My great-great grandfather enlisted in May of 1847 in Austin with Jack Hays's First Mounted Texas Volunteers, but his company was deployed north to the Brazos country in the vicinity of Waco to fight Indians. I wonder if he was issued a Walker, but tend to doubt it as there were so relatively few available.



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Interesting article Nolanco. Thanks for sharing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Walkers were earmarked for those fighting down south. He sure may have carried a Paterson though. He would have had at least a single shot pistol stuck in his belt.

He was enlisted in Capt. Samuel Highsmith's Company of the 1st Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers from May 1 1847 to May 1 1848.
I found this in a master's thesis on ""The Highsmith Men, Texas Rangers," by Cody Edwards, UNT, 2012.

There is no indication that Samuel Highsmith took another job in the months between his
enlistments. After he mustered out of federal service in September 1846, he may have spent his
time recuperating with his family. It was not uncommon for Rangers at this time to campaign
continuously between enlistment contracts which, according to many frontier defenders, were
mere formalities. By 1847 Samuel was nearly forty-three years old. The fact that he remained in
Ranger service at this age is a testament to his tenacity and dedication to Texas. According to
figures produced by the Economic History Association, the life expectancy of Caucasians during
this time period was only approximately forty years. Highsmith met and exceeded this, and he
was not yet through with active service.
17
Without his son Malcijah by his side, Samuel mustered back into service in the spring of
1847, signing up for a twelve month stint as a captain for the 1st Regiment, Texas Mounted
Volunteers, led by the revered Col. John C. Hays. Hays was the ranking officer among the
Rangers in Mexico and commanded all ranger units in federal service that served south of the
Rio Grande. Since he was fighting with the regulars in Mexico, Hays entrusted the immediate
command of Texas’s frontier defenders to Lt. Col. Peter H. Bell in an order issued on August 11,
1847. Highsmith led Company D, which apparently became Company A when Hays detached
Bell for service on the Texas frontier. Elements of this regiment began mustering into federal
service on May 10, 1847, and served generally to May 14, 1848. Highsmith’s company remained
detached from Hays’s regiment throughout the war and served under the command of Bell on the
Texas frontier. The company, like Highsmith’s previous command, protected the area around the
Llano and San Saba Rivers. It headquartered at Enchanted Rock, an area that Colonel Hays had
patrolled before joining the federals in Mexico.18
According to the Texas Democrat, Highsmith expected the Comanches of his region to
begin hostilities anew at any time. Acting on information provided to him by John Conner, a
famous Delaware Chief and Texas Ranger captain, Highsmith vigilantly patrolled his ranging
area. The warring in northern Mexico was at an end and the area which Highsmith and his
company patrolled—being able to return to some sort of normalcy in the winter and spring of
1847-1848—saw an influx of settlers. The people of the southwest plains, eager for land, were
either returning to the area or establishing new settlements. Consequently, they began to push
further west and into the lands traditionally controlled by the Comanches.19
In attempts to keep the continuing stream of settlers that came into his patrol area safe,
Highsmith continually scoured his district looking for hostile Native Americans. In early April
1848, he found some. One of his Delaware scouts, possibly Connor, or another one of his two
lead scouts, Jim Shaw or Jim Ned, notified the Captain of a party of Native Americans that were
camped in a valley south of the Brazos River. Historian Gary Clayton Anderson argues that at
this time Highsmith and his men attacked a peaceful band of Wichitas and Caddos, who were
returning from a hunt. Anderson asserts that the attack was a massacre as none of the Rangers
were hurt, though twenty-six Native Americans lost their lives. Highsmith was certainly capable
of such a vengeful attack as he was a champion of Anglo settlers, but did he purposefully commit
the atrocity knowing that the Caddos and Wichitas had only peaceful intentions? He undoubtedly
wanted quarrelsome bands of Native Americans to leave Texas to the Anglos, but an attack as
devastating as this does not fit his established character.20
The Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register offered a somewhat different account of
the attack:
A large number of friendly Indians have recently visited Torrey’s Trading House, and
among them were several Wacoes. They stated that the Indians that were killed on the
Llano a few weeks since, by the Rangers under the command of Capt. Highsmith were
not Wacoes, but were a renegade party from the Towiash village.
The newspaper added that:
They further stated, that those Indians were invited by the Lipans, with whom they were
found encamped, to accompany them on an expedition to the towns west of Bexar to steal
horses, and when the Rangers came upon them, the Lipans abandoned them to their fate.
The author of the article finally noted that the Native Americans that visited Torrey’s Trading
House after the attack believed Highsmith and his men were justified in killing the supposed
renegades since the Rangers had reason to believe that raiders would commit depredations in the
area. This single incident appears to have been the extent of Highsmith’s troubles with Native
Americans. He did not know, however, that his days of frontier defense were numbered.21
After his federal enlistment expired on May 14, 1848, Samuel re-enlisted in Bell’s 1st
Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers, and was once again elected as a captain. He mustered
back into federal service on May 15, 1848.