The American West: The Many Roads James Bowie…

Each year, the anniversary of the Alamo on March 6 sparks lively debate among enthusiasts regarding the battle’s many details. The death of the Alamo’s most famous warrior, David Crockett, receives the most attention.

The Alamo’s other frontier celebrity, James Bowie, has to get a nod at Texas Valhalla. His death, which was as selflessly heroic as Crockett’s, does not generate the same interest. But the versions of Bowie’s death are just as varied and interesting, although not as numerous as Crockett’s.

According to the stories that spread after the war, Bowie either died: as the victim of a murder; a suicide; a casualty of war; or a victim of sadistic torture. He may have died fighting on his sickbed; He died helpless in his sick bed; or Mexican soldiers died of disease before doing the job. He may have been killed with swords, bayonets, firearms or fire. He may have died heroically or as a coward.

One of the first reports sent to Sam Houston after the war read: “Bowie was killed while lying in his sick bed.” Houston and others interpreted this information to mean that he had been “killed” in his hospital bed. But Houston changed the story two days later: “…our friend Bowie shot himself as soldiers approached, apparently unable to get out of bed.”

An unidentified Mexican soldier expressed a different opinion on April 5, 1836. Hand Mosquito Mexican. “Pervert and braggart Santiago Bowie died like a woman hiding under a bed,” he said.

Thirty-nine years later, Alamo survivor Susannah Dickinson Hannig weighed in on the subject. He stated that when Bowie, sick in bed, entered his room “…killed two of them with their pistols before piercing him with their swords.” There is nothing in Hannig’s statement to indicate that he witnessed this.

The most gruesome story of Bowie’s death came in 1882, when William P. Zuber, who popularized and likely fabricated the Alamo’s famous “line in the sand” story, told it to a young Mexican fifer Apolinario Saldigna. According to Zuber, “Polin” witnessed Bowie being taken out alive on a bed and placed in front of a Mexican captain. Bowie gave the captain a brief patriotic speech, which enraged him so much that he ordered his soldiers to cut out Bowie’s tongue and throw the still-alive man onto the Texan’s burning funeral pyre.

The famous Madame Candelaria, who in later years developed a sort of cottage industry around Alamo stories, described how she gave the ailing Bowie a glass of water in 1888 when Mexican soldiers burst in and killed him in his arms. and in the process wounded him in the jaw. Her story changed two years later when she told how Bowie died in her arms a few minutes later. before solders flocked. However, one of them drove a bayonet into Bowie’s lifeless head and lifted his body from his lap.

Another story attributed to Candelaria appeared in 1899, a year after her death, and this one is also action-packed. A dozen or more soldiers burst into the room and Bowie emptied his pistols into their faces, killing two of them. When they attacked him with bayonets, he threw himself in front of them and received wounds on his arm and chin. The soldiers pushed him out of the way and slaughtered him before their eyes.

Alamo survivor Juana (Navarro) Alsbury said that in 1898 she witnessed soldiers enter Bowie’s upstairs room in the “old church,” bayonet him, and carry him to the plaza below while he was still alive. They threw him into the air and caught him with their bayonets until a cavalry officer entered and lashed him with his sword until the soldiers gave up.

Enrique Esparza, a boy who survived the war, told his own version in 1907. He stated that although he had a fever, Bowie fought until he was wounded and had to be moved to a cot in one of the rooms on the north side of the church. . As the enemy approached him, he fired his rifle and pistol from his bed. While making his final moves, he got up from his bed and buried his knife in someone’s chest, while someone else shot and killed him. They then riddled his body with bullets.

As with many aspects of the battle of the Alamo, the exact details of Bowie’s death may never be known. The best quote regarding his death is attributed to his mother, Elve Jones Bowie. Walter Worthington Bowie wrote in 1889: The Bowies and Their Relatives“…when he was told that his gallant son James had been killed by the Mexicans at the Alamo, he is said to have received the news calmly and stated that he would bet that there was no wound on his back.”

William Groneman can be reached at [email protected].