How Did Captain Jack Hayes Change Warfare Against The Comanches?

Jack Hays 004 In 1836, a nineteen-year-sometime beau by the name of Jack Hays migrated from his domicile in Tennessee to the Republic of Texas. He came from a good family unit, was well-educated, and had influential friends or friends of the family, including ane onetime governor of his home state past the name of Sam Houston. Jack's male parent, Harmon, fought alongside Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston in the War of 1812.

Arriving in Texas, Jack presented himself to Full general Houston, made his manners, and presented to him a letter of the alphabet of recommendation from his groovy uncle, Andrew Jackson who was, at the time, serving as President of the U.s.a.. Rachel Jackson was Jack Hays' cracking aunt from the Donelson family, and a relative of Jack'southward mother.

The well-mannered Jack Hays spoke in an fifty-fifty, measured tone. He was thoughtful, considerate, and logical. Houston liked the young man and appointed him to serve with the Texas Rangers, variously referred to as ranging spies and scouts (the term spies existence synonymous with scout). History doesn't remember much most Jack between 1836-40. He was patently in the learning stage of his career.

The Stars take gleamed with a pitying lite

On the scene of many a hopeless fight,

On a prairie patch or a haunted woods

Where a picayune bunch of Rangers stood.

They fought grim odds and knew no fear,

They kept their honor high and clear,

And, facing arrows, guns, and knives,

Gave Texas all they had—their lives.

~West. A. Phelson

Life in Texas demanded uncommon practicality and an uncompromising attitude toward survival. The entire purpose behind Mexico'south invitation to these migrating Americans was so that they could deal with the problem of hostile Indians, which in the grade of the previous three hundred years, Castilian Mexico never resolved [one]. Texas promised but one thing: a difficult life. Initially, if settlers were plagued by Indians with hostile intent, information technology was up to them to ring together and solve the trouble —or die. Just small groups were only capable of defending themselves; they were not equipped to address the larger problem of Comanche culture.

When Jack Hays arrived in Texas, the rangers had been in being for 13 years, although not equally a formal organisation and non labeled as Texas Rangers. They were an irregular force, unpaid, poorly equipped, and their only reason for existing at all was the necessity of defending the colonies.

By 1839, rather than waiting for the horror of an Indian attack in the dead of dark or at first lite, the Texans had begun to take the fight to the Comanche. This aggressiveness was a new feel for the Comanche. Four events in 1839-40 became more than episodical footnotes in Texas history. They included the discovery of a Mexican plot to unite hostiles against Texas settlements, the fight with Cherokees and their expulsion from Texas, the Quango House Fight in San Antonio, and the Battle of Plum Creek.

The Battle of Plum Creek unfolded as a consequence of the Council House Fight in San Antonio [2]. Under the Comanche Moon [3] of August 1840, a band of Comanche warriors and their allies, numbering between 500 and 1,000 Indians, moved due south from the Comancheria nether the state of war primary Buffalo Hump of the Penateka Tribe. Their route of march took them due east of San Antonio, nearly Gonzalez, and struck deep within the Anglo-Texas region above the Nueces. The Comanche cutting a swath of devastation and no white was prophylactic.

On 6 Baronial, Buffalo Hump surrounded the boondocks of Victoria and did something that few Indian war leaders had ever done before: he seized the boondocks. The citizens of Victoria, hastily thrown together within a span of moments, held but a modest department of the town. Comanches rode howling through the town, killing fifteen people, including slaves. When they left, they took with them upwards of 2,000 horses [4]. These horses would be the undoing of the Comanche raiders.

When Buffalo Hump was finished with Victoria, he led his marauders to Peach Creek, moving toward the Gulf of United mexican states in a nifty one-half-moon germination. Texas militia turned out, but they could merely hover on the Indian's trail and detect them from the flank of the Comanche formation. Settlers unfortunate enough to find themselves in the Comanche'southward path welcomed death afterward their horrific torture. The corpse of one man, Parson Joel Ponton, was found with the soles of his feet sliced off, and to make sure he suffered, the Indians dragged him forth for miles before they bashed in his head and took his scalp.

The Indians were easy enough to track; all one had to do was follow the burning houses and plumes of dust kicked up by hundreds of Indians.

On eight Baronial, Buffalo Hump arrived at Linnville, Texas, a modest town situated on Lavaca Bay. People who survived at Linnville did so just considering they chop-chop boarded boats and put out into the Bay. When Buffalo Hump was finished, Linnville ceased to exist. Every edifice was burned to the ground. Linnville was never rebuilt.

The Comanche's boodle from this sortie was about ii-years worth of merchandise consigned to Samuel Maverick and James Robinson. Three whites and ii Negroes were killed.

Retribution for the Council Firm fight had been obtained and Chief Buffalo Hump was finally sated. It wastime for the war political party to return to the Comancheria. Buffalo Hump had with him between 2,000 and iii,000 horses, mule-loads of loot, dozens of prisoners. Thus burdened, the Indians could non movement rapidly dorsum to the high plateau.

Jack Hays 002 Every bit the Indians walked their horses and prisoners back to the Due west, dusty riders were pounding their horses through the littoral prairie. Every male who was old enough to carry a gun was turned out from Lavaca, Gonzalez, Victoria, and a hundred widely scattered farms. The Texans answered the phone call of their captains: J. J. Tumlinson [5], McCulloch [6], Caldwell [seven], and Burleson [8]. Nowadays too was a young ranger past the name of John Coffee Hays.

Very early in his ranging career, Hays had get friends with an Apache chief named Flacco [9]. In the years of their associate, not one time did Jack lead a charge into an enemy formation where Flacco wasn't at his side. Merely Flacco wasn't Hayes' only native American marry. In August 1840, the Tonkawa chief Placido and thirteen of his braves joined with Hays' rangers in dogging the Comanche war party as they headed for the Big Prairie, just off Plum Creek. Tracking wasn't necessary because it was impossible not to run across massive plumes of dust into the distance.

Plum Creek runs adjacent to the town of Lockhart, Texas, about thirty miles south of present-day Austin, a branch of the San Marcos River. When Felix Huston [10] and Colonel Burleson reached Plum Creek, they dismounted their militia and independent rifles and had them muffle themselves within the scrub along the creek near Skillful's Crossing. There, they awaited the inflow of Buffalo Hump.

One time the Indian cavalcade entered the prairie, Huston, Burleson, and Caldwell walked their horses out from their concealed positions, their mounted rifles following in cavalcade. Equally the 2 smashing lines of horsemen converged, the Comanche began to display their impressive skill on horseback—showing off, as information technology were. The young Texas were suitably impressed with the Comanche's skill, but the experienced officers were unimpressed and impatient with the blowing. Burleson and Caldwell waited for Huston'southward club to charge, but he seemed mesmerized by the Comanche show and said nix. Burleson and Caldwell knew that the Indians were just trying to delay combat until they had pushed their stolen horses forward. Burleson finally leaned over to told Huston to requite the society, which he promptly did.

Screaming and shooting, the Texans spurred into the Comanche flank, stampeding the herd of horses and the Comanches as well, who floundered while trying to control their mounts, the herd, and the pack animals. Horses and mules piled up on the boggy stretch and the Indians began to evidence signs of panic. At this moment, the Texans rode into and among the Comanche and began firing their .36 quotient Filly 6-shooters, methodically killing every Comanche in their path.

Plum Creek wasn't a battle in the sense of opposing sides in fixed formations; it was more of a running gunfight that lasted 15 to twenty miles. At first, once the Comanche settled down and realized information technology was time to withdraw at the gallop, the Indians hands distanced their pursuers, but they were bearing too much loot and trying to command thousands of horses. And their prisoners were in the fashion, besides.

Early in the confrontation, panicked Comanche bashed their prisoners in the caput and left them for expressionless. One captive woman was tied to a tree and pierced several times with arrows—but her bone corset saved her. But the Comanche were fell to their own in equal measure out. One warrior, angry because his squaw was holding him upwardly, ran her through with a lance and left her there to die.

The gainsay was up-close, personal, and fell. Despite the ferocious reputation of the Comanche, the boxing was less that than information technology was a massacre. The Texans were angry, dozens of Indians fell mortally wounded from their mounts. In the end, between 80 and 100 warriors lay dead. Ane Texan combatant was killed. Soon after the battle, owing to his operation at Plum Creek, President Lamar elevated Jack Hays to Captain of Texas Rangers.

In 1842, Hays commanded Texas Rangers against the invasion of Mexican General Adrian Woll. Hays, handsome and tranquillity, a gentleman of the purest character, and through his utter fearlessness in the face of grave danger, prepare an enduring stamp upon the Texas Rangers. In his own day, Hays' reputation was such that every young homo wanted to emulate him.

Three characteristics stood out. Outset, he was cocky-contained and self-confident. He was no talker, would not tolerate rudeness in whatever human, a born partisan who was intensely loyal to Texas and what it stood for. Second, he was non a great gunman, simply a homo possessed of unsurpassed leadership, devoid of fear or hesitation, and whose rise to fame came from his own ability. Tertiary, Hayswas a superb psychologist, able to bend friend and foe to his will. He was the same kind of man as Ben McCulloch, Sam Walker, Leander McNelly, and Large Foot Wallace —good men who became better men nether Jack Hays's influence.

Jack Hays was the first to use the Colt revolver on Plains Indians. On one occasion, he was jumped on the Pedernales River (nowadays-day Kendall County) by a war party of seventy Comanches. Serving under Hays were fourteen rangers. His choices were run and dice, or fort upwardly and fight [11] —and this is what the Comanches idea he would practise. Texans could not lucifer the Comanche on horseback, and and so when confronted by hostiles, they routinely dismounted their horses and fought a defensive action from the ground, which immediately gave the Indians the advantage. On this occasion, Hays took a dissimilar road. He and his fourteen mounted rangers attacked the Indians on horseback. He lost a few rangers but killed 35 to xl Comanche. The divergence was in the fact that each ranger carried ii half-dozen-shooters. The Indians couldn't compete with the Colt revolver.

Soon afterward, Hays's company encountered another superior force of Comanches west of San Antonio, in the Nueces Coulee. The Indians, shrieking and shooting arrows, swept around and surrounded the mounted rangers. At Hays'southward order, the Texans emptied their long rifles, and then leaped into the saddle. Hays yelled "Charge!" in his loftier, clear vocalism. The Rangers were at close quarters before the startled Indians —who had rarely known white men to do anything merely fort upward or run— could turn their horses. "Pulverisation-burn down them!" Hays screamed

As Texas Rangers rode between the Comanche ranks, they shot the Indians from their horses on both sides. The Comanches were entirely brave; they turned to stand up —only to find the Rangers coming on, burn-spitting again and again from their fists, hitting downwardly milling horsemen on all sides. The Indians fled, and Hays and his boys pursued them for three miles. In the terminate, the demoralized Comanches threw aside their useless shields, lances, and bows. Leaning depression over their horses, the hostiles raced away in routed flight. The Comanche war chief stated later that he lost half his people, and that wounded warriors died on the trail for a hundred miles to the Devil's River. "I will never again fight Jack Hays, who has a shot for every finger on the hand," the Indian moaned.

Neither Hays or any of his rangers ever tried to downplay the crucial role of the Filly half-dozen-shooter in mounted combat. "They are the only weapon which enabled the experienced frontiersmen to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare…." Read one testimonial.

Colt 1836 The six-shooter was important beyond the romanticism and indelible symbolism it produced. A superb horseman in open country, armed with one or more long-barreled Colts, represented the nearly constructive weapon system known to the middle nineteenth century. In one step, Texas borderers accomplished parity with the Plains Indians and a marked superiority over the Mexican cavalry lance and the vaquero'due south rope. They would hold both until the dispersion of an effective, accurate breechloading rifle, which did not announced until the 1870s. The revolver, very but, meant power in southwest Texas, and long after the power was no longer needed, this symbol is synonymous with Texas today.

Between 1846-48, Hays commanded the First Regiment of Texas Rangers at the Battle of Monterrey, established vi companies forth the northern and western frontier, and and so later commanded the Second Regiment of Texas Rangers in Winfield Scott's United mexican states City campaign. While fighting under General Joseph Lane, who was defending the American line of communication at Veracruz, Hays defeated a superior force of Mexican cavalry at Galaxara Laissez passer [12] and a guerrilla strength at Matamoros, which enabled Full general Lane to capture the Mexican supply depot. Once again, Jack Hays was the offset to use the Navy Colt Paterson (Paterson being the name of the urban center in New Jersey where they were produced) v-shot revolver in an armed conflict. He subsequently dispatched Captain Sam Walker to meet with Samuel Colt, which led to the legendary Colt Walker six-shot revolver.

Afterwards the Mexican-American War, Jack Hays married Susan Calvert, a descendant of George Calvert, Offset Baron Baltimore. Between 1947-49, they lived quietly in Seguin, Texas. Upon the birth of their kickoff kid, Chief Buffalo Hump sent the Hays family the gift of a gold spoon.

Jack Hays 003 In 1849, Jack Hays received an appointment as an Indian Amanuensis for the Gila Riverreservation in the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. In that same year, Hays led a party of Forty-Niners from Texas to California, and upon arrival, the Hays family decided to remain in California. In 1850, Jack Hays was elected sheriff of San Francisco County, where he served for three years. In 1853, he was appointed to serve as The states Surveyor-Full general for California. He was one of the earliest residents of Oakland, and over several years, amassed a fortune in state speculation, real estate development, and ranching investments.

Ceremonious War came to America in 1861, just John Coffee Hays wanted cypher to do with it [xiii]. We hear nothing more near Jack Hays until 1876 when he was elected as a delegate to the Democratic Political party National Convention. Jack passed away at his habitation 21 April 1883.

Sources:

Conger, R. N. Rangers of Texas. Waco: Texian Press, 1969
Greer, J.Thou. Colonel Jack Hayes: Texas Frontier Leader and California Builder. New York: Dutton, 1952
Webb, W. P. The Texas Rangers. Austin: University of Texas Printing, 1982 (Reprint)
Wilkins, F. The Highly Irregular Irregulars: Texas Rangers in the Mexican State of war. Austin: Eakin Press, 1990

Endnotes:

The reason Castilian Mexico had then many problems with the Comanche is that the Comanche held the Spaniards in utter antipathy. In the early days of Anglo-Texas, the Comanche, having no experience with them, treated the Texians with caution and friendliness.
On 9 January 1840, three Comanche chiefs and their entourage rode into San Antonio where they sought a conference with Texas Ranger Henry W. Karnes. They stated their desire to negotiate peace with the Texans. For an account of this event, run into Of Conflict and Sorrow.
Comanche moon refers to that phase of the lunar cycle when the brightness of the moon enabled Comanche warriors to travel at nighttime, a tactic of stealth that enabled them to travel great distances undetected.
To the Comanche, horses were every bit valuable equally gold was to the white man.
John Jackson Tumlinson, Jr. (1804-53) served as a helm of Texas Rangers in DeWitt Colony. When in 1823 his father was killed by Indians, John and his blood brother Joseph led a handful of settlers to track down and impale the guilty parties.
Ben McCulloch (1811-62) was a Texas Ranger, Usa Marshal, and a Brigadier Full general in the Confederate States Army during the American Ceremonious War. He traveled to Texas with his brother Henry in the visitor of David Crockett, who was a neighbor in Tennessee. Ben served as a starting time lieutenant and second in control to John Coffee Hays. During the Battle of Plum Creek, McCulloch distinguished himself as a sentry and commander of the right-wing of the Texas Ground forces.
Mathew Caldwell (1798-1842) (nicknamed "Old Paint" on account of his whiskers actualization spotted) was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, a soldier in the Texas Army, a captain of Texas Rangers from Goliad, a captain of infantry in the Texas showtime regiment, and led a visitor of mounted rifles at Plum Creek. Caldwell had been wounded at the Quango Firm Fight.
Edward Burleson (1798-1851) served in the War of 1812, migrated to Texas in 1830, served as a lieutenant colonel of infantry under Stephen F. Austin, was appointed every bit Brigadier Full general of Volunteers to replace Austin in command of the Texas Regular army, In 1836 he commanded the first regiment at the Battle of San Jacinto; at Plum Creek, he commanded a militia visitor of mounted rifles.
Two Lipan Apache war chiefs were named Flacco: Flacco the Elderberry, and Flacco the Younger. Flacco the Younger became the friend and scouting companion of Jack Hays. Flacco the Younger was murdered by Mexican bandits while herding horses s of San Antonio in the winter of 1842.
Huston (1800-57) was an attorney, charlatan, and a brigadier of the Texas Army. Huston arrived at Plum Creek on the evening of eleven Baronial and took command of all gathering troops. Most people viewed Huston every bit a peacock; great to look at but deficient in matters of courage and war machine efficiency.
The last error any Texan ever made with the Comanche was to attempt and run from him.
With 35 Texas Rangers, Hays assaulted and defeated a Mexican cavalry force of 150 men.
Jack's brother Harry served the Confederacy every bit a Brigadier General with responsibilities in New Orleans, Louisiana.