John Myers Myers on Sir Walter Scott in the Hugh Glass narrative

Impressively quick to spot a literary borrowing, John Myers Myers figured out that the climax of the Hugh Glass tale in Scenes and Adventures in the Army is reworked from The Lady of the Lake.  Presumed author Philip St George Cooke appropriates details from the combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu when imaginatively presenting the fight to the death between Hugh Glass and an Arikara scout. Myers could not bring himself to charge the veracious Cooke with romancing fact, so he reasoned as follows in The Saga of Hugh Glass:

Taken by itself the duel that followed would not be suspect, but sandwiched between two other near-mortal misses, it has the look--as does nothing else in any of the versions--of deliberate high-piling. Not by Cooke himself, for he was a ramrod of uprightness, loathed by many a superior officer for his refusal to bend.  But it would certainly seem that, before the story reached his ears, somebody threw something in for the fun of it, whereas the other changes rung by the sundry accounts appear nothing more than the normal variants of a story which as been sifted through a spread of memories...

...all in all it's hard to keep from wondering whether this combat didn't originate in the brain of Sir Walter Scott, who had described one marvelously like it in The Lady of the Lake:

They tug, they strain! Down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.

But before being thrown by Roderick Dhu, Scotland's disguised king had wielded a rapier, which had repeatedly let out blood belonging to the wild Highlander. So just as Clan Alpine's chief was getting set to polish Fitz-James off with a dirk, Roderick collapsed instead.

As Scott's narrative poem was first published in 1810, it could logically have inspired the ensuing parallel:

And here his [Hugh's] career would probably have closed, but that in truth it seemed that he bore a charmed existence. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his soul's departure. ... Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.

But whether true or a borrowing from a then very popular verse romance, the incident still left Glass short of a haven.  In telling how he reached one, Cooke wrote much to the same effect as his fellow authorities.  (Saga of Hugh Glass 161-3)

Myers was right! Except, no need to qualify the finding: Walter Scott is definitely, not probably the source, as the verbatim use of "Redeemed, unhoped" from The Lady of the Lake Canto V proves:

He faultered thanks to Heaven for life, Redeemed, unhoped, from desperate strife;

For his authoritative text, Myers seems to be quoting from the 1830 newspaper sketch of "Some Incidents in the Life of Hugh Glass, A Hunter of the Missouri River" in the St Louis Beacon, signed "Borderer" (December 2 and December 9, 1830).  Since I don't have either article copied yet from the Beacon, here below is the whole episode of the duel, transcribed from the September 1842  installment of Scenes and Adventures in the Army in the Southern Literary Messenger:

Glass had thus far again escaped a cruel fate. He had gained the almost impervious concealment of drifted and malted willows, and undergrowth, when the dread ebullition of triumph and death announced to him the evil he had escaped, and his still imminent peril. Like the hunted fox, he doubled, he turned, ran or crawled, successively gaining the various concealments of the dense bottom to increase his distance from the bloody scene. And such was his success, that he had thought himself nearly safe, when at a slight opening he was suddenly faced by a foe. It was an Arickara scout. The discovery was simultaneous, and so close were these wily woodsmen, that but the one had scarce time to use a weapon intended for a much greater distance. The deadly tomahawk of the other was most readily substituted for the steeled arrow. At the instant, it flew through the air, and the rifle was discharged; neither could see or feel the effect produced, but they rushed into each other's grasp, either endeavoring to crush his adversary by the shock of the onset. But not so the result; the grappling fold of their arms was so close, that they seemed as one animal:—for a while, doubtful was the struggle for the mastery;—so great was their exertion, that the grasped fingers met in the flesh! But Glass, not wholly recovered from his wounds, was doomed to sink beneath the superior strength of his adversary, by an irresistible effort, of which he was rolled upon the earth, the Indian above. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his spirit's departure. It was as if his proud soul, sensible of approaching feebleness, had willingly expired in the last desperate effort, and the shout of triumph with which he would have ushered both their souls into the presence of the 'Great Spirit.'

Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.
Southern Literary Messenger, September 1842

The tale of Hugh Glass was reprinted widely from the 1842 Southern Literary Messenger in newspapers and other magazines, for example Seba Smith's The Rover.

Considering the clear debt to Sir Walter Scott, the writer's chosen pseudonym "Borderer" takes on added significance.  This Borderer not only locates himself on the Missouri River, at the western border of the young United States, but also identifies with the border heroes of Scottish history and song.

[Engraving illustrating Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake] - Walter Scott Image Collection

All of which makes me think again of Herman's brother Gansevoort Melville, but that's another post...