18. James Bowie cheated death several times before it caught up to him at the Alamo
Famous today for his invention of the Bowie knife (its true provenance is disputed, though Bowie gave it fame), James Bowie survived several duels and outright melees over the course of his lifetime. At the fight which became infamous as the Sandbar Fight Bowie was shot at least twice, hit over the head with a pistol with enough force to break the weapon, and stabbed with a sword cane. When the owner of the sword cane attempted to withdraw the weapon by placing his foot on Bowie’s chest to wrest it out of his body, Bowie used his famous knife to disembowel his attacker. Bowie struggled to his feet with the cane still stuck in his chest, only to be stabbed again by another attacker and shot once more.
Bowie had several other battles across the Louisiana and Texas frontiers, gaining him legendary status as a knife fighter. Such was his fame that Bowie knives were manufactured in England during his lifetime, many of them superior to those made in the United States due to the use of Sheffield steel. He later survived a battle with Comanche Indians in which he and his party were outnumbered by more than 14 to 1. Consumption (tuberculosis) took its toll on his health in his later days, though his heavy consumption of alcohol, exacerbated by the death of his wife from cholera, also contributed to his relative weakness during the siege of the Alamo. Legend has James Bowie dying in his cot fighting the Mexicans with pistols and his famous knife, though the exact circumstances of his death, as with most of the Alamo defenders, is unknown.
