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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Philip, in answer to your question on Mexican powder and arms logistics in the Alamo period...
I can only presume that the British, who supplied most of their arms also provided black powder as well.
It was March in Texas, known for damp, cold conditions, and it is not hard to imagine the powder becoming unreactive or insufficient for normal use.
The Mexican army rifles were notably insufficient in firing, and extra charge as well as buck and ball were used to compensate. While the Mexican army was said to have steadily bombarded the Alamo for over a week before the attack, it was noted that none of the fire had caused notable damage or casualties. The powder charges were apparently inadequate to effectively reach their target.
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Hey Jim, muchas gracias por esta información. My knowledge of a lot of New World military history is quite thin, so this is helpful. You are teaching me new things. The British supplying Gen. Santa Ana's army, for instance. So, would his troops be armed mostly with Brown Besses, and English-made cannon? If the Brits provided the powder, I can imagine what it went through on the sea voyage across the Pond, then goodness knows the storage conditions in Mexican depots (and for how long), then the damp of Texas spring (this is an eye opener for me since I have no experience with that state except for changing planes at Dallas/Ft.Worthj airport, and I never stepped out of the terminal.).
Regarding small arms in the 1820-30s Mexican service, were there many
rifles in use? In the US and the advanced European armies of those decades, smoothbore muskets were the norm, since arms with rifled barrels were issued to special units like sharpshooters who had more advanced training and justified the additional cost of producing the weapons.
My interest in firearms of the Iberian Peninsula has sparked my curiosity about military and sporting small arms used in the Spanish colonies and their successor states shortly after gaining independence. My impression is that the firearms of that region and time were, like swords, primarily imports from Spain, or local copies thereof. Eudaldo Graells, in
Les Armes de Foc de Ripoll, includes excerpts from documents that demonstrate a thriving export trade from the gunmaking town of Ripoll in Cataluña to Mexico and Cuba in the 18th cent.
Miquelet pistols with a colonial Mexican or American Southwest provenance do show up in collections and at gun shows; mostly they are low- to medium-grade, some are now composite thanks to period overhauls, and they tend to be in well-worn condition. Signed work by Latin American gunsmiths is rare, as are top-flight Spanish imports for the carriage trade -- there is a gorgeous pair in the collection depot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the stocks overlaid with filigree and chased silver undoubtedly done by a Mexican artisan in the 18th cent. Also a rare Ripoll miquelet pistol stocked in the Brescian manner, probably end 17th cent but stylistically earlier, with pierced brass overlay depicting Aztec-looking warrior figures battling sea monsters and playing music, sold at Czernys auction house 8 June 2008, lot 1899.
Finally, do you have Howard L Blackmore's
Guns and Rifles of the World? Photoplate # 67 shows a curious matchlock, of a form clearly derived from 16th cent. Spanish musket (including the tiller trigger), though with insufficient patina to be that old, with Latin American folk motifs inlaid in brass and a crude inscription with the improbable date 1844 on the lockplate whose lower contour has a bulge reminiscent of the shape of a wheellock (Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, inv. no. 1894.133). A real oddball!
If you have info on what models of British military long arms and pistols were supplied to newly-independent Mexico, please share that info -- maybe a new thread would be nice since we seem to be drifting away from India, and cannons in particular with this discussion.