- Joined
- Apr 8, 2018
- Location
- Coffeeville, TX
Some personal background in my reading on these guns first.
I've always had a preference for cap'n'ball revolvers over any other handgun. I've no idea why but from the moment I laid on in person, an old cheap brass framed 1851 Navy of a "second father's" (long story but the pistol lacked its nipples and us kids used it to play cowboys and indians for years beating it to pieces I have it now as a cherished memento of my childhood), they've been my favorite handgun, so much so that I used to shoot them every afternoon for years. Ever since I was a kid I've read up on every bit of information I could get a hold of, with my favorites being the 1851 Navy, 1860 Army, Colt Dragoon, and the first one I saw on television (watching True Grit with my grandaddy) without even knowing its name, the Colt Walker.
Something about that gun always appealed to me and I never knew why, but a recent family tree discovery has made me wonder if it was in my blood. Going through a stack of papers and pictures belonging to my Great-Grandmother who passed away in the 50's (the very grandad of mine's mother I saw a Colt Walker with first on TV), there was one picture of a older man in what looked to be a circa 1870's picture, labeled "Grandpa Latham" which made me scratch my head as I knew of no such man. After a lot of digging, I found my "Grandpa Latham" though I highly doubt he was the one in the picture as he died in 1851 or 1852, but I was shocked to learn the real one was Lewis P. Latham, my 4thG-Grandfather born around 1804 and had not only been one of the earliest white settlers in Texas, but had been one of the Mexican War Texas Rangers! Company E/Truit's Company 1st Texas Mounted Volunteers (Hays' Regiment), the one and only regiment issued Colt Walkers with his company seeming to be the one that made off with the most of them.
Now at CW reenactments its extremely common to see cavalrymen and even some artillerymen run around with one or two Walkers which I think extremely farby considering only 1,100 of them were even made. A hundred for the open market, and a thousand for the army. From all I've been able to read, 976 were issued in the army, and 409 returned at the end of hostilities, 300 hundred having to be sent to Whitney for repairs due to exploded cylinders. Some may attribute the absurd loses to the gun's supposed main fault of blowing up, but given how every gun had been thoroughly proofed at Whitneyville, I think the men being unfamiliar with revolvers, and if loaded with loose powder and ball, conical bullets loaded incorrectly may be to blame rather than faulty manufacturing.
Some would say all that has to be why no Walkers were around in the CW, some folks are adamant all were returned and none were around in the early Western Expansion era or CW, something I almost find laughable given how the guns had to have been sold off at some point I would think, and the creative nature many soldiers have at stealing stuff.
Getting back to the my great excuse to research a favored gun and unit, I've found all kinds of wonderful information to me. A favorite is rumors of Republic of Texas Army buttons being dug in Mexico, which makes me wonder if the Hays Texas Volunteers had a few RoT uniforms early in the war, which I find funny as every account I've found has them in Mexican uniforms at the end. But going through information of the 1st Texas, I find it funny some Texas companies got not even one, other some, and other apparently like my 4thG-Grandads a pair for everyone, I'm curious to what else I can find.
So here are some questions for the small arm experts:
1. Do you think some Colt Walkers managed to make their way into the early days of the Civil War?
2. Do you think they came home with someone in Mexican War and a child made off with it or that none were used?
3. For a non-CW Walker related question, does anyone know how those hand cannons were carried in the Mexican War? I know one account I've found has a bunch being lost in a river crossing and I wonder if nothing was issued for carrying them.
By the way, there may not be many Mexican War reenactments, but this family revelation gives me the ultimate excuse to build a Mexican War Texan impression. Heck if I ever were to do early war cavalry at CW reenactments, I wonder if an excuse could be made for carrying a Walker. But sadly that'd only be proper if everyone else wasn't carrying ten of them...
I've always had a preference for cap'n'ball revolvers over any other handgun. I've no idea why but from the moment I laid on in person, an old cheap brass framed 1851 Navy of a "second father's" (long story but the pistol lacked its nipples and us kids used it to play cowboys and indians for years beating it to pieces I have it now as a cherished memento of my childhood), they've been my favorite handgun, so much so that I used to shoot them every afternoon for years. Ever since I was a kid I've read up on every bit of information I could get a hold of, with my favorites being the 1851 Navy, 1860 Army, Colt Dragoon, and the first one I saw on television (watching True Grit with my grandaddy) without even knowing its name, the Colt Walker.
Something about that gun always appealed to me and I never knew why, but a recent family tree discovery has made me wonder if it was in my blood. Going through a stack of papers and pictures belonging to my Great-Grandmother who passed away in the 50's (the very grandad of mine's mother I saw a Colt Walker with first on TV), there was one picture of a older man in what looked to be a circa 1870's picture, labeled "Grandpa Latham" which made me scratch my head as I knew of no such man. After a lot of digging, I found my "Grandpa Latham" though I highly doubt he was the one in the picture as he died in 1851 or 1852, but I was shocked to learn the real one was Lewis P. Latham, my 4thG-Grandfather born around 1804 and had not only been one of the earliest white settlers in Texas, but had been one of the Mexican War Texas Rangers! Company E/Truit's Company 1st Texas Mounted Volunteers (Hays' Regiment), the one and only regiment issued Colt Walkers with his company seeming to be the one that made off with the most of them.
Now at CW reenactments its extremely common to see cavalrymen and even some artillerymen run around with one or two Walkers which I think extremely farby considering only 1,100 of them were even made. A hundred for the open market, and a thousand for the army. From all I've been able to read, 976 were issued in the army, and 409 returned at the end of hostilities, 300 hundred having to be sent to Whitney for repairs due to exploded cylinders. Some may attribute the absurd loses to the gun's supposed main fault of blowing up, but given how every gun had been thoroughly proofed at Whitneyville, I think the men being unfamiliar with revolvers, and if loaded with loose powder and ball, conical bullets loaded incorrectly may be to blame rather than faulty manufacturing.
Some would say all that has to be why no Walkers were around in the CW, some folks are adamant all were returned and none were around in the early Western Expansion era or CW, something I almost find laughable given how the guns had to have been sold off at some point I would think, and the creative nature many soldiers have at stealing stuff.
Getting back to the my great excuse to research a favored gun and unit, I've found all kinds of wonderful information to me. A favorite is rumors of Republic of Texas Army buttons being dug in Mexico, which makes me wonder if the Hays Texas Volunteers had a few RoT uniforms early in the war, which I find funny as every account I've found has them in Mexican uniforms at the end. But going through information of the 1st Texas, I find it funny some Texas companies got not even one, other some, and other apparently like my 4thG-Grandads a pair for everyone, I'm curious to what else I can find.
So here are some questions for the small arm experts:
1. Do you think some Colt Walkers managed to make their way into the early days of the Civil War?
2. Do you think they came home with someone in Mexican War and a child made off with it or that none were used?
3. For a non-CW Walker related question, does anyone know how those hand cannons were carried in the Mexican War? I know one account I've found has a bunch being lost in a river crossing and I wonder if nothing was issued for carrying them.
By the way, there may not be many Mexican War reenactments, but this family revelation gives me the ultimate excuse to build a Mexican War Texan impression. Heck if I ever were to do early war cavalry at CW reenactments, I wonder if an excuse could be made for carrying a Walker. But sadly that'd only be proper if everyone else wasn't carrying ten of them...