Blade Magazine articles on the "Sea of Mud" Bowie

[Triton]

I was curious if anyone else had read the series of articles that Blade Magazine has been printing on the "Sea of Mud" Bowie and / or the fall of the Alamo in general. It was an interesting multi-issue set of articles written by James Batson that detail accounts of James Black in Washington, Arkansas, talks about the trail that various Alamo defenders took to get to their date with history, does a great job of detailing the tactical picture at the Alamo and provides the battle plan for the final fight at the mission.

Oh and it talks about Bowie knives, in fact as one reads on in the articles it eventually becomes apparent that the author is rather obliquely trying to make the case that the so called "Sea of Mud" bowie (found at a river crossing used by Mexican troops post battle of the Alamo) is THE bowie knife owned by Jim Bowie at the fall of the Alamo. The author even goes so far as to invent a hypothesis about how the knife could have been taken from one of the Alamo's defenders and made its way hither and yon until it ended up getting dropped at the river crossing. He also lists a group of candidates who might have passed through Washington, Arkansas by James Black's shop and who had the means to purchase a knife (incidentally eliminating Crockett in the process). He then goes down the list doing his best to eliminate one by one each of the possible owners but then coyly tells the reader to "make the call' about whether or not they think the "Sea of Mud" bowie was Jim Bowie's knife.

Interestingly, Blade did have the guts to print a letter to the editor detailing a whole bunch of rather glaring "Ifs" with the story...
1) If James Black actually made any Bowies at all...
2) If James Black made any Carrigan style Bowies...
3) If James Bowie ever owned a Carrigan style Bowie...
4) If James Bowie had such a knife with him at the Alamo at all

I'll add some of my own
5) If there was any proof that Mexican troops rather than some other chance traveler dropped the knife on the riverbank.
6) If Dr. Batson's hypothesis about all the other possible candidates is correct
7) If no other candidates could have owned such a knife and on an on...

Honestly in my opinion the "Ifs" add up too high and deep to make it likely that the "Sea of Mud" knife is THE Bowie knife.

Blade did also print a response from Dr. Batson where he details his qualifications as a knife maker and talks about his years of research but does little to make his case or overcome the "Ifs."

In my opinion after reading the articles I have to think that Dr. Batson wants so desperately for something to be true that he is willing to ignore a lot of fairly pointed "Ifs" in order to get to his "truth." To me it almost smacks of Mussoism.

Did you read the article. What did you think? You make the call...

 

[Prester John]

I was curious if anyone else had read the series of articles that Blade Magazine has been printing on the "Sea of Mud" Bowie and / or the fall of the Alamo in general. It was an interesting multi-issue set of articles written by James Batson that detail accounts of James Black in Washington, Arkansas, talks about the trail that various Alamo defenders took to get to their date with history, does a great job of detailing the tactical picture at the Alamo and provides the battle plan for the final fight at the mission.

Oh and it talks about Bowie knives, in fact as one reads on in the articles it eventually becomes apparent that the author is rather obliquely trying to make the case that the so called "Sea of Mud" bowie (found at a river crossing used by Mexican troops post battle of the Alamo) is THE bowie knife owned by Jim Bowie at the fall of the Alamo. The author even goes so far as to invent a hypothesis about how the knife could have been taken from one of the Alamo's defenders and made its way hither and yon until it ended up getting dropped at the river crossing. He also lists a group of candidates who might have passed through Washington, Arkansas by James Black's shop and who had the means to purchase a knife (incidentally eliminating Crockett in the process). He then goes down the list doing his best to eliminate one by one each of the possible owners but then coyly tells the reader to "make the call' about whether or not they think the "Sea of Mud" bowie was Jim Bowie's knife.

Interestingly, Blade did have the guts to print a letter to the editor detailing a whole bunch of rather glaring "Ifs" with the story...
1) If James Black actually made any Bowies at all...
2) If James Black made any Carrigan style Bowies...
3) If James Bowie ever owned a Carrigan style Bowie...
4) If James Bowie had such a knife with him at the Alamo at all

I'll add some of my own
5) If there was any proof that Mexican troops rather than some other chance traveler dropped the knife on the riverbank.
6) If Dr. Batson's hypothesis about all the other possible candidates is correct
7) If no other candidates could have owned such a knife and on an on...

Honestly in my opinion the "Ifs" add up too high and deep to make it likely that the "Sea of Mud" knife is THE Bowie knife.

Blade did also print a response from Dr. Batson where he details his qualifications as a knife maker and talks about his years of research but does little to make his case or overcome the "Ifs."

In my opinion after reading the articles I have to think that Dr. Batson wants so desperately for something to be true that he is willing to ignore a lot of fairly pointed "Ifs" in order to get to his "truth." To me it almost smacks of Mussoism.

Did you read the article. What did you think? You make the call...

I agree. Too many "ifs". But love reading anything about the Alamo!

 

[Pomsbz]

Practically the entire genre of archaeology and its effect on our understanding of history is based on a whole lot of 'ifs', mainly coloured by modern thinking and a lack of appreciation of our ignorance of the context of life at the time. It used to bother me until I realised that it's become so farcical that I can't take them seriously enough to be annoyed anymore.

 

[GIRLYmann]

ah, the term "bowie knife" is but a colorful name to honor a legendary folk hero.
And while some may have heard of, or still cry out "remember the alamo!" with gusto,
To knifenuts world over, the Alamo is the final resting place of America's primo wild west knife legend ever.
IMHO, "bowie knife" remains the best lasting tribute to the heroics of the man,
whose life and times is still very much alive on every knifenut's lips.
But just how does anyone separate fact from myth?
When even the actual last moments of Bowie's death itself remains perfectly cloudy?...
https://truewestmagazine.com/no-wounds-back/
Perhaps knifedom would just have to come to terms and plainly accept that it's one of those things
that would probably remain a fascinating subject matter with "stories" being woefully inconclusive
and "accounts" still being scrutinized and perpetuated to feed the epic of Jim Bowie
- the legendary pioneering knifenut who in death, had left behind
a mystery far larger than the size of his actual knives ;-)
Stories which i bet, he would still get a kick from,
knowing that everyday someone living still treats the subject of his bowie knife as a serious hstorical
matter far more revered than the fictional rambo knife.
IMHO, America's Greatest Knifenut deserves his much needed rest..
It is only right that his act of patriotism and ultimate sacrifice be duly honored with facts.

 

[marcinek]

Interesting thread. It desperately needs the input of Bernard Levine. Maybe it would be better served in his subforum.

If anyone is a expert at sorting through the "ifs" and "invented hypothesis" of Bowie knife history it is him.

And there are no knives at all that can be definitively attributed to James Black, let alone knives he made for Bowie.

 

[skyhorse]

Read it and agree with the OP, no way of knowing but a fun read none the less.

 

[Triton]

Interesting thread. It desperately needs the input of Bernard Levine. Maybe it would be better served in his subforum.

If anyone is a expert at sorting through the "ifs" and "invented hypothesis" of Bowie knife history it is him.

And there are no knives at all that can be definitively attributed to James Black, let alone knives he made for Bowie.

I admit that I had that thought and I would love to have his take, but the reality is that Mr. Levine almost never posts in his own forum anymore sadly.

 

[Triton]

More generally what do you all think of the various named Bowies and their provenance? The Musso Bowie, the Forest Bowie, the Searles Bowie et al?

 

[Aias]

Cool read; thanks for posting. As for all the different knives going by some version of the name, wrapped in a bit of the myth... that's cool too--it's great to have all that variety!

 

[BladeScout]

I was curious if anyone else had read the series of articles that Blade Magazine has been printing on the "Sea of Mud" Bowie and / or the fall of the Alamo in general. It was an interesting multi-issue set of articles written by James Batson that detail accounts of James Black in Washington, Arkansas, talks about the trail that various Alamo defenders took to get to their date with history, does a great job of detailing the tactical picture at the Alamo and provides the battle plan for the final fight at the mission.

Oh and it talks about Bowie knives, in fact as one reads on in the articles it eventually becomes apparent that the author is rather obliquely trying to make the case that the so called "Sea of Mud" bowie (found at a river crossing used by Mexican troops post battle of the Alamo) is THE bowie knife owned by Jim Bowie at the fall of the Alamo. The author even goes so far as to invent a hypothesis about how the knife could have been taken from one of the Alamo's defenders and made its way hither and yon until it ended up getting dropped at the river crossing. He also lists a group of candidates who might have passed through Washington, Arkansas by James Black's shop and who had the means to purchase a knife (incidentally eliminating Crockett in the process). He then goes down the list doing his best to eliminate one by one each of the possible owners but then coyly tells the reader to "make the call' about whether or not they think the "Sea of Mud" bowie was Jim Bowie's knife.

Interestingly, Blade did have the guts to print a letter to the editor detailing a whole bunch of rather glaring "Ifs" with the story...
1) If James Black actually made any Bowies at all...
2) If James Black made any Carrigan style Bowies...
3) If James Bowie ever owned a Carrigan style Bowie...
4) If James Bowie had such a knife with him at the Alamo at all

I'll add some of my own
5) If there was any proof that Mexican troops rather than some other chance traveler dropped the knife on the riverbank.
6) If Dr. Batson's hypothesis about all the other possible candidates is correct
7) If no other candidates could have owned such a knife and on an on...

Honestly in my opinion the "Ifs" add up too high and deep to make it likely that the "Sea of Mud" knife is THE Bowie knife.

Blade did also print a response from Dr. Batson where he details his qualifications as a knife maker and talks about his years of research but does little to make his case or overcome the "Ifs."

In my opinion after reading the articles I have to think that Dr. Batson wants so desperately for something to be true that he is willing to ignore a lot of fairly pointed "Ifs" in order to get to his "truth." To me it almost smacks of Mussoism.

Did you read the article. What did you think? You make the call...

Thx for drawing my attention to this.
I had go go check it out. Interesting article.

I agree with some of your points.
Mr Batson is knowledgeable but there are a lot of 'ifs' there, as you mention.
Batson in a YT vid also stated, that in his opinion, the Forrest knife was legit.
I see the Forrest knife being touted again and again as the real deal - not least on this forum.
Edwin Forrest was unreliable and known for playing it fast and lose with the truth.
Kirchner has pointed out several mistakes in Forrest's tale. Not least a case of mistaken identity etc.

Pls define 'Mussoism?'

NB Its not that the term brought my hackles up - I simply dont know what you mean by it.
Suffice it to say, that I dont hold the Musso version in high regard.

 

[BladeScout]

More generally what do you all think of the various named Bowies and their provenance? The Musso Bowie, the Forest Bowie, the Searles Bowie et al?

The myth about the Edwin Forrest knife keeps being perpetuated - not least on this forum.

Kircher points out irregularites in the tale.

Kirchner on the Forrest Bowie:

Edwin Forrest and James Bowie


Edwin Forrest (1806-1872)

A celebrated 19th-century stage actor, Edwin Forrest, claimed to have been a close friend of James Bowie when both lived in New Orleans; in fact, Forrest claimed that Bowie gave him the knife he had used at the Sandbar fight. Forrest made his claim at a time when the Bowie name had become famous and there is no independent evidence that the two ever knew each other. Perusing my copy of The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend, I note that its author, Norm Flayderman, shares my suspicion that Forrest concocted his relationship with Bowie for purposes of self-aggrandizement. The "relationship" was described in several sycophantic biographies of Forrest. The following is from Edwin Forrest (1881), by Lawrence Barrett:
His associates, if we may trust his biographers, were not of a character to purify his nature or refine his manners. While an awful curiosity hovers about the inventor who gave his name to the bowie-knife, it seems unreasonable to attach any great importance to the friendship of the man upon that ground alone. He may have had qualities mitigating the ferocity which characterized his many bloody contests at arms, but these are not dwelt upon, and the only advantage which Forrest ever reaped from this intimacy was the possession of the identical knife which had played so prominent a part in the hands of Colonel Bowie. At least this is all the benefit which his biographers have shown as growing out of their friendship. At no time of Edwin Forrest's life did he need masculine or barbarian influence, — he always had a surplus in that direction, — and it would have been better for him could he have drawn his inspiration from the gentle and refining spirits which have ever animated the audiences and society of the Crescent City. He made his choice, and selected the coterie which was most congenial to him. We see in this no natural outcropping of a "Democratic" spirit; rather the haughty conceit of the self-made man who scorned to submit to judicious training. With Bowie, with a large-hearted, powerfully built, fighting steamboat captain (whose best exploit was not in conquering a crowd of loafers by his muscle, but in the tenderness of his care of Forrest when ill of the fever), with Push-ma-ta-ha, the Indian who is said to have suggested the production of "Metamora," and with other original spirits like these, Forrest passed his unoccupied time in New Orleans. They charmed the young athlete by their novel freedom, and he was too full of the warm blood of the barbarian himself to resist their fascination.Bowie was a "steamboat captain"? Methinks the biographer had him confused with Mike Fink of flatboat fame. Also, Bowie tenderly nursed Forrest back to health when he was ill with a fever? Sounds unlikely, somehow.


The "original bowie knife" Forrest claimed was given to him by Bowie himself.

The following is from Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian, Volume 1 (1877), by William Rounseville Alger:
The one of Forrest's New Orleans friends first to be named is James Bowie, inventor and unrivalled wielder of that terrible weapon for hand-to-hand fights named from him the bowie-knife. He was a member of the aristocratic class of the South, planter, gentleman, traveller, adventurer, sweet-spoken, soft-mannered, poetic, and chivalrous, and possessed of a strength and a courage, a cool audacity and an untamable will, which seemed, when compared with any ordinary standard, superhuman. These qualities in a hundred conflicts never failed to bring him off conqueror. In heart, when not roused by some sinister influence, he was as open as a child and as loving as a woman. In soul high-strung, rich and free, in physical condition like a racing thoroughbred or a pugilist ready for the ring, an eloquent talker, thoroughly acquainted with the world from his point of view, he was a charming associate for those of such tastes, equally fascinating to friends and formidable to foes. As a personal competitor, taken nakedly front to front, few more ominous and magnificent specimens of man have walked on this continent.

His favorite knife, used by him awfully in many an awful fray, he presented as a token of his love to Forrest, who carefully preserved it among his treasured keepsakes. It was a long and ugly thing, clustering with fearful associations in its very look; plain and cheap for real work, utterly unadorned, but the blade exquisitely tempered so as not to bend or break too easily, and the handle corrugated with braids of steel, that it might not slip when the hand got bloody. Journeying in a stage-coach, in cold weather, after stopping for a change of horses a huge swaggering fellow usurped a seat belonging to an invalid lady, leaving her to ride on the outside. In vain the lady expostulated with him; in vain several others tried to persuade him to give up the place to her. At last a man who sat in front of the offender, so muffled and curled up in a great cloak that he looked very small, dropped the cloak down his shoulders, took his watch in his left hand, lifted a knife in his right, and, straightening himself up slowly till it seemed as if his head was going through the top of the coach, planted his unmoving eyes full on those of the intruder, and said, in a perfectly soft and level tone which gave the words redoubled power, "Sir, if within two minutes you are not out of that seat, by the living God I will cut your ears off!"

The man paused a few seconds to take in the situation. He then cried, "Driver, let me out! I won't ride with such a set of damned murderers!"

That was Bowie with his knife. Fearful, yet not without something admirable. Another anecdote of him will illustrate still better the atmosphere of the class of men under whose patronizing influence Forrest came in the company of his friend Bowie.

The plantations of Bowie and a very quarrelsome Spaniard joined each other. The proprietors naturally fell out. The Spaniard swore he would shoot Bowie on the first chance. The latter, not liking to live with such an account on his hands, challenged his neighbor, who was a very powerful and skilful fighter with all sorts of weapons and had in his time killed a good many men. The Spaniard accepted the challenge, and fixed the following conditions for the combat. An oak bench six feet long, two feet high, and one foot wide should be firmly fastened in the earth. The combatants, stark naked, each with a knife in his right hand, its blade twelve inches in length, should be securely strapped to the bench, face to face, their knees touching. Then, at a signal, they should go at it, and no one should interfere till the fight was done. The murderous temper of the arrangements was not more evident than the horrible death of one of the men or of both was sure. But Bowie did not shrink. He said to himself, "If the Spaniard's hate is so fiendish, why, he shall have his bellyful before we end."

All was ready, and a crowd stood by. Bowie may tell the rest himself, as he related it a dozen years after to Forrest, whose blood curdled while he listened:
"We confronted each other with mutual watch, motionless, for a minute or two. I felt that it was all over with me, and a slight chill went through my breast, but my heart was hot and my brain was steady, and I resolved that at all events he should die too. Every fight is won in the eye first. Well, as I held my look rooted in his eye, I suddenly saw in it a slight quiver, an almost imperceptible sign of giving way. A thrill of joy shot through my heart, and I knew that he was mine. At that instant he stabbed at me. I took his blade right through my left arm, and at the same time, by an upward stroke, as swift as lightning and reaching to his very spine, I ripped him open from the abdomen to the chin. He gave a hoarse grunt, the whole of his insides gushed out, and he tumbled into my lap, dead."If Bowie told Forrest this story a dozen years afterward, one wonders when it could have occurred. It would have had to have predated the Sandbar Fight by four or five years, yet that would not correspond to the account of Bowie's life given by his brothers John and Rezin.

 

[Kreyzhorse]

Practically the entire genre of archaeology and its effect on our understanding of history is based on a whole lot of 'ifs', mainly coloured by modern thinking and a lack of appreciation of our ignorance of the context of life at the time. It used to bother me until I realised that it's become so farcical that I can't take them seriously enough to be annoyed anymore.

Very well stated. I find this particularly true the further we go back in time. In my opinion, we will never truly understand areas like Stonehenge despite what the experts tell us.

 

[Sidehill Gouger]

I thought the whole Sea of Mud series in Blade was just a gimmick to sell you 5 issues instead of just one. It told the reader next to nothing about the actual knife but spent all of its time giving bios of famous people that might have owned (or might not have) it. As far as I can tell, that knife might have belonged to any of the defenders of the Alamo. Did a Mexican soldier lose it in the mud? I saw no proof of that either other than the Mexicans did lose equipment in that area. Anyone could have dropped the knife.

 

[Henry Beige]

Very well stated. I find this particularly true the further we go back in time. In my opinion, we will never truly understand areas like Stonehenge despite what the experts tell us.

An understanding of Carhenge, on the other hand, may be within reach.
“Plane loqui deprehendi.”

 

[Hackenslash]

I thought the whole Sea of Mud series in Blade was just a gimmick to sell you 5 issues instead of just one. It told the reader next to nothing about the actual knife but spent all of its time giving bios of famous people that might have owned (or might not have) it. As far as I can tell, that knife might have belonged to any of the defenders of the Alamo. Did a Mexican soldier lose it in the mud? I saw no proof of that either other than the Mexicans did lose equipment in that area. Anyone could have dropped the knife.

I agree, Sir. I think the series is a well written speculative fiction, designed to keep the reader on the hook for some genuine history.

 

[Triton]

Thx for drawing my attention to this.
I had go go check it out. Interesting article.

I agree with some of your points.
Mr Batson is knowledgeable but there are a lot of 'ifs' there, as you mention.
Batson in a YT vid also stated, that in his opinion, the Forrest knife was legit.
I see the Forrest knife being touted again and again as the real deal - not least on this forum.
Edwin Forrest was unreliable and known for playing it fast and lose with the truth.
Kirchner has pointed out several mistakes in Forrest's tale. Not least a case of mistaken identity etc.

Pls define 'Mussoism?'

NB Its not that the term brought my hackles up - I simply dont know what you mean by it.
Suffice it to say, that I dont hold the Musso version in high regard.

Actually I think that the Forrest knife might be legitimate in that it actually could be a "bowie knife" that was actually given to Forrest by Jim Bowie. Was it the knife used in the sandbar fight? I suppose it's possible but I think it more likely that like Rezin Bowie, Jim Bowie probably gave away knives. After all if you were a celebrity mostly based upon "inventing" a type of knife what would you do?

Sorry Mussoism is a term of my own invention i.e. someone who wants something so badly to be true that they convince themselves it is true all reality to the contrary. I think that the provenance of the Musso bowie might be such a case if I'm feeling charitable.

 

[Triton]

The myth about the Edwin Forrest knife keeps being perpetuated - not least on this forum.

Kircher points out irregularites in the tale.

Kirchner on the Forrest Bowie:

Edwin Forrest and James Bowie


Edwin Forrest (1806-1872)

A celebrated 19th-century stage actor, Edwin Forrest, claimed to have been a close friend of James Bowie when both lived in New Orleans; in fact, Forrest claimed that Bowie gave him the knife he had used at the Sandbar fight. Forrest made his claim at a time when the Bowie name had become famous and there is no independent evidence that the two ever knew each other. Perusing my copy of The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend, I note that its author, Norm Flayderman, shares my suspicion that Forrest concocted his relationship with Bowie for purposes of self-aggrandizement. The "relationship" was described in several sycophantic biographies of Forrest. The following is from Edwin Forrest (1881), by Lawrence Barrett:
His associates, if we may trust his biographers, were not of a character to purify his nature or refine his manners. While an awful curiosity hovers about the inventor who gave his name to the bowie-knife, it seems unreasonable to attach any great importance to the friendship of the man upon that ground alone. He may have had qualities mitigating the ferocity which characterized his many bloody contests at arms, but these are not dwelt upon, and the only advantage which Forrest ever reaped from this intimacy was the possession of the identical knife which had played so prominent a part in the hands of Colonel Bowie. At least this is all the benefit which his biographers have shown as growing out of their friendship. At no time of Edwin Forrest's life did he need masculine or barbarian influence, — he always had a surplus in that direction, — and it would have been better for him could he have drawn his inspiration from the gentle and refining spirits which have ever animated the audiences and society of the Crescent City. He made his choice, and selected the coterie which was most congenial to him. We see in this no natural outcropping of a "Democratic" spirit; rather the haughty conceit of the self-made man who scorned to submit to judicious training. With Bowie, with a large-hearted, powerfully built, fighting steamboat captain (whose best exploit was not in conquering a crowd of loafers by his muscle, but in the tenderness of his care of Forrest when ill of the fever), with Push-ma-ta-ha, the Indian who is said to have suggested the production of "Metamora," and with other original spirits like these, Forrest passed his unoccupied time in New Orleans. They charmed the young athlete by their novel freedom, and he was too full of the warm blood of the barbarian himself to resist their fascination.Bowie was a "steamboat captain"? Methinks the biographer had him confused with Mike Fink of flatboat fame. Also, Bowie tenderly nursed Forrest back to health when he was ill with a fever? Sounds unlikely, somehow.


The "original bowie knife" Forrest claimed was given to him by Bowie himself.

The following is from Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian, Volume 1 (1877), by William Rounseville Alger:
The one of Forrest's New Orleans friends first to be named is James Bowie, inventor and unrivalled wielder of that terrible weapon for hand-to-hand fights named from him the bowie-knife. He was a member of the aristocratic class of the South, planter, gentleman, traveller, adventurer, sweet-spoken, soft-mannered, poetic, and chivalrous, and possessed of a strength and a courage, a cool audacity and an untamable will, which seemed, when compared with any ordinary standard, superhuman. These qualities in a hundred conflicts never failed to bring him off conqueror. In heart, when not roused by some sinister influence, he was as open as a child and as loving as a woman. In soul high-strung, rich and free, in physical condition like a racing thoroughbred or a pugilist ready for the ring, an eloquent talker, thoroughly acquainted with the world from his point of view, he was a charming associate for those of such tastes, equally fascinating to friends and formidable to foes. As a personal competitor, taken nakedly front to front, few more ominous and magnificent specimens of man have walked on this continent.

His favorite knife, used by him awfully in many an awful fray, he presented as a token of his love to Forrest, who carefully preserved it among his treasured keepsakes. It was a long and ugly thing, clustering with fearful associations in its very look; plain and cheap for real work, utterly unadorned, but the blade exquisitely tempered so as not to bend or break too easily, and the handle corrugated with braids of steel, that it might not slip when the hand got bloody. Journeying in a stage-coach, in cold weather, after stopping for a change of horses a huge swaggering fellow usurped a seat belonging to an invalid lady, leaving her to ride on the outside. In vain the lady expostulated with him; in vain several others tried to persuade him to give up the place to her. At last a man who sat in front of the offender, so muffled and curled up in a great cloak that he looked very small, dropped the cloak down his shoulders, took his watch in his left hand, lifted a knife in his right, and, straightening himself up slowly till it seemed as if his head was going through the top of the coach, planted his unmoving eyes full on those of the intruder, and said, in a perfectly soft and level tone which gave the words redoubled power, "Sir, if within two minutes you are not out of that seat, by the living God I will cut your ears off!"

The man paused a few seconds to take in the situation. He then cried, "Driver, let me out! I won't ride with such a set of damned murderers!"

That was Bowie with his knife. Fearful, yet not without something admirable. Another anecdote of him will illustrate still better the atmosphere of the class of men under whose patronizing influence Forrest came in the company of his friend Bowie.

The plantations of Bowie and a very quarrelsome Spaniard joined each other. The proprietors naturally fell out. The Spaniard swore he would shoot Bowie on the first chance. The latter, not liking to live with such an account on his hands, challenged his neighbor, who was a very powerful and skilful fighter with all sorts of weapons and had in his time killed a good many men. The Spaniard accepted the challenge, and fixed the following conditions for the combat. An oak bench six feet long, two feet high, and one foot wide should be firmly fastened in the earth. The combatants, stark naked, each with a knife in his right hand, its blade twelve inches in length, should be securely strapped to the bench, face to face, their knees touching. Then, at a signal, they should go at it, and no one should interfere till the fight was done. The murderous temper of the arrangements was not more evident than the horrible death of one of the men or of both was sure. But Bowie did not shrink. He said to himself, "If the Spaniard's hate is so fiendish, why, he shall have his bellyful before we end."

All was ready, and a crowd stood by. Bowie may tell the rest himself, as he related it a dozen years after to Forrest, whose blood curdled while he listened:
"We confronted each other with mutual watch, motionless, for a minute or two. I felt that it was all over with me, and a slight chill went through my breast, but my heart was hot and my brain was steady, and I resolved that at all events he should die too. Every fight is won in the eye first. Well, as I held my look rooted in his eye, I suddenly saw in it a slight quiver, an almost imperceptible sign of giving way. A thrill of joy shot through my heart, and I knew that he was mine. At that instant he stabbed at me. I took his blade right through my left arm, and at the same time, by an upward stroke, as swift as lightning and reaching to his very spine, I ripped him open from the abdomen to the chin. He gave a hoarse grunt, the whole of his insides gushed out, and he tumbled into my lap, dead."If Bowie told Forrest this story a dozen years afterward, one wonders when it could have occurred. It would have had to have predated the Sandbar Fight by four or five years, yet that would not correspond to the account of Bowie's life given by his brothers John and Rezin.

Thanks for posting the article. A couple of small points... I think that the author is noting that Forrest liked hanging around with tough characters, he is referencing three different people, Jim Bowie, an unnamed steamboat captain and an Indian. The anecdotes provided in the article seem to be of the purest fantasy nature themselves like the things you would read in a dime store novel. I was trying to remember is there any evidence that Bowie was actually involved in any other knife fights besides the sandbar duel? Don't get me wrong based on that alone he was one tough cookie, I think he was shot, stabbed and clubbed multiple times during that encounter and still ended up killing a man and living to tell the tale. Oh and as an aside how bad does it have to be for Flayderman to have problems with the story? I was under the impression that he never saw a spurious bowie that he didn't like?

 

[Triton]

I thought the whole Sea of Mud series in Blade was just a gimmick to sell you 5 issues instead of just one. It told the reader next to nothing about the actual knife but spent all of its time giving bios of famous people that might have owned (or might not have) it. As far as I can tell, that knife might have belonged to any of the defenders of the Alamo. Did a Mexican soldier lose it in the mud? I saw no proof of that either other than the Mexicans did lose equipment in that area. Anyone could have dropped the knife.

Ha! The joke is on them, I already have a year's subscription! You are correct about the content of course. I completely agree that anyone could have dropped the knife and at practically any time. It's a very tenuous (as in practically non-existent) connection to the Alamo at all.

 

[Triton]

I agree, Sir. I think the series is a well written speculative fiction, designed to keep the reader on the hook for some genuine history.

I tend to come down in that camp too, although Batson isn't known for that sort of writing...

 

[Triton]

Practically the entire genre of archaeology and its effect on our understanding of history is based on a whole lot of 'ifs', mainly coloured by modern thinking and a lack of appreciation of our ignorance of the context of life at the time. It used to bother me until I realised that it's become so farcical that I can't take them seriously enough to be annoyed anymore.

That's a good point, it's very hard for us to not apply our modern point of view to the historical artifacts we are looking at.