According to an unpublished letter, written in 1890 by John S. Moore, grandnephew of James Bowie, and preserved among the historical archives of The University of Texas, the original knife was modeled as a hunting knife by Rezin Bowie, Sr., and wrought by his own blacksmith, Jesse Cliffe. Some time later Jim Bowie had a “difficulty” with one Major Morris Wright, in which a bullet from Wright’s pistol was checked by a silver dollar in Bowie’s vest pocket. While Wright was in the act of shooting, Bowie “pulled down” on him, but his pistol snapped and the two foes parted, expecting to meet another day. When Jim told his father of this, the old gentleman got out his prized hunting knife and presented it to his son with these laconic words: “This will never snap.” In the “Sandbar Duel” that followed, the knife fully met all expectations. This duel was in reality a free-for-all fight that took place among twelve men who met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River near Natchez, September 19, 1827. In it two men were killed and three badly wounded. Bowie was down, shot in four places and cut in five, when his mortal enemy, Major Wright, rushed upon him, exclaiming, “Damn you, you have killed me.” Bowie raised himself up and stabbed Wright to the heart. At once Bowie’s knife became famous and copies of it were widely disseminated. According to notes kept by another scion of the Bowie family, Dr. J. Moore Soniat du Fosset, of New Orleans, now deceased, it was Rezin P. Bowie, the brother of James, who devised the knife. The occasion for it arose thus: The Bowie brothers were very fond of riding wild cattle down--a sport popular among planters of Louisiana at the time. There were two ways of dealing with the maverick animals. One was to shoot them from horseback, as sportsmen on the plains shot buffaloes; the other was to ride against them and stab them with a large _couteau de chasse_. Sometimes the cattle were lassoed and then stabbed. The chase with knife and lasso was wilder and more exciting than the chase with pistol or rifle. Hence the Bowies preferred it. One day while Rezin P. was thrusting his knife into a ferocious bull, the animal lunged in such a way as to draw the blade through the hunter’s hand, making a severe wound. After having his hand dressed, Rezin called the plantation blacksmith, Jesse Cliffe, and told him that he must make a knife that would not slip from a man’s grasp. Using a pencil in his left hand, he awkwardly traced on paper a blade some ten inches long and two inches broad at its widest part, the handle to be strong and well protected from the blade by guards. The model having been settled upon, Rezin gave the smith a large file of the best quality of steel and told him to make the knife out of that. With fire and hammer the smith wrought the weapon--just one. It proved to be so serviceable in hunting, and Rezin came to prize it so highly that for a long time he kept it, when he was not wearing it, locked in his desk.