Crockett’s Unsuccessful Venture

Crockett organized the pistol makers and on March 20, 1862, reported they would be ready to contract

Remarkably fine specimen of .44 Dance Brothers is No. 121 in Vic Friedrich’s collection. Flat frame is distinctive characteristic of this series of Texas pistols made near Galveston. Sometimes called “Dance Dragoon,” title is misnomer since full-octagon-barreled pistol is more nearly what might be termed “army size.”

after an outlay of several thousand dollars. Spurring on their efforts was the bad news of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, where the Confederate general, Van Dorn, was beaten and the Texas forces lost two of their bravest leaders, General Ben McCulloch and General McIntosh.

The firm organized by Crockett was styled Tucker, Sherrard & Company, and on April 11, 1862, the Military Board signed a contract. By its terms, the Military Board agreed to “take by purchase of them all the pistols they shall make within one year and after the first of May next, not to exceed 3,000.” This is no contract to make 3,000 pistols, but only up to 3,000, or such less number as may be delivered. The contract bound the makers to deliver 100 in May, the pistols to “be subject to inspection at said shop before delivery.” As to the description of firearms proposed to be made by Tucker, Sherrard & Company, “That said pistols are to be of the kind and quality of Colt revolver, but the exact form and style being immaterial so that said pistols are good and substantial arms of the size and after the manner of said Colt revolver. That one-half of said pistols shall be of Colt Army size and the other half of the Navy size.” Signatory to the contract for the firm were Labon E. Tucker, J. H. Sherrard, W. L. Killen, A. W. Tucker, Pleasant Taylor, and last but not least, John M. Crockett.
Crockett now devoted his whole time to the project, in which it was obvious he had a financial interest. But workmen engaged to be employed had not come in, and the draft took some of the men. The younger son of Labon Tucker, Elihu McDonald, was constandy explaining that he was on “War work,” but one day 12 armed men marched him off to the nearest recruiting station. After he joined the Army, the authorities apparently returned him to the Tucker shop. But Crockett says in a wholly misleading fashion to the Military Board on May 19, 1862, “We are forging pistols and will begin to finish within a few days.” By June 30, he has to report to the Board, “We are not ready to deliver 100 pistols,” though they should have been ready in May.
Crockett planned to set the works up as a major factory, not a tiny job shop. By hand work, 100 pistols could have been completed, but there was risk of im-
pressment of the guns by the military. He states positively June 30, “We have several hundred on the way and could finish 100 at very short notice & perhaps a much larger number but we desire to be advised.” In making these “several hundred” he had forged up all the cast steel on hand, and could get no more. On July 3 he asks the Military Board if iron would do; “Our pride is sufficient to impel us to use the best material, but if we should fail to get steel, we would like to be advised of your opinions.” By July 21, the importunate local commander, Colonel Buford, had been badgering the factory to let him have some pistols, but still they refused to assemble any for fear of having them seized.
Tucker, Sherrard & Company wanted the Board to give orders on them for guns; then they would assemble these in a short time and deliver. To have guns lying around waiting, was too much of a temptation to the gun-hungry cavalrymen.
The Board replied, sending out Major George Dashull to pick up 200 pistols, but their letter of advice arrived Saturday, August 2, and Dashull arrived Monday, and had to go back to Austin empty-handed. On the 18 th, Crockett wrote a most important letter, admitting that even if they had known in time, they could not have given the major any pistols:
We are now at work on the third hundred pistols and our expectations is to complete the four hundred during the month of September. A very large portion of our labor, perhaps one half, ever since we began, has been best used on tools and machinery, being unable to procure them in any market. We might have finished a hundred perhaps if our exertions had been directed alone to that object, but it would have interfered with our system & carried us to losses at some other point, so as to fail completing 100 per month. Besides, we could not think that a small lot would be of any great importance. We expected from the beginning to cast the breech pieces, and consequently did not proceed to forge them, so as to complete a part of the pistols. We did not succeed well at first with the foundry and all the pistols were delayed on account of it.
Crockett remarks on the low price the state was paying, how they could finish up the pistols and sell at retail for $60 to $100 locally. The Tuckers were fearful of their mounting investments and were bought out of the company, probably by Crockett; but they continued to work as hired hands. By September 2, Crockett noted that “The three hundred pistols we now have approaching completion we will hasten to the finishing and will advise you. The fourth hundred we fear will be delayed for want of the arrival of material.” Crockett asked for $5,000 further advance; and informed the Board that the Tuckers having withdrawn from the company, they did business now as Sherrard, Taylor & Company. While the letter speaks of Crockett impersonally it was obviously written or drafted by him.
Crockett persistently puts off the Board on the times of pistol deliveries. He needs money to tide them over the winter. The hands beg off to go to the harvest, “They are Texans, farmers, and will thrash and sow their little grasses.” The prices offered locally for pistols
mount to $100. On September 24, 1862, the remaining members of the firm sign a bond in the sum of $10,000 that they will deliver 300 pistols in October. The Board then gives them the $5,000 advance requested. But during October Crockett burdens the mails with problems of impressed workmen—inability to get artisans from the Army, though the Board and the C.S. authorities in the beginning had told him he could get them.
Crockett again writes, on November 20, now weeks past the delivery of 300 pistols as promised under bond:
The writer has devoted his whole time to the business since it began & for the last three months has remained in the shops from little after sun up till sundown every day, except Sunday, urging the hands and the superintendents to the most diligent & energetic exertions. In that time the most has been done that it was possible to accomplish with the number of hands employed & the writer acquired much information both of the theory & practical operations. He has kept a register of the amount of labor best owed on every part of the pistol & can demonstrate the time necessary to make a certain number with any number of hands. Our operations are tedious for want of the preparations spoken of above ($25,000 investment and an early start). It is easy to see how Colt with certain facilities could make the article for nearly one third of our price and make money. We could have completed 100 parts, perhaps 200 by this time, but we did not begin to do a tinkering business, and large operations move slow.
Crockett furnishes some astonishing information concerning the manufacture of Colt revolvers, as it was conceived to be in Texas:
Colt’s pistols are not pure cast steel and scarcely a piece of them [is] hammered—they are either cast, or cut out. They answer a good purpose, but are not as good as ours. He cast his cylinders, barrels and breech pieces of iron converted to steel in his own foundry. We are failing to find material and are now preparing to melt our own ore and do all we can to secure material by our own resources.
We beg leave to assure the Board that out of, we hope, the purest patriotism we are doing our utmost to complete the pistols ... As soon as it is possible to get off a lot we will advise you. We think that ten days will develop what we can do and we will then advise you.
By January 28 matters had not improved. Though Crockett had planned to make 200 guns a month, with machinery employing about 50 men, the most employed at any one time was 25, and the average for the period was about 12. The first five months was spent in making tools, including apparently basic machine tools which they could not buy in the market. The fall of New Orleans (April, 1862) stopped the supply of iron and steel. To try his case in the papers, and stave off disciplinary action by the Military Board, Crockett obtained the insertion of a notice in the Texas Almanac, Austin, February 28, 1863:
Six-shooters. We were shown the other day a beautiful specimen of a six-shooter, manufactured in Dallas by Col. Crockett, who has a large armory now in successful operation. The pistol appears, in every respect, quite equal to the famous Colt’s six-shooter, of which it is an exact copy, with the exception of an extra sight on the barrel which we think is a decided improvement.
We learn that Col. Crockett has now 400 of these pistols on hand, which he has manufactured within the last six months, and which he has offered to the Governor at remarkably low figures.
In an attempt to jack up the ante from the Board, Crockett had Texas Senator Guinn introduce a memorial on March 2 in the legislature, calling for an increase of the state price of the pistols to $80. During March, Crockett tried to talk to both Mr. Randolph and Major Johns about increasing the price, but not until the day he left to return to Dallas did Major Johns unofficially say it would be best if he sold the guns privately. The conclusion of the affair came in June. The legislature in view of the failure to deliver decided to cancel the contract upon repayment of the $10,000 advance, “and in July last the parties repaid the loan in Confederate Treasury notes with $814.00 interest.”
Possible cause for Crockett’s bringing the contract to this conclusion is offered by the endorsement to this result: “The difference in the specie value of this money at the time it was advanced and at the time of its return was very considerable, but from the language of the law the Board has no alternative but to receipt the tender made, and cancel the bond.”
Finis cannot be written to the story of the TuckerCrockett pistols. Analysis of the above testimony reveals that Crockett did not forge the frames, expecting to have them cast. In spite of his protestations of putting 100 pistols together “soon,” the deadline is each time advanced or ignored. Difficulty in getting materials is frequently stated—iron suitable for casting the frames, we assume. The local coal was not suitable for melting this iron, and the smelting cupola they made would have to be completely torn down and rebuilt to a reverberatory furnace for different grades of ore or fuel.
A. S. Clark, maker with Sherrard of the dragoonsize revolvers, seems to have worked with Crockett. According to an old resident of Lancaster, Mr. A. B. Rawlins, whose manuscript is quoted by Fuller:
I was born in the town of Lancaster, Texas, in 1855, and at the beginning of the Civil War was probably six years old. Among the things that first impressed my mind was the erection of what we called the pistol factory on the banks of the branch on the west side of Lancaster, about two stones throw west of the public square. In later years I became aware that this pistol factory belonged to the Confederate states of America. My chief interest in boyhood days was the workmen. First in my memory was A. S. Clark, who was reputed by our community to be a Yankee. Next was a man named Fitzsimmons, not a native Texan, but a fine pattern maker; likewise Jim Cary, a scientific blacksmith, and another blacksmith, whose name was Sherrod (sic.). Both these men were native Texans. There was also employed in the factory a cousin of mine named Virgil Kellar, a young man about 16, who became very expert as a pattern maker . . . Virgil Kellar often brought his work at night and worked on it, and 1 recall his having exhibited a pattern of a six-shooter which he had made out of cedar. Virgil Kellar worked with the factory about two years and was called to the colors in Ross’ Brigade in the Trans-Mississippi Division and never returned, having been killed in battle.
A. S. Clark never left Lancaster to go into the Army and remained a resident of Lancaster until his death about 1905.
In later years of my life, being related to him by marriage,
I became intimately acquainted with him and have often heard him relate his connection with the pistol factory.
It seems he was brought to Lancaster from Michigan, or some other Northern state, by the Confederate States authorities, and placed in charge as superintendent of the factory, was furnished all the money he could spend in its operation ($10,000?—W.B.E.), with instructions to make all the guns he could, which he proceeded to do, and in carrying out these plans often recited to me trips he would make to Galveston for the purpose of purchasing steel and other supplies and necessary tools for the making of guns. I recall one item, files, of which he had difficulty in finding a sufficient number, having bought the entire supply in Galveston.