A True American Edged Weapon: the Bowie Knife

[laEspadaAncha]

The name "Bowie knife" stirs the imagination in the minds of most American boys, conjuring vivid images of the untamed frontier, or of daguerreotypes of Confederate soldiers armed with one of these iconic, giant fighting knives. For many of us, receiving our first fixed-blade hunting knife was a rite of passage, a ritual that told the world we were now men. With a sheathed hunting knife on our belt, we were ready to experience the Great Outdoors and all of the dangers it held, even if many of them existed primarily as products our imagination. Never mind the chances of a bear attack or ambush by a mountain lion were next to nill. Whether hunting in the forest or camping in the desert, with that clipped-point hunting knife at our side, we were ready to fend off a number of nonexistent threats, from wild animals to bandits. With our Bowie knife by our side, we too, in some small, immeasurable way, could experience the Wild Frontier of the American West.

When one thinks of a Bowie knife, they usually envision a large, single-edge, clip point knife, most often with a false edge running the length of the clip point, and a full guard at the ricasso. And well they should. The Bowie knife is one of those weapons that has a mystique larger than life, an edged weapon every bit as iconic as the Nepalese kukri or the tanto of the Samurai.

History tells us the original "Bowie knife" belonged not to the famous frontiersman Jim Bowie but to his older brother Rezin, and unlike the picture we form when we hear the name, Rezin's knife most likely lacked either a clip point or a guard. Derived from what one could only call a "butcher knife," the first Bowie knife was utilitarian in purpose, a functional blade that like the kukri, served as both tool and weapon. The description, "sharp as a razor, heavy as an axe, long as a sword, and wide as an oar" testifies to the pragmatic and pluralistic functionality of the Bowie knife.

The Bowie knife became known throughout the country following media reports of a fight that erupted following a duel in which Jim Bowie served as a second. In the fight that ensued on that day in September, 1827, know as the "Sandbar fight," Jim Bowie killed one man and severely wounded another. Bowie's name would resurface a decade later, when he, along with 180-260 fellow Texans, were killed to the man at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, a casualty list that included another famous man of the American frontier, Davy Crockett. Bowie served as one of the commanders of the ill-fated force that fought valiantly against numerically superior Mexican forces under the command of Santa Anna.

With the press that followed the Texans' valiant stand, the name of Jim Bowie and the famous knife that bore his name would become immortalized. By 1838, widespread media reports in newspapers across the country described the "Bowie knife" as a large, straight-bladed, single-edged knife of roughly 12 inches in length, with a guard and a clip point with a false edge. It did not matter what Jim Bowie's original knife looked like, nor the knife made for his brother Rezin that preceded it. These knives suddenly shared similar characteristics as reported in the various news journals, and thus in the images of all who came to read these reports. Within no time, men across the country were asking their local cutlers to make them a knife "like Jim Bowie's."

And thus, the first truly American knife, the Bowie knife, was born.

With the sudden popularity that galvanized a rather diverse and previously uncategorized family of knives, cutlers in the South, the Northeast, and even overseas began producing Bowie knives for the American market. In fact, in an ironic twist, more Bowie knives were produced in the English cutlery center of Sheffield than in the entirety of the United States and its territories. From the Gold Rush in California to the increasing rift of separatism that would eventually result in the Civil War, the cutlers in Sheffield saw opportunity and profit, providing knives etched with slogans that held appeal to the American customer regardless of his geographic locale or political associations. It was not unknown to find the same pattern knife with "Death to Traitors," "Death to Abolition," or any of a number of variations of California-centric slogans etched into their blades.

I have included below photographs of a couple Bowie knives in my own collection. The first is of a rare ring-guard Bowie of Confederate origin, dating to ca. 1840-1860. For the longest time, these were attributed to the New Orleans cutler Potts and Hunt, and were labeled as "Bowie bayonets." Contemporary study has called into doubt both the Potts attribution as well as their supposed function as bayonets. While now considered to be "Confederate Bowie knives of unknown manufacture," there is some evidence to support their origin as New Orleans. Regarding their original intended function, the dual rings have no allowance to be fit (nor locked into place) over the front sight of a rifle or musket, and it is now believed the rings were meant to allow this knife to serve both as a knife as well as a polearm. With a blade exceeding 12 inches in length, there is no doubting this knife was intended to be used as a fighter; it is simply too large to be effective as a hunting knife. Shown in the photo is a Sheffield-made side knife of the same era, a double-edged dagger with "U * S" stamped on the ricasso. This knife is of a size more commonly encountered in Civil War-era side knives, and serves to show just how large of proportions one may encounter with the Bowie knives of the South.



By contrast, the Bowie knife shown in the second photo below is of a size more commonly associated with a hunting knife. It's 6 1/2-inch blade is of workable size that would allow for the skinning and dressing of game with relative ease. However, the brass frog button on the scabbard would also allow this knife to be worn on a belt in military fashion, and many of the Bowies and side knives of the Civil War era were in fact of similar size. Made by the Sheffield cutler Marsh Brothers and dating to ca. 1850, this knife is stamped on the blade with "THE HUNTERS COMPANION," one of the many slogans used by numerous Sheffield cutlers of the day. The guard and scabbard mountings are made of German silver, as the is shield set into the handle that hides the middle pin holding the horn grip to the tang.



Do any of my fellow forumites have a Bowie knife in their collection they might like to share? Given the intrinsic beauty and rich diversity of form we encounter in edged weapons from all over the world, I thought it might be nice to pay tribute to one small contribution to the richly varied world of antique arms and armor from my own homeland.

[Hotspur]

My own fixed blade knives are for the most part quite new in time and of the handy hunting size bowies are a Ralph Bone, Vince Evans and a Kevin Cashen. More Randal fighting types are a Blackjack, DeLeon (a student of Bone) and the BMF from Gerber.

A sideline bit of research I had undertaken has been harvesting Roby bowies from the 1860s. Of that same period are the Dahlgren PLymouth bowie bayonets. These two of the past I will probably never own aside from the pictures.

Cheers

GC

[laEspadaAncha]

Hi Glen,

Thank you for posting both the photos of earlier period examples as well as examples of the later productions in your own fixed-blade collection. My collection is similarly far more heavily stocked with 20th century Bowie knives than earlier pieces. A vast majority of my Bowies are found with Buck, Case, Ka-Bar, Gerber, Western, and others' names stamped on the blade, a testimony in my opinion to the enduring nature of the design. Consider that the Bowie-profile Mark 2 - not the Vietnam-era dagger made by Gerber, but the mil spec issue introduced during WWII - is still the standard-issue fighting knife issued today by the USMC.

Nice BMF by the way...


Below are a couple images of old daguerreotypes of Civil War soldiers armed with Bowie knives:

[Jim McDougall]

Chris, absolutely magnificently written post on these historic knives!!! You have truly described the mystique of these icons of Americana, and I am really looking forward to seeing examples of others. What fantastic presentation in your examples!!!

I wanted to point out that coincidentally, the current issue of "Man at Arms" magazine has an article, "The Confederate Bowie Knives of Thomas Leech & Co. Memphis Novelty Works" by Josh Phillips (April 2011, Vol.33, #2). I just wanted to add that for those interested in the Bowie.

Thank you so much for posting this!!!


All the best,
Jim

[laEspadaAncha]

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the kind words... And thank you for the heads-up on the latest Man at Arms issue. I have a couple others I may put up, though as I mentioned in the last post, a vast (vast) majority of my Bowies are post-1900...

Best,

Chris