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James
Bowie trafficked in slaves, participated in land fraud and drank too much – but
he did not lack for grit.
Eight years after his death in the Alamo,
the New Orleans Picayune carried an article titled “Col. James Bowie” that offered
insight into his personality and preserved for posterity an incident reflecting
on his mettle. |
The
author of the newspaper piece, a roving Irish-born adventurer and journalist named
Matt Field, did not get off to much of a start: “We are in possession of a little
anecdote highly characteristic of those remarkable men…Bowie and his brother Rezin,
which has never, we believe, yet appeared among the various printed relations
of their battles, dangers, bravery, etc., that have met the public eye.”
Field
went on to relate the tale, which after his telling languished for another century
before John E. Sunder collected Field’s literary productions for the 1960 University
of Oklahoma Press book, “Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail.” |
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The
story Field told about Bowie happened “among the wild prairie regions of Texas.”
Field does not offer a more specific location or date, but his anecdote is an
artifact of a fight Bowie and his brother, along with six other men and a boy,
had with Indians on Nov. 21, 1831 in what is now McCulloch County. The Bowies
had left San Antonio earlier that
month in search of the fabled Lost San Saba Mine.
Not only did Field back
into his story, he rambled on a good bit about Bowie before he got to the finally
got to the point. In doing so, he did at least offer some insight into the famous
man’s character. |
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Field viewed Bowie
as “undoubtedly a man of vigorous intellect, as well as of firm and flintlike
nerve. His character is one of bold and captivating individuality, and would form
a magnificent study for some native novelist.”
Despite a well-deserved
reputation as a fighter, Field continued, Bowie came across as “bland and gentle,
so much so as to heighten materially the interest of his character. He spoke with
slow and impressive intonation, nicely articulating every syllable he uttered,
and with strict yet easy politeness observing every form of delicacy and good-breeding.”
Unless he had a drink or three under his belt, or faced an enemy.
Bowie
and his brother, at the head of a “brave little band” in the “Texan wilds,” ran
into a large number of Indians. Field called them “Camanches,” but Bowie reported
them to have been Tawakonis. (Their leader was Tres Manos, a moniker he picked
up because of the mummified hand that hung from his neck.)
Seeing that
the Indians badly outnumbered his party, Bowie “maneuvered his men as completely
to conceal his inferiority of force, and, securing a position for defense, he
very coolly awaited the moment for action.
Field continued:
“A
favorable chance for execution soon occurred, and a few American rifles began
to blaze away upon the savages in such a manner as to convince them that the party
told about double its actual number. Still the Camanches were appearing in all
directions, flying about in great force, and the condition of the little American
party became extremely critical.”
Though all the Americans possessed
long rifles, Rezin Bowie had the best weapon, “a perfect prince of shooting irons.”
Not only that, Rezin “was as sure of his mark as of lifting food direct to his
mouth.”
When James noticed that Rezin had propped his rifle across a log,
had his eye to the sight and his finger posed on the trigger, he drew an imaginary
line with his eyes from the end of Rezin’s rifle to his target: The obvious leader
of the Indian war party. Near him rode an Indian who, judging from his plumage
and bearing, carried equal or nearly-equal rank.
“Brother Rezin,” Bowie
said, “do you not see these two red rascals wheeling about there, near each other?
Why don’t you pull one of them down from his horse?”
Rezin told his brother
not to hurry him.
“If I pull one…down, brother, the other…will get out
of my reach,” he continued. “But wait till they lap, and then I’ll pull them both
down….”
Rezin waited patiently until both Indians lined up on an imaginary
line extending from the end of his rifle.
As James Bowie later told it:
“Rezin pulled the trigger – and, as I am an hon-est gen-tle-man, they both fell
from their horses!”
The Indians had managed to kill one member of the Bowie
party, but both brothers left the field with scalps intact, living “to pass through
many perilous adventures after that.”
© Mike Cox
"Texas
Tales"
October
19 , 2006 column |
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