Colonel Richard Dodge was a career officer in the U.S. Infantry from 1848 to 1895. During this time he served more than 30 years on the western frontier among the Native Americans. He observed the following:
He will grasp five to ten arrows in his left hand, and discharge them so rapidly that the last will be in flight before the first has touched the ground, and with such force that each would mortally wound a man at twenty or thirty yards.1
Col. Richard Dodge, 11th Infantry US Army 1882
Rachel Plummer was taken captive by the Comanches in the Republic of Texas in 1836. In her Narrative, while discussing the buffalo, she wrote the following:
The Indians shoot them with their arrows from their horses. They kill them very fast, and will even shoot an arrow entirely through one of these large animals.2
Rachel Plummer, City of Houston, Republic of Texas, 1839
The principal weapon of the Texas Rangers in the 1830’s was anything but “very fast”. Their muzzle loading long guns required 17 steps and took 30 seconds to reload.3
In June of 1844 fifteen Texas Rangers engaged seventy-five Comanches at Walker’s Creek. This battle was different. The Rangers were armed with new Colt revolvers.
Colt Paterson Revolver, same as used by the Texas Rangers at the Battle of Walker's Creek. (Photo credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colt_Holster_Model_Paterson_Revolver_No.5-06.jpg Author National Museum of American History (Licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication).)
This was the first time a repeating firearm would be used in battle. This was the first time that the quick and deadly bow would be out-matched by a new and more terrible weapon. When the battle was over one ranger and twenty Comanches were dead.4
It is ironic that a later model of the Colt revolver would become known as the Peacemaker. The work of the first Peacemaker was done. It had triggered an ancient population expansion that carried on through a world-wide migration. It had forever altered the arc of human history.
It is perhaps a fair assumption that, without the bow-and-arrow, Africa would have remained populated, as it had been for 250,000 years, by small bands of hunter-gatherers. And Europe would have remained the Land of the Neanderthal. And there would be no cell phones,…