Sam Houston was re-elected President of Texas on December 12, 1841. He had taken note of the Rangers' cost-efficiency and increased their number to 150. Under Captain
John Coffee "Jack" Hays' leadership, the force played an important role in the defense against the Mexican invasion led by General
Adrian Woll in 1842 and against attacks by Natives. The
First Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifle Volunteers was also known as "Hays' Texas Rangers". Despite his youth at the time, the charismatic Hays was a rallying figure to his men and is often considered responsible for giving cohesion, discipline and a group mentality to the Rangers.
Flacco, a chief of the allied Native tribe of the
Lipan, used to call Hays
Bravo too much. The adoption of the state-of-the-art five-shot
Colt Paterson revolver (which had been turned down by the
U.S. Army) was also his work. Hays trained his men to aim, fire and reload their weapons from horseback, a radical innovation from the usual contemporary technique of dismounting before shooting at enemies and reloading, which was a necessity with more cumbersome weaponry. This tactic was put to devastating effect, and it was imitated shortly afterwards by the military, Texian and
American. At the suggestion of one of Hays's officers,
Samuel Hamilton Walker, these revolvers soon evolved into the famous, enhanced six-shot version, the
Walker Colt; 1,000 of these revolvers were issued to the United States Mounted Rifles engaged in the Mexican–American War. During these years, famous Rangers such as Hays, Walker,
Benjamin McCulloch and
William "Bigfoot" Wallace first established their reputation as frontier fighters. With the annexation of Texas within the United States and the
Mexican–American War in 1846, several companies of Rangers were mustered into federal service and proved themselves at the battles of
Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma. From that moment on, their effectiveness as
guerrilla fighters and guides to the
federal army through a territory that they were familiar with marked the pace of the American offensive. Rangers played an important role in the battles of
Monterrey and
Buena Vista. The army, commanded by General
Winfield Scott, landed at
Veracruz in March 1847, and the Rangers once again provided valuable support at the ensuing
Siege of Veracruz and the battles of
Cerro Gordo and
Chapultepec. They were also responsible for the defeat of the fierce Mexican
guerrilleros that hindered the advance of the federal troops, which they achieved ruthlessly and efficiently. By then, the Rangers had earned themselves a considerable reputation that approached the legendary among Mexicans, and when Ranger companies entered and occupied Mexico City with the U.S. Army in September 1847,
los Diablos Tejanos (the "Texas Devils") were received with reverence and fear. Their role in the Mexican–American War also won them nationwide fame in the United States and news of their exploits, in the contemporary press became common, effectively establishing the Rangers as part of American folklore. As the
Victoria Advocate reported in the November 16, 1848, issue: Four newly raised ranging companies, have all been organized, and taken their several stations on our frontier. We are much pleased. We know they are true men, and they know exactly what they are about. With many of them, Native and Mexican fighting has been their trade for years. That they may be permanently retained in the service on our frontier is extremely desirable, and we cannot permit ourselves to doubt such will be the case. Despite these popular stories and their fame, some of their most brutal interventions, such as the massacre of unarmed civilians, elderly men, women and children in
Saltillo, ordered by Samuel H. Walker, remained unknown to the American public at large. Most of the Ranger force was disbanded during the years following the end of the Mexican–American War on February 2, 1848, since the protection of the frontiers was now an official duty of the U.S. Army. But as more settlers sought to establish homesteads in lands traditionally occupied by Natives, the skirmishes with the native peoples became a major political issue. During the 1850s, the Rangers were intermittently called on to deal with this problem, and with the election of
Hardin Richard Runnels as governor in 1857, they once again regained their role as defenders of the Texas frontier. On January 27, 1858, Runnels allocated (equivalent to $ million in ) to fund a force of Rangers, and
John Salmon "Rip" Ford, a veteran Ranger of the war with Mexico, was commissioned as senior captain. With a force of some 100 Rangers, Ford began a large expedition against the Comanche and other tribes, whose raids against the settlers and their properties had become common. On May 12, Ford's Rangers, accompanied by
Tonkawa,
Anadarko and
Shawnee scouts from the Brazos Reservation in Texas, crossed the
Red River into
Native Territory and attacked a Comanche village in the
Canadian River Valley, flanked by the
Antelope Hills in what is now
Oklahoma. Suffering only four casualties, the force killed a reported 76 Comanche (including a chief by the name of
Iron Jacket) and took 18 prisoners and 300
horses. In December 1859, Ford and his company were assigned to
Brownsville, in south Texas, where the local Mexican rancher
Juan Cortina had launched an attack and briefly occupied the town and later conducted a series of guerrilla actions and raids against local American landowners. Together with a regiment of the U.S. Army commanded by Major
Samuel P. Heintzelman (who later became a notable general of the
Union in the
Civil War), Ford's Rangers took part in the
Cortina War, and on December 27, 1859, they engaged and defeated Cortina's forces in the battle of
Rio Grande City. Pursued and defeated by Ford and his Rangers again a few days later, Cortina retreated into Mexico, and although he would continue to promote minor actions against the Texan ranchers, the threat of a large-scale military incursion was effectively ended. The success of these campaigns marked a turning point in the history of the Texas Rangers. The U.S. Army could provide only limited and thinly stretched protection in the vast territory of Texas. In contrast, the Rangers' effectiveness in dealing with these threats convinced both the people of the state and the political leaders that a well-funded and organized local Ranger force was essential. Such a force leverage its deep familiarity with the territory and its proximity to the theater of operations as significant advantages. Despite this recognition, the option of maintaining the Rangers was not pursued due to emerging national political problems, leading to their dissolution until 1874. However, the conviction of their usefulness had become firmly established, and the agency was eventually reconstituted. ==Civil War and late 19th century==