, and a cross draw holster on the belt. He seems to be saying that the “one pistol” can be transferred from saddle holster to belt holster when dismounted action is called for. In later practice, mounted fighters such as the Partisan Rangers and guerrillas of the Civil War just carried multiple revolvers — on the saddle and on their person. In 1851, the .36 caliber Colt Navy Revolver was brought online, making for a very practical and very popular belt pistol. The combat use of the revolver was the Texas Rangers’ signal contribution to Frontier Partisan warfare, giving them a volume of firepower previously unavailable. The partisans of the Civil War, particularly the Confederate guerrillas of Missouri, would further develop mounted revolver combat to the point where the revolver was the primary and often the only weapon of the practitioner. McCulloch recommends a plain butcher knife for ordinary use. The humble butcher knife was the workhorse of the frontier, serving Indians, Mountain Men, Buffalo Hunters… and Rangers. For combat, McCulloch calls out a short sword. Cuttoe-type hunting swords and cutlasses were in use on the frontiers in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The “First Ranger,” Benjamin Church, wielded a plain, brutal sword during King Philip’s War in 1675-76. It’s a little unusual to see it called out as a key piece of Frontier Partisan armament in the mid-19th Century. The kind of blade McCulloch describes sounds very much like an espada ancha. Such a blade is well-illustrated in a magnificent reenactment photo by Nicole Morgenthau, though the placement of the scabbard is different from McCulloch’s recommendation. Though McCulloch occasionally sought civic offices or to operate as an entrepreneur, he was a fighting man to his core, and it is obvious that he gave a lot of thought to proper equipage, drill and tactics for the Mounted Ranger. He would continue to seek out ways to improve armament, becoming a strong advocate for the adoption of the Morse Carbine, a short, handy breechloader that had the kind of handling characteristics he believed best served the Mounted Ranger. He died armed with one at the Battle of Pea Ridge/Elkhorn Tavern in 1862.