Thank you for the clarification, actually I was not aware of this fight in 1826, and the Wikipedia entry is quite correct. In reading more on this in Norm's book, this was apparently quite a scuffle, and Jim had only a clasp folding knife (probably a navaja) which he could not get open in the fray. He was indeed wounded but not badly, and kept fighting...it was the difficulty in getting the knife opened that was the problem.
Rezin then gave him his own knife (as previously described a hunting knife that looked like a butcher knife), which he said he had made (other accounts say it was made FOR him). This knife of Rezin's was apparently the one carried a year later at Vidalia.
He had no issue in using pistols, and at Vidalia discharged the two he was armed with, as well as another which had been dropped in the confusion of the fight by one of the other men.
It is my turn to clarify re: size and circumstance.
What I meant is that when faced with an armed and formidable opponent, and in the heat of the moment, the dimensions and character of the weapon can be expectably exaggerated visually........for example, looking down the barrel of a gun pointed at you (which unfortunately I know from first hand experience) ....no matter what it is, it 'looks like a howitzer'!!!
Much as use of the term 'toothpick' in the sense being discussed for these 'large' knives, however minimalizing it in bravado.
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