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A review by maneatsbooks
Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger
4.0
Samuel Colt could not have been created anywhere but America. A proto-Trumpian huckster with a mile-wide narcissistic streak and a singular vision to create the first and best multi-shot revolving pistol, he would become one of America's wealthiest tycoons.
And all from an idea he whittled on a ship when he was 16, based on the ratchet of a windlass. Although, that may just be a story he made up; it's difficult to tell. There are a lot of contradictory stories about Colt, many of them made up by himself.
A self-invented man, and a self-declared self-made man, conveniently ignoring the uncles, cousins, and friends who funded his early ventures, almost always regretting it. (A family friend was the first commissioner of the United States Patent Office, virtually guaranteeing that Colt would receive a patent for his invention.)
His sense of showmanship rivaled P. T. Barnum, and his skills at lobbying and spotting opportunity were certainly remarkable. He knew the greatest friend the mass-producing gunsmith could have would be a juicy war or two.
“In America, where manual labor is scarce and expensive, it was imperative to devise means for producing these arms with greatest rapidity and economy.” Those production methods would spread throughout the United States economy, undergirding what some called the Second Industrial Revolution, eventually becoming the assembly line manufacturing techniques of other tycoons like Henry Ford.
Over time, Colt’s revolvers became a great symbol of the West — a technology of Manifest Destiny, soaked in blood.
Maybe the most important users, certainly the most influential early adopters, were the Texas Rangers who took up his weapons in their wars against the Comanches.
Even a great marksman could only get a shot off every 30 seconds with a muzzle-loaded weapon. Comanche warriors could nearly shoot an entire quiver of 20 arrows in that time. Famous Texas Ranger leaders, like Jack Hays and Samuel Walker, saw in Colt’s revolvers the potential for new battleground tactics - mounted skirmishers, firing multiple rounds on the move. It decimated their enemies and turned the tide of the Indian wars.
As Colt’s health began to fade, and the popularity of his guns increased, a firebrand preacher called John Brown attacked the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to start a slave insurrection. John Brown was the spark that set the flame to the civil war.
At the time of Colt's death in 1862, the great bloodbaths of the war remained unfought - Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysberg - but thousands of young American men had already perished. Before it was done, 620,000 would die in the world's first industrial war.
Colt said he believed that the more efficiently his guns killed people, the less they would want to do so, because they would be appalled at the ease of mass slaughter.
Every outlaw carried Colt revolvers and drew them with frequency - the Dalton gang, Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Wild Bill Hickock.
In 2012, a shooter carrying an AR-15 killed twenty-six children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The Colt Manufacturing Company holds the patent for the AR-15.
It seems we are inured to the ease of slaughter, and the old lie that the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
And all from an idea he whittled on a ship when he was 16, based on the ratchet of a windlass. Although, that may just be a story he made up; it's difficult to tell. There are a lot of contradictory stories about Colt, many of them made up by himself.
A self-invented man, and a self-declared self-made man, conveniently ignoring the uncles, cousins, and friends who funded his early ventures, almost always regretting it. (A family friend was the first commissioner of the United States Patent Office, virtually guaranteeing that Colt would receive a patent for his invention.)
His sense of showmanship rivaled P. T. Barnum, and his skills at lobbying and spotting opportunity were certainly remarkable. He knew the greatest friend the mass-producing gunsmith could have would be a juicy war or two.
“In America, where manual labor is scarce and expensive, it was imperative to devise means for producing these arms with greatest rapidity and economy.” Those production methods would spread throughout the United States economy, undergirding what some called the Second Industrial Revolution, eventually becoming the assembly line manufacturing techniques of other tycoons like Henry Ford.
Over time, Colt’s revolvers became a great symbol of the West — a technology of Manifest Destiny, soaked in blood.
Maybe the most important users, certainly the most influential early adopters, were the Texas Rangers who took up his weapons in their wars against the Comanches.
Even a great marksman could only get a shot off every 30 seconds with a muzzle-loaded weapon. Comanche warriors could nearly shoot an entire quiver of 20 arrows in that time. Famous Texas Ranger leaders, like Jack Hays and Samuel Walker, saw in Colt’s revolvers the potential for new battleground tactics - mounted skirmishers, firing multiple rounds on the move. It decimated their enemies and turned the tide of the Indian wars.
As Colt’s health began to fade, and the popularity of his guns increased, a firebrand preacher called John Brown attacked the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to start a slave insurrection. John Brown was the spark that set the flame to the civil war.
At the time of Colt's death in 1862, the great bloodbaths of the war remained unfought - Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysberg - but thousands of young American men had already perished. Before it was done, 620,000 would die in the world's first industrial war.
Colt said he believed that the more efficiently his guns killed people, the less they would want to do so, because they would be appalled at the ease of mass slaughter.
Every outlaw carried Colt revolvers and drew them with frequency - the Dalton gang, Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Wild Bill Hickock.
In 2012, a shooter carrying an AR-15 killed twenty-six children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The Colt Manufacturing Company holds the patent for the AR-15.
It seems we are inured to the ease of slaughter, and the old lie that the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.