How did the Bowie legend spread?

cbach8tw

cbach8tw

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I was just wondering how might the legend of Bowie's sandbar fight might have spread so rapidly and gained such status that everyone had to "have a knife just like Bowie's." The Bowie brothers were known in the community but I would not think that they had the legend status like Davy Crockett had, at least not until after the fight, or even after the Alamo. Were the people hungry for adventure stories, bigger than life, or was it more word of mouth, or did an article about the knife make the papers and spread like wild fire, sort of like today's AP headlines? I know about Rezin's response in 1838 to an article about the knife's design (I read more about in a previous article in Knifeworld). It is interesting to me since they did not have the way to spread information like we do today via the Web, TV, radio, or etc., yet the Bowie became an American legend. So much so, that the cultery knives from Sheffield and others specifically made Bowies in all shapes and sizes for the American market. This is alot of speculation, but how does a legend become a legend?:D
 
I don't know if this affected the Bowie but by 1875 a large percentage of Americans could read. There was then a great increase in books published of every kind. It also created the dime novel which were very popular to give people a look at far away places , the American west, and adventure. Many writers never were in the places they wrote about !! Wild west shows were also very popular and they went to even smaller towns and Europe.I didn't take long with these things to make a large hunting/camping knife into a man killer !
 
cbach8tw said:
or did an article about the knife make the papers and spread like wild fire, sort of like today's AP headlines?
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Yup. IIRC, there was an article written about the incident at the sandbar, and the fact that Bowie killed his opponent with a knife, after said opponent had shot Bowie. The whole thing was 'sensationalized', much the same way things in the news are today. People's imaginations took it from there.

thx - cpr
 
I don't know if this affected the Bowie but by 1875 a large percentage of Americans could read.
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The mystique of Bowie knives had already become part of American folklore long before that. If you take a look at Civil War soldiers, you'll see many proudly displaying their "Bowie" knives for the camera.

Duels were considered romantic and accounts of them told and retold endlessly in a time when most American's lives were incredibly boring (work and church) and any sort of entertainment was welcome. People looked-up to heroes and followed their exploits. Single newspapers would be read & re-read and passed onto the next family.
 
A lot of folks who consider themselves an authority on Bowie and his knives, believe the Searles knife was probably a fairly accurate design. Whether this is true, who knows for sure.
 
i saw a picture of wild bill hickock & he had a huge bowie with no sheath slipped between his belt. im sure that helped the bowie legacy,as well as the alamo with the bowie brothers & daniel boone,too....
 
AG Russell had a thread here about the Bowie .With references myths were dispelled ! The original did not have a clip point .
 
I recommend Norm Flayderman's book, The Bowie Knife, Unsheathing an American Legend.
bowiebook.gif
 
+1 X10 on the bowie book above..

Damn deadly things-- the author found reams of historical accounts of them used in action circa 1820-65. # 1 concealed self defense weapon prior to the perfection of repeating firearms.

Not a joke, devestating carnage in the old south and west. Bowies were outlawed taxed and banned because of this- the assault rifle of it's day. Not withstanding the fact that they were originally basic- a bucher knife with a guard. No way to tell what the exact origin was or what Col Bowie's original blade looked like.
 
As a sidebar to what the direction of discussion ,
I read some interesting articles about a Prussian soldier named Von Tempsky who fought in central america and in the New Zealand wars.
Apparently he became an expert in the use of the bowie and had them made and issued to the NZ Forest Rangers.
When he was killed by Maori , they took his Knife and it has never been found.

I read about this when I wanted to find more about Svord 's VonTempsky bowie knife.

I would say guys like him would have spread the use of this kinda knife around a bit
 
In his day, Bowie’s blade was frequently described as a “big butcher knife”.

Today that’s misleading. We think of butchers as peaceable fellows dressed in white, using their knives to cut a beef primal into steaks.

In the early nineteenth century, someone armed with a “butcher knife” sounded dangerous. The term suggested a fearsome weapon with which an experienced fighter butchered men.
 
The Bowie was not intended, primarily, as a weapon. It was designed as a hunting knife [which could be used to slaughter large game, if need be] that could be used as a weapon. The genesis of the Bowie knife came after Rezin [James' older brother] severely damaged his hand killing a ‘cow’, which charged him after he shot it, with his hunting knife. Rezin later gave the improved hunting knife to his brother who carried it as a part of his daily attire.

As to the guard question, the Bowie was never designed for "knife dueling". It was a working knife that could be used as a weapon. James Bowie wore his knife on his hip, at all times. He wore it in plain sight. As his fame grew, it became culturally acceptable for well-dressed gentlemen to wear big knives publicly. They were rarely concealed. There were several other, more concealable knife designs available if the intent was to hide the fact that you were armed.

Here is a picture of the ACTUAL KNIFE designed by Rezin Bowie, manufactured by Jesse Clifft and carried and used by James Bowie at the Sandbar Fight...
Click to expand...

attachment.php


From here

http://www.totalprotectioninteractive.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7675

Sounds reasonable to me and entirely plausible. Doesn't stop me wanting a Bagwell though, as that is what "I" would now consider the pinnacle of Bowie development!
 
Originally a butcher type knife yes, agree then IMO perfected up until just after the time of the civil war. I think they were often times carried concealed stuffed in a sash or belt under a waist coat, some were slung on a string around the neck. I have read accounts that Doc Holliday did this and carried a bowie he call the "Helles Bitch" in this manner. He took this hand made bowie from a family member when he left home- ran away from home as a young man. Accounts of it are in a biography of Doc. I just found it recently on line. It is said that Doc carved up a few folks perhaps killed folks in S.D. with the "helles bitch."
 
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from what i understand bowie was almost as well known as crockett, IIRC crockett had a play written about him which spread his name some, but they both became well known AFAIK mostly thru newspapers and word of mouth.

bowie was into all kinds of money making scams, land scams, slave scams, etc, but he never made a dime from his most famous creation the bowie knife, kinda ironic.
 
The Bowie legend spread because of the actions of Jim Bowie at the Sandbar fight and the results he achieved with the knife he used.
That was the "Miami FBI shootout" of it's day.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbar_Fight
Brawl
As the duelists turned to leave, Bowie came forward to meet them. Seeing this, Maddox's friends ran forward to join the group. Cuny, who had previously fought with Crain, is recorded as having called out to him, "Col. Crane [sic], this is a good time to settle our difficulty."[4] Crain fired, missing Cuny but striking Bowie in the hip and knocking him to the ground. Cuny and Crain then exchanged fire, with Crain sustaining a flesh wound in the arm and Cuny dying from a shot to the chest.[4]

Bowie, rising to his feet, drew his knife and charged at Crain, who struck him so hard with his empty pistol upon the head that it broke and sent Bowie to his knees. Wright appeared, drew a pistol, and shot at the fallen Bowie, missing. Wright then drew his sword cane and stabbed Bowie in the chest, but the thin blade was deflected by his sternum. As he attempted to pull the blade free, Bowie reached up, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him down upon the point of his Bowie knife.[5][6] Wright died instantly, and Bowie, with Wright's sword still protruding from his chest, was shot again and stabbed by another member of the group.[7] As Bowie stood, pulling the sword cane from his chest, both Blanchard brothers fired at him, and he was struck once in the arm. Bowie spun and cut off part of Alfred's forearm. Carey fired a second shot at Bowie, but missed. As the brothers fled, Carey was shot and wounded by Major McWhorther.

The Battle of the Sandbar lasted less than 10 minutes, leaving Samuel Cuny and Norris Wright dead, and another four men - Alfred Blanchard, Carey Blanchard, Robert Crain and Jim Bowie - wounded.

Crain helped carry Bowie away, with Bowie recorded as having thanked him, saying, "Col. Crane [sic], I do not think, under the circumstances, you ought to have shot me."[4] One doctor reputedly said "How he (Bowie) lived is a mystery to me, but live he did."[8] The doctors who had been present for the duel managed to patch Bowie's wounds.[7]
 
"Rezin Bowie said, "The length of the blade was nine and one-quarters inches, its width one and one-half inches, single edged and not curved" …quite different from the Bowie knife as it came to be recognized. 4 "

I believe the knife used by Bowie at the sandbar fight probably looked like this one carried by Wild Bill Hickok.
Regardless,the knife is secondary to me as the mind-set that Bowie had in the fight.
No blade trapping,Spanish notches or back cuts were necessary in that fight.
A never give up, aggressive attitude was.
Same with Wild Bill,it wasn't the .36 caliber 1851 Navy revolvers that made the man,it was skill and mind-set.

wildblad.gif
 
Thats a cool pic of Hickok. Bet that knife is not scary sharp. Id like to see more historic pics featuring knives.
 
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