Cowboys, Guns, and Cattle Drives: A Brief History
The basics of cowboy guns used on cattle drives.
Here is a quick English lesson for students. Commas are important. For example; cowboys, guns of the Old West, and cattle drives. Separated by commas, the three are independent elements and individual subjects. You’ve got cowboys. Then you’ve got guns of the Old West. Finally, you’ve got cattle drives. In this case, they are three interesting subjects that many people spend a great deal of time learning about. However, take away the commas and you get cowboy guns of the Old West and cattle drives. Now you’ve combined the independent elements into one topic. In doing so, you have created a subject that Google recently ranked as the most interesting topic of all time. Okay, maybe not, but if you’re a regular to this website you might be inclined to think so.
All kidding aside, guns cowboys used on cattle drives is a topic that many people do find interesting. That being said, it’s a topic that is somewhat complicated. Like most answers in history, there is no cut-and-dry answer to what guns cowboys used on cattle drives. Instead, you may be best advised to gain an understanding of the big picture of guns of the old west before you look directly at cowboy guns. If you understand the broad view of firearms in the period from 1865-1880, and then apply it to individual accounts on cattle drives, you might be best able to accurately understand the subject.
If you’re new to the study of guns of the Old West, here are some things it is probably helpful to understand.
PART 1 - Pre 1850
Muzzleloaders
First off, early in the frontier period, muzzleloaders were basically the only firearms available. Muzzleloaders are guns that load from the muzzle. If you are unfamiliar with them, you might find this article helpful. Essentially, with a muzzleloader, each component of a load must be loaded individually. First, black powder is measured and poured. Then you have to seat the projectile on the powder charge. Lastly, you need to come up with some way to ignite the powder. Early on, this was done using a flintlock, but by the early 1830s percussion caps were common technology. Percussion cap muzzleloaders were popular on the frontier for quite a while. In fact, when Kit Carson died in 1868, his personal rifle was still a .54 caliber Hawken muzzleloader.
Prior to the mid-1860’s, many people on the frontier carried muzzleloaders. These simple guns had pros and cons the frontiersmen knew well. On the pro side, muzzleloaders were commonly available and had proved themselves capable as tools for hunting, war, and personal protection. Secondly, the materials you needed to shoot (black powder, a lead ball, some sort of patch, and a percussion cap) were easily obtained at forts and trading posts. However, these primitive guns did have drawbacks. Mainly, their slow rate of fire was a huge disadvantage. Increasing the rate of fire was an important technological issue, and one that Samuel Colt overcame with his famous Colt revolver.
Cap and Ball Revolvers
If you understand how a muzzleloading rifle works, then you should understand how a cap and ball revolver works. Basically, cap and ball revolvers work on the same general principle. Like muzzleloading rifles, each element of the shot (powder, projectile, ignition) is independent. However, Colt devised a cylinder capable of containing 5 pre-loaded shots. Now, instead of being limited to the slow rate of fire of a single shot, people could shoot multiple shots before reloading. Some of the first frontiersmen to make use of this concept were the Texas Rangers in the 1840s. By 1860, perhaps the most popular cap and ball pistol on the frontier was the 1851 Navy Colt.
So, we imagine a frontiersman in the mid-1850s, we can likely guess they were carrying a single-shot muzzleloading rifle and a cap and ball revolver. However, the decade of the 1850s marked a turning point in firearm technology.
Model 1851 Navy Colt cap and ball revolver.
PART II: 1850 - Civil War
Cartridges
One of the biggest changes in firearms technology in the 1850s came from the brain of Benjamin Houiller. As far back as the early 1800s, some gunsmiths had been tinkering with ways to contain all of the components of a load (explosive, projectile, ignition) into one unit. These units would eventually become known as cartridges. The first cartridges were made of paper. Paper cartridges had obvious disadvantages, but they were the starting point for Houiller’s experiments with metallic cartridges. By the late 1840s, Houiller had developed a metallic cartridge that would become the foundation for the ammunition used today.
As you can guess, metallic cartridges offered big advantages, including speed of reloading. With all of the components of a load in one unit, all you have to do is load it and shoot. No more measuring. No more ramrod. No more fumbling with a percussion cap. Simple. Easy. Effective.
Breech Loaders
One major advancement that developed as a result of cartridges was the breech-loading rifle. Breech refers to the rear of the barrel. Therefore, a breech-loader is a firearm that you load from the back. If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize this is the opposite of a muzzleloader.
Although there were many breech-loaders invented, by far the most common was the Sharps. Sharps were single-shot, breech-loading, rifles or carbines. The Model 1859 was a rifle that was used extensively by the Union in the Civil War and gave them a serious advantage. Interestingly, the Confederates tried to copy the Sharps in an effort to keep pace in the arms race of war.
This image shows a Sharps replica. On the left, the breech is closed and the gun can fire. The image on the right shows hows the breech opened and ready to have a metallic cartridge loaded.
By the end of the Civil War, breech loaders and metallic cartridges were growing more common. As a result, cowboys of the trail drive period had access to muzzleloading rifles, cap and ball pistols, metallic cartridges, and breech-loading rifles. However, there were still two major advancements that would impact what guns they could carry.
PART III: Post Civil War
Repeating Rifles
One of the big innovations during the 1860s was the repeating rifle. Although the development of the repeating rifle occurred before the Civil War, it wasn’t until the post-war years they became common. While there were many different ideas about how to make repeating rifles, the idea that took hold was Benjamin Henry’s lever action.
Henry’s lever action built off the development of the metallic cartridge. Basically, he mounted a tube beneath the barrel to hold up to 15 rounds. He also developed the lever mechanism that did two jobs. First, it ejected a cartridge after it had been fired. Secondly, it replaced it with a new cartridge. As a result, reloading of the rifle took only a second or two. It’s easy to see the advantages of that.
Model 1860 Henry lever action rifle.
Henry rifles were used in the Civil War and as a result were popular after the war’s conclusion. In fact, when cattleman Oliver Loving was killed in 1867, he had a Henry rifle along with him. As long as a man could get his hands on the .44 caliber ammunition used by the Henry, he benefitted from the new technology. However, that brings up the major disadvantage of a Henry and any firearm that used metallic cartridges for that matter.
During the muzzleloader and cap-and-ball days, as long as a man had lead, powder, and caps, he could shoot. Although the cartridge guns were great technology, you had to have the correct cartridge that fit your gun. Goods on the frontier were sometimes scarce, and I guess that not every trading post carried even the most popular cartridges. However, you can bet that even the most remote posts carried powder, lead, and caps. Despite the advantages of metallic cartridge repeaters, a scarcity of cartridges may have kept some men married to their muzzleloaders.
Metallic Cartridge Revolvers
The final advancement worth considering is the development of the metallic cartridge revolver. Conceptually, these revolvers were an easy jump from the 1851 Navy colt cap-and-ball. Once metallic cartridges were invented, it was simply a matter of developing a cylinder that could house them. The first popular model was developed by Smith and Wesson in the mid-1850s. It didn’t take long before other companies created their own models of the concept. By the early 1870s, these kinds of revolvers were commonly available.
Cowboy Guns on Cattle Drives
By this point, you should understand the different firearm technologies available after the Civil War. There were muzzleloaders, breech-loaders, and repeating long arms. There were also cap-and-ball revolvers and metallic cartridge revolvers. So, what guns did the cowboys use? It likely depends on the man.
Think of life today. As of 2021, the most popular phone sold in America was the iPhone 12 Pro Max. In the future, if people are curious about what phones we used today, they might be tempted to think that everyone used an iPhone. However, we all know people carry a variety of phones. While many people use a smartphone of some sort, there are still people who are a few years behind the most recent technology. Most of us probably still know people using flip phones. Basically, even though a technology is available, that doesn’t mean everyone instantly uses it.
If you’re reading History of the West with Sam Payne: Trail to Cheyenne, you might have picked up on this idea. Some characters have older guns, while others have guns that were more modern. Because different people have different personalities, different incomes, and different beliefs, they would have carried different firearms. Cowboys on cattle drives were a diverse lot of people. As a result, they would have had an array of firearms. Some would have probably stuck to the muzzleloading technology. Others may have used breechloaders. Still, others would have kept pace with technology and used metallic cartridge repeaters. It all would have come down to the individual.
When it comes down to whether cowboys actually carried guns on the trail, there is some debate. I’ve read reports that some outfits ordered firearms to be stowed in the chuckwagon. I’ve read other accounts of men using them to shoot snakes along the trail. One such example of this comes from the book Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman by J. Evetts Haley. In the book, Evetts describes how one man named Nath Brauner killed over 70 rattlesnakes on the 1866 drive. He also claims that Goodnight had ordered his crew not to shoot more than necessary at the snakes. Goodnight also apparently described seeing the graves of two cowboys who had killed each other in a gunfight along the trail.
When it comes to cowboys and guns, real 1800’s cowboy Teddy Blue had this to say:
“…there is one thing I would like to get straight. I punched cows from ‘71 on, and I never yet saw a cowboy with two guns. I mean two six-shooters…a cowboy with two guns is all movie stuff, and so is this business of a gun on each hip. The kind of fellows that did carry two would carry one in the scabbard and a hide-out gun under their arm.”
In the end, researching what guns cowboys used on cattle drives might not provide a clear answer. Perhaps, by the mid to late 1870s, it appears most likely the majority of cowboys had repeating metallic cartridge guns. At that point in time, the railroads had expanded father and father, thus supplying the frontier with cartridges. By that point, older repeaters would have been more affordable, thus increasing their availability. Finally, by that point, there would have been more money circulating than there was immediately following the Civil War.
Learning about the guns cowboys used on cattle drives is an interesting topic. It can teach us about how technology changes over time. We can learn about how those changes build off each other. We can also learn more about the role firearms played on the American frontier. Guns were important tools that were necessary for many reasons. Even today, guns are tools people use for a variety of reasons. And just like people today own a variety of different guns, cowboys on the cattle drives would have done the same.
