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Bowie Knife
(From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Bowie knife
specifically refers to a style of knife
popularized by Colonel James "Jim" Bowie
and first made by James Black,
although its common use refers to any large sheath
knife
with a clip point.
Description
The historical Bowie was not a single
design, but was a series of knives improved several times by Jim Bowie
over the years.[1]
The earliest such knife, made by Jesse Clifft at Rezin Bowie's
request resembled the Spanish hunting knives of the time and differed
little from a common butcher knife.[1]
The blade as later described by Rezin Bowie, was nine and one half
inches long, one quarter inch thick and one and one half inches wide.
It was straight-backed having no clip point nor any hand guard with
simple riveted wood scale handle.[2]
Rezin presented the knife to his brother because of a recent violent
encounter with one Norris Wright.[1][2]
This is the knife that became famous after the sandbar duel of 1827.[2]
Bowie and Wright were attendants on opposite sides of the duel. When
the principals quit the field, a fight broke out among the attendees
and Bowie, though seriously injured by a rifle shot, killed Wright and
drove his companions from the sandbar.[2]
Bowie and his knife, described by witnesses as "a large butcher knife,"
quickly attained celebrity and the Bowie brothers received many
requests for knives of the same design. They commissioned more ornate
custom blades from various knife makers including Daniel Searles and
John Constable.[2]
The version most commonly known as the
historical Bowie knife would usually have a blade
of at least six inches (15cm) in length, some reaching 12 inches (30cm)
or more, with a relatively broad blade that was an inch and a half to
two inches wide (4 to 5 cm) and made of steel
usually between 3/16" and 1/4" thick (from 4.8 to 6.4 millimeters). The
back of the blade sometimes had a strip of soft metal (normally brass
or copper) inlaid which some believe was intended to catch an
opponent's blade while others hold it was intended to provide support
and absorb shock to help prevent breaking of poor quality steel or
poorly heat treated blades. Bowie knives also often had an upper guard
that bent forward at an angle (S-guard) intended to catch an opponent's
blade or provide protection to the owner's hand during parries and
corps-a-corps. Some Bowie knives had a notch on the bottom of the blade
near the hilt known as a "Spanish Notch." The Spanish Notch is often
cited as a mechanism for catching an opponent's blade, however, some
Bowie researchers hold that the Spanish Notch is ill suited to this
function and frequently fails to achieve the desired results. These
researchers, instead, hold that the Spanish Notch has the much more
mundane function as a tool for stripping sinew and repairing rope and
nets, as a guide to assist in sharpening the blade (assuring that the
sharpening process starts at a specific point and not further up the
edge), or as a point to relieve stress on the blade during use. The
version attributed to blacksmith James Black had the back edge of the
curved clip point, also called the "false edge," sharpened in order to
allow someone trained in European techniques of saber fencing
to execute the maneuver called the "back cut" or "back slash".[2]
A brass quillon
was attached to protect the hand, usually cast in a mold.
miniaturized bowie
knife (hunting knife).
The English Sheffield knife making
region
was quick to enter the market with "Bowie Knives" of a distinctive
pattern that most modern users identify with the true form Bowie. The
Sheffield pattern blade is thinner than the Black/Musso knives while
the false edge is often longer with a less pronounced clip.[2]
The shape and style of blade was such that the Bowie knife could serve
usefully as a camp and hunting tool as well as a weapon. Many knives
and daggers
existed that could serve well as weapons, and many knives existed that
could serve well as tools for hunters and trappers, but the Bowie knife
was designed to do both jobs well, and is still popular with hunters
and sportsmen even in the present day.[2]
The curved portion of the edge, toward
the
point, is for removing the skin from a carcass,
and the straight portion of the edge, toward the guard, is for chores
involving cutting slices, similar in concept to the traditional Finnish
hunting knife, the "puukko"
(though the typical early 19th-century Bowie knife was far larger and
heavier than the typical puukko). Arkansas culturalist and researcher
Russell T. Johnson describes the James Black knife in the following
manner and at the same time captures the quintessence of the Bowie
Knife: "It must be long enough to use as a sword, sharp enough to use
as a razor, wide enough to use as a paddle, and heavy enough to use as
a hatchet."[3][2]
Most such knives intended for hunting are only sharpened on one edge,
to reduce the danger of cutting oneself while butchering and skinning
the carcass.
A knife with sawteeth
machined into the
back side of the blade.
Since the 1960s, Bowie knives with
sawteeth
machined into the back side of the blade appeared inspired by the Air
Force survival knife NSN: 7340-00-098-4327. The sawteeth were intended
to cut through the
Plexiglas
canopy of a downed aircraft. During the Vietnam war the US Army issued
them to helicopter crews for the same purpose.
History
The Sandbar
Fight
The first knife Bowie became famous with
was allegedly designed by Jim Bowie's brother Rezin in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana,
and smithed by blacksmith Jesse Cleft out of an old file.[2]
Period court documents indicate that Rezin Bowie
and Cleft were well acquainted with one another. Rezin's granddaughter
claimed in an 1885 letter to Louisiana State University
that she personally witnessed Cleft make the knife for her grandfather.
This knife became famous as the knife
used
by Bowie at the
Sandbar Fight,
which was the famous 1827 duel
between Bowie and several men, including a Major Norris Wright of Alexandria, Louisiana.[2]
The fight took place on a sandbar
in the Mississippi River
across from Natchez, Mississippi.
In this battle Bowie was stabbed, shot, and beaten half to death but
managed to win the fight.[2]
Jim Bowie's older brother John claimed
that
the knife at the Sandbar Fight was not Cleft's knife, but a knife
specifically made for Bowie by a blacksmith named Snowden.
James Black's
Bowie Knife
The most famous version of the Bowie
knife
was designed by Jim Bowie and presented to Arkansas
blacksmith
James Black in the form of a carved wooden model in December 1830.[2]
Black produced the knife ordered by Bowie, and at the same time created
another based on Bowie's original design but with a sharpened edge on
the curved top edge of the blade. Black offered Bowie his choice and
Bowie chose the modified version.[3]Knives
like that one, with a blade shaped like that of the Bowie knife, but
with a pronounced false edge, are today called "Sheffield Bowie"
knives, because this blade shape became so popular that cutlery
factories in Sheffield,
England
were mass-producing such knives for export to the U.S. by 1850, usually
with a handle made from either hardwood, stag horn, or bone, and
sometimes with a guard and other fittings of sterling silver.[2]
Sheffield pattern
blades are not quite as
wide as the Black design but most variations carry a false-edged clip
point.
Bowie returned, with the Black-made
knife,
to Texas
and was involved in a knife fight with three men who had been hired to
kill him.[4]
Bowie killed the three would-be assassins with his new knife and the
fame of the knife grew.[2]
Legend holds that one man was almost decapitated, the second was
disemboweled, and the third had his skull split open.[2]
Bowie died at the Battle of the Alamo
five years later and both he and his knife became more famous. The fate
of the original Bowie knife is unknown; however, a knife bearing the
engraving "Bowie No. 1" has been acquired by the Historic Arkansas Museum
from a Texas collector and has been attributed to Black through
scientific analysis.
Black soon did a booming business making
and selling these knives out of his shop in Washington, Arkansas.
Black continued to refine his technique and improve the quality of the
knife as he went. In 1839, shortly after his wife's death, Black was
nearly blinded when, while he was in bed with illness, his
father-in-law and former partner broke into his home and attacked him
with a club, having objected to his daughter having married Black years
earlier. Black was no longer able to continue in his trade.
Black's knives were known to be
exceedingly
tough, yet flexible, and his technique has not been duplicated. Black
kept his technique secret and did all of his work behind a leather
curtain. Many claim that Black rediscovered the secret to producing
true
Damascus steel.[3]
In 1870, at the age of 70, Black
attempted
to pass on his secret to the son of the family that had cared for him
in his old age, Daniel Webster Jones.
But Black had been retired for many years and found that he himself had
forgotten the secret. Jones would later become Governor of Arkansas.
The birthplace of the Bowie knife is now
part of the Old Washington Historic
State Park
which has over 40 restored historical buildings and other facilities
including Black's shop. The park is known as "The Colonial Williamsburg
of Arkansas". The American Bladesmithing Society has also established a
college at the site to teach new apprentices, journeyman, and masters
in the art of bladesmithing.
Variations
and collecting
Over the years many knives have been
called
Bowie knives and the term has almost become a generic term for any
large sheath knife. During the early days of the American Civil War
Confederate
soldiers carried immense knives called D-Guard Bowie knives.[2]
Many of these knives could have qualified as short swords
and were often made from old saw or scythe blades.
The Bowie is still popular with
collectors,
in addition to various knife manufacturing companies there are hundreds
of custom knife makers producing Bowies and variations. The KA-BAR
Knife of
World War II
fame is based on the Bowie design.[5]
Custom knife maker,
Ernest Emerson
originally used a Bowie knife in his logo and manufactures a folding
Bowie known in his line-up as the CQC13.
The Bowie knife is sometimes confused
with
the "Arkansas toothpick,"
possibly due to the interchangeable use of the names "Arkansas
toothpick", "Bowie knife", and "Arkansas knife" in the antebellum
period.[6]
The Arkansas toothpick is essentially a heavy dagger with a straight
15-25-inch blade. While balanced and weighted for throwing, the
toothpick can also be used for thrusting and slashing. James Black is
also credited with inventing the "Arkansas Toothpick" but no firm
evidence exists for this claim.[3]
Jim Bowie was posthumously inducted into the Blade Magazine
Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 1988 Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia
in recognition for the impact that his design made upon generations of
knife makers and cutlery companies.[7]
A Bowie knife also appears on the
shoulder
sleeve insignia of the U.S. 39th Infantry Brigade,
headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Legal status
In the late 1830s, several southern
states
passed anti-bowie knife legislation attempting to curtail the
manufacture and sale of the implements. In 1837, the Alabama
legislature imposed a $100 transfer tax on bowie knives and stipulated
that any killing with a bowie knife was murder regardless of the
circumstances (Cramer 1999).
In the state where Jim Bowie died, Texas,
it is now a criminal offense (generally a Class A misdemeanor) to carry
a Bowie knife, as a Bowie knife is classified in Texas as an "illegal
knife".[8]
This law does not apply if you are traveling in a private vehicle
because it is now legal to carry a handgun, knife, or club while en
route to or from the vehicle or engaged in a sporting activity
involving the use of such equipment.
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