simon
Full Member
Posts: 16
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Post by simon on Apr 19, 2010 12:38:31 GMT -5
Hi,
This may have been answered elsewhere on the forum but what is the origin of the the story that Bowie was injured falling from a gun platform (as shown in the John Wayne Alamo movie)?
Cheers
Sime
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Post by Hiram on Apr 19, 2010 12:59:49 GMT -5
I think the origin of Bowie's fall lies in the imagination of James Edward Grant, the author of the screenplay and the associate producer of The Alamo.
Contemporary accounts point to an upper-respiratory illness of some nature. Being a late winter campaign, I always felt that pneumonia was the most likely culprit.
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Post by garyzaboly on Apr 19, 2010 13:24:06 GMT -5
R. M. Potter was among the earliest, if not THE earliest, to write that Bowie had suffered a bad fall, in his 1860 version of FALL OF THE ALAMO.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 19, 2010 13:29:29 GMT -5
I recall this being the standard story in many of the early books I read on the Alamo as a kid.
Allen
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Post by garyzaboly on Apr 19, 2010 13:42:00 GMT -5
I recall this being the standard story in many of the early books I read on the Alamo as a kid. Allen John Severin even drew a panel of Bowie falling in BLAZING THE TRAILS WEST, in 1958.
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Post by Hiram on Apr 19, 2010 13:49:22 GMT -5
R. M. Potter was among the earliest, if not THE earliest, to write that Bowie had suffered a bad fall, in his 1860 version of FALL OF THE ALAMO. from Reuben Potter:The conflict of authority between Bowie and Travis, owing probably to the caution in which neither was deficient, had luckily produced no serious collision; and it was perhaps as fortunate that, at about the second day of the siege, the rivalry was cut short by a prostrating illness of the former, when Bowie was stricken by an attack of pneumonia, which would probably have proved fatal, had not its blow been anticipated by the sword. This left Travis in undisputed command.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 19, 2010 13:59:40 GMT -5
Hiram, that may be from the 1878 Potter. The 1860 account reads:
"Bowie had been severely hurt by a fall from a platform and when the attack came on was confined to his bed in an upper room of the barrack..."
Jim
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Post by garyzaboly on Apr 19, 2010 14:26:29 GMT -5
Thanks, Jim, you saved me some typing, LOL. Potter changed a number of things in the 18 years that passed between '60 and '78, some of them seemingly arbitrarily...without explanation.
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Post by Hiram on Apr 19, 2010 14:29:48 GMT -5
Jim or Gary,
Do you have a link to that 1860 version? I would like to have a copy of that myself. Thanks.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 19, 2010 14:32:58 GMT -5
Jim or Gary,
Do you have a link to that 1860 version? I would like to have a copy of that myself. Thanks. John, it isn't online. Send me a PM, I can get you a copy. Jim
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Post by Kevin Young on Apr 19, 2010 14:33:39 GMT -5
and I can't believe I am setting the pop culture record straight- Last Command-hurt by cannon over turning early in the siege Wayne-Wound in leg by artillery blast. The fall was only part of the effects of the explosion. He is still on his feet (with carbine splints) when a second shell knocks him down in the main battle and he sent to the "chapel."
Potter seems to start it in 1860 (and as Gary notes later changes). One wonders the effect of a sword cane to the chest (punctured lung) years earlier and any medicine he may have been taking.
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Post by garyzaboly on Apr 19, 2010 14:40:38 GMT -5
and I can't believe I am setting the pop culture record straight- Last Command-hurt by cannon over turning early in the siege Wayne-Wound in leg by artillery blast. The fall was only part of the effects of the explosion. He is still on his feet (with carbine splints) when a second shell knocks him down in the main battle and he sent to the "chapel." Potter seems to start it in 1860 (and as Gary notes later changes). One wonders the effect of a sword cane to the chest (punctured lung) years earlier and any medicine he may have been taking. As I recall Arness (?) falls from the wall in 13 DAYS?
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 19, 2010 14:41:31 GMT -5
Also in the Disney Crockett TV series, Travis tells Crockett that Bowie "took a fall helping us mount a cannon."
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Post by Kevin Young on Apr 19, 2010 14:44:22 GMT -5
Also in the Disney Crockett TV series, Travis tells Crockett that Bowie "took a fall helping us mount a cannon." He also takes a nice header in the Time Tunnel episode. He does not fall in Alamo Price of Freedom!
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Post by bobdurham on Apr 19, 2010 15:07:17 GMT -5
For those who don't have access to Potter's 1878 version, it is up on the old Alamo de Parras web site: www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/adp/archives/archives.htmlSorry -- that doesn't seem to link directly to the article. You'll need to click on "Feature Articles" to find it. Bob
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