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By Root 2087 0

City’s former town marshal, tracked down three outlaws who had robbed a Wells Fargo stagecoach to a steep canyon crowned by a waterfall. Clambering to the top, Venard was greeted by a Colt .44 revolver wielded by Jack Williams. Venard’s trusty Henry leaped to his shoulder and drilled Williams through the heart. Nearby, Venard could see the fiend’s villainous accomplice, Finn, struggling with his piece, and according to Neill Wilson’s vivid Treasure Express: Epic Days of the Wells Fargo, he worked the trigger guard “and another half-ounce cone of lead was in firing position.” This second shot was “despatched before echo of the first had caromed off the cliffs, sped upward and spattered on the canyon wall, having entered Finn’s skull below the right eye and toured his skull en route.” Prying the Wells Fargo bag from the late Finn’s cold, dead hand, Venard sought the third man: “The next shot out of the pursuing Henry explored his heart, sent his spirit winging and his person crashing downhill into the canyon.” For his heroics, the governor of California made Venard a lieutenant colonel of militia and Wells Fargo awarded him $3,000.78

There was something comforting about having a repeater close to hand when a man was in a tight spot. Finn Burnett, who was present at the great Hayfield Fight of 1867, witnessed the civilian D. A. Colvin in action there and believed there wasn’t “another man living, or that ever lived, who has killed as many Indians in a day.” The unruffled Colvin, using a Henry, “fired about 300 shots” at ranges of between 20 and 75 yards.79

On the narrow trail near O’Fallon’s Bluffs on the South Platte River on June 12, 1867, eight herders armed with Spencers and tending 340 mules held off 125 mounted Indians “yelling and shouting like fiends” by throwing “themselves down on the ground, and commenc[ing] firing.” By the time the rest of the wagon train arrived, the herders had killed at least nine of them.80 Hearing inspiring stories like that, was there ever a tenderfoot or greenhorn who wouldn’t rush to the nearest outfitter and plunk down his money to buy the firearm that might very well save his life?

The Spencer action

The second factor working in the repeater’s favor was Oliver Winchester, the former Connecticut shirt-maker who was now ruthlessly intent on ruling the range (and prairie). He was aided immeasurably by the travails suffered by his great rival, Christopher Spencer, in the years following the Civil War. Despite General Ripley’s best efforts, by its end the federal government had bought 12,471 Spencers (plus another 94,196 carbines) while Winchester had sold just 1,731 Henrys.81 But after 1865 Spencer’s very success turned against him. With former soldiers opting to stick with their wartime Spencers—no less a personage than General Grant said they were “the best breech-loading arms” available—he found few buyers for his newer products. In 1868, Spencer already having left the company, the firm, flailing in debt, was wound up. The remaining assets—machinery, finished weapons, and patents—were bought by Winchester for $200,000. The machinery and inventory were flogged at auction for $138,000, thereby enabling Winchester to retain the rights to Spencer’s inventions for the knockdown price of $62,000.82 By such means, between 1869 and 1899,Winchester’s once tiny company’s share of the total American firearms and ammunition industry rose from 8 percent to 29 percent.83

As early as mid-1865, however, Winchester had begun thinking about phasing out the Henry. The treachery of its disaffected creator, Benjamin Henry, sealed Winchester’s decision to forge ahead with an updated replacement.

In the spring of 1865, while Winchester was on a sales trip to Europe, Henry, working in league with the company’s secretary Charles Nott, had mounted a shareholder coup and tried to rename the firm the Henry Repeating Rifle Company. Winchester desperately fought back but could not prevent the name change. Instead he financially crippled Henry’s firm by establishing his own, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company,