Thanks, Birdy. Sometime please give us the story of Jim Bowie and his marriage to the chiefs daughter and his stealing of their gold, or was it silver, and his flight to the Blockhouse on Calf Creek.
Also, did the indians chase him to the Alamo where we know he died.
Also, how about sometimes giving us the lowdown on the Battle of Calf Creek?
Have you ever been out to the old San Saba Mission ruin outside of Menard? “BOUIE” can still be seen incised in the doorway, the way he spelt it back then.
An enigmatic figure Jim Bowie, renowned for acts af violence yet by all accounts soft-spoken and polite. A man who made and lost fortunes, yet tragically unlucky in love. IIRC spurned by a first fiancé, then engages in what was by all accounts a love match with the lovely Tejana Ursula Veramundi, at 17 twenty years his junior.
One, possibly two young children and an adopted Black child Charles Espalier, possibly in penance for his African slave smuggling heyday, possibly at his young Catholic wife’s urging.
Then while he’s away he loses them to cholera inside of a week, a hideous way to die. Drinks heavily, health declines, but still a natural and formidable leader of men.
On Day 1 at the Alamo, if anyone coulda got the Defenders out of that mess it woulda been Jim Bowie, who had captured the Alamo from the Mexicans in the first place. Him and General Castrillon knew and respected each other personally from that. So Bowie rides out to find out what was happening.
Travis, PO’d that Bowie hadn’t asked him first, fires off that 18 pounder naval cannon that had originally been paid for by a Jewish financier out of Cuba and sent out to knock down the Alamo while there were still Mexicans inside, said cannon hauled out all that way by a uniformed militia company financed by a Jewish merchant out of Nacodoches and New Orleans.
So anyway, Travis kicks off hostilities by firing an eighteen pound cannonball OVER BOWIE’S HEAD while Bowie was holding a White flag of parlay, surrounded by Mexicans, which might offer a clue as to how Travis felt about Bowie.
Generally not talked about amid all the twaddle, Travis wrote a letter later that same day to the Mexican Generals apologizing for the cannon shot, saying he hadn’t realized there were negotiations underway, and were the Mexicans still interested in offering terms?
