The Committee on Military Affairs . . .respectfully report:
On the Texan frontier and on the several routes to California, the Indian tribes are renewing their murderous warfare, and a general Indian war is likely to ensue unless bodies of mounted men efficiently equipped for such service are employed against them. Experience has proved that it is difficult to contend against savages with the usual arms of mounted men, the ordinary dragoon pistol and Hall's carbine. General Harney, who employed Colt's pistol successfully in Florida, says: "It is the only weapon with which we can hope ever to subdue those wild and daring tribes, unless we can have at least three regiments of dragoons on the Texas frontier alone;" and those officers who have recenly returned from the frontier corroborate this statement by declaring, that a dragoon armed with Colt's repeating pistol and a musquetoon, or perhaps Sharp's rifle, would be the most efficient and the most formidable for frontier service; and particularly when encounters with the savages occur, as they generally do, in prairies, defiles, and mountain gorges. The advantages of repeating arms in such encounters are incalculable. A few bold men, well skilled in the use of these weapons, can, under such circumstances, encounter and scatter almost any number of savages.
(been a while since anyone added somethin' old to this thread)
Topic: January 30, 1851 (Read 107 times)