Why those long wide Bowie knives?

[FloridaConscript]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

any pioneer types have any documentation as to how frais were sharpened? I haven't done a ton of pioneer research, but I can't help but think a large side knife fashioned from a wagon spring or cleaver would be right handy in the pioneer business. I know rev war guys had faschine (sp?) knives...did that carry over to our 19th C. subjects?

side knives were being manufactored by Georgia through out the war.

http://www.oldsouthantiques.com/os1529p1.htm

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Hallo!

Soldiers improvise with what they have. The large bowie could inflict nasty and fatal wounds in its own right but also having passed into contemporary legend in the 1840's and 1850's as a Jim Bowie craze.
Sometimes crazes make sense, sometimes they did not. We are again seeing a very small rise or interest in the modern military with tomahawks, which is history repeating itself from Viet Nam.

The M1869 Trowell bayonet is another historical oddity.

Curt

Spetsnaz Shovel.

[Union Navy]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

As much as the soldier/sailor seemed to want a large knife for a variety of purposes, higher-ups seemed to expend considerable effort to keep such out of their hands. Witness the semantic somersaults that Adm. Dahlgren resorted to to get a "fighting knife" (so-called Dahlgren bowie bayonet) into the hands of sailors. He had to sell it as a bayonet for the Plymouth rifle, to which it was unsuited and usually didn't fit anyways. Made a great close-quarters weapon for boarding, though. Which also almost never happened, either.

[Jimmayo]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

All three of the dug knives were found in an 1862 camp of the 57th Va. by a friend of mine. Two were in hut sites. No telling why they were left behind when the regiment broke camp.

The other one was captured at the battle of Old Men and Young Boys at Petersburg by a member of the 11th Pa. Cav. This was probably only carried to one battle.

[Lance Stifle]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Hello then brother,
a surprise to read you'd served in Vietnam, when I did my own tour as an Aussie we highly valued the American KaBar.

It was SOP to less than gently prod behind the knees of any charlies on sweep throughs post contact.
Most of us carried 7.62mm (.308) FN SLR's too long to be accurate when fitted with bayonets, so one hand on the pistol grip keeping the arc, the other using the KaBar.

They were a bloody good general purpose tool as well; I still have mine.

Wait for the surprise conclusion.
Kim Stewart

"I am with the South in death, in victory or defeat...I never owned a Negro and care nothing for them,
but these people have been my friends and have stood up to me on all occasions." Patrick Cleburne 1860.

I've never bought into the oft-repeated assertion large side knives/cutlasses were useless encumrances to army personnel. Should a fight boil down to one protagonist getting inside the guard of another, rare as that scenerio may be, a large knife in hand would be a sight better to have than a sharp stick. Perhaps more important, they made very useful camp tools. Remember: the United States Army went on after the Civil War to the trouble of adopting a series of large-bladed personal weapons/tools for groundpounders from the 1870s through 1910. These included the bizarre wide-bladed bayonets of the 1870s with hand application, the 1880 "hunting" knife, production resuming in 1890, the Krag Bowie bayonet of 1900, and the M.1910 bolo widely used in WW I, a murderous trench weapon. WWII saw the limited issue of M1941 naval cutlasses to GIs on Guadalcanal and wider issue of machettes in the Pacific and Viet Nam. Seems to me that, for a sidearm asserted to be worse than useless, every American Army generation since 1865 has found application for large side knives or side knife-like weapons with concurrent thrusting, cutting and a chopping usefulness. In the infantry unit to which I was assigned in Viet Nam, very large cheap Bowies sent from home were a fad. We weren't issued machettes in the Mekong Delta, and these cleaver-like edged weapons popular in 1861 had multiple practical uses in 1968.

[Jimmayo]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

One more with no ID history.

If you count all the dug D-guards that are published in various sources they do appear to have been carried to war in numbers. How long they kept carrying them is another matter.

If you count all the fake ones on e-bay there must have been more D-Guards than there were soldiers.

[Garryowen]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Howdy gents,
I'm somewhat new to the AC (both the forum and the AC comunity), but have spent some time in Iraq, and feel some what qualifyed to to toss my thoughts in on this knife issue. When i was "Down Range", I carried a Kabar, and used it to open canned food bought from the PX (among other uses).
Now I realize thats not quite a period comment; however canned food was bought from suttlers and sent from home during the war (at least on the northern side), and there was no patent for a can opener untill after the war.... A smaller sized bowie (5 or 6 in) would not be out of place as a tool for opening these cans (providing a soldier had acess to them).
Were some soldiers in the south issued bowies at the start of the war if bayonets were in short supply?
Also, don't underestamate the intimidation factor of a person carring / wielding a large knife. These stories of soldiers throwing down there rifles must have been beliveable to some one, or the would not have gotten started then spred in the first place. Like any "big fish story" or "the huge buck that got away" the strangest tail is some time rooted in a grain of truth, although that could be a small grain ....
just some things to think about...

[lojafan]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Let's also not forget about the M1849 Ames Rifleman's knife. No, it's not a bowie knife, but is is a big knife that was issued and carried in the war.

[tsgalloway]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Here is one of the two that I own. This one is blacksmith-made. It is absolutely MASSIVE and impressive. I sure looks good, but it is way too heavy to carry around for an extended period of time.

[McKim]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Yikes...that is a beast! Here is a knife that I would like to make for myself, overall it is 12" but I would probably scale it down 2-3". Several times I have found myself in a position that a hunting type knife would have been nice to have and would be discreet to carry. The pictured knife was a Confederate knife; G_Nixon & Son Sheffield. But I have other priorities so that will have to wait.

As to having a knife for you impression, I think it should be a natural thing for ones self. Meaning, and using myself for example, I carry a pocket knife every day of my life (airports don't like that) and have since I was 5 years old, it's is normal and comfortable for me to do so.

I think that is an important part of an authentic impression. Being a tobacco chewer who was raised by a pipe smoker for example, seeing someone partake in either habit on a biannual basis gets me tickled to no end. To me they don't look very natural laying supine making a promise to a higher power that if allowed to live, they will never chew again. Or the pipe smokers drawing so hard their face looks like a toothless centurion dodging his head side to side trying to avoid pepper spray drifting into his eyes.:D

[Old Reb]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Mumblety-peg requires a knife, but in fairness, the knives should be close to equal in size. Nothing more wrong than fellows playing a fair game of mumblety-peg with regular sized knives and someone showing up with a big old Bowie or the like! Rankles me quite a bit, for truth. And then there are those that have the little dart like knifes. Ain't fair at all!. So, when I play mumblety-peg it is best that all knives of are equal size.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Hallo!

Never bring a bowie knife to a mumblepeg game.

Once Upon a Time, I was watching two Confederates who had had "too much" playing with a bottle in one hand and a bowie in the other. They were playing the version of mumblepeg that did not involve a "peg." (Seeing how close one could stick the knife to the foot of the other.)

After a bit, Player "A" threw his bowie through his own instep. He paused, looked down, pulled the knife out of his foot with a slight "shwihhh" sound, , and passed out as the blood came out of the shoe.

Curt

[Half Rations]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

mumblepeg game is also not very fun when the officers come over and try to use their swords.

[David Fox]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Hummm. "Toothless centurion"? I may represent that characterization.

[yeoman]

Re: Why those long wide Bowie knives?

Were they ever carried by the troops as an effective weapon on either side, at any time during the war?

Mr. Stewart-Gray, sir, while reading a bit on the Battle of New Bern North Carolina, March 14, 1862, I found this interesting.
If I may quote,
"It is important to remember that General Branch went into battle with fewer than 4,000 men, who had limited training, while Burnside's forces numbered 15,000 with experience in battle. Burnsides troops were equipped with the latest means of warfare. The troops of Branch were armed with such weapons as shotguns, old horse pistols, brass pistols, sabres, cutlasses, and home-made swords. They appeared to have been manufactured out of carving knives, meat croppers, and the like, roughly adjusted into handles of common pine wood, and in many cases fastened with wires."

This found on page 34, here http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfi...le+of+new+bern