Samuel Hamilton Walker

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Samuel Hamilton Walker (1817-1847)

Samuel Hamilton Walker (1817 – October 9, 1847) was a Texas Ranger captain and military officer of the Republic of Texas and the United States armies. Walker served in several armed conflicts, including the Indian and the Mexican-American wars.

Walker was born in Maryland and came to Texas in 1842, when he took part in the defense against the Mexican invasion led by General Adrian Woll. He then joined the Texas Rangers in 1844 under the command of Captain John Coffee Hays. Promoted to the rank of captain, he later led a Ranger company in the Mexican-American war with General Zachary Taylor and General Winfield Scott's armies.

Walker is usually remembered as the inventor of the famous Walker Colt revolver, along with arms manufacturer Samuel Colt. Walker is said to have self-funded a trip to New York to meet with Colt and proposed to him the concept of a weapon based on the then-popular five-shot Colt revolver, with many enhancements such as adding a sixth round. By 1847, the new revolver was produced. The Texas Rangers' companies were provided with the new weapons, which proved to be extremely effective.^{[citation needed]}

More important to remember is Walker's cowardly order to his men to massacre the Mexican non-combatants - elderly, women and children - that he found at the La Encantada Cave near Saltillo. He even took the scalps of these non-combatants, whether they were already dead or still alive. This is reported by the American officer Samuel Chamberlain, who witnessed the event and wrote about it in his book "My Confession: recollections of a rogue." Modern Mexicans consider this massacre as similar to that perpetrated by the American Army at the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War.

On October 9, 1847, Walker was killed - lanced through - while fighting a personal duel with the Mayor of the City of Huamantla, in Tlaxcala, while leading his troops. The official Texas myth has him dying with two of his revolvers in his hands.