The real ‘Revenant’: Who was Hugh Glass?
Few facts leave plenty of room for a story
That Hugh Glass was one tough hombre.
As The Revenant (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) expands nationwide Friday, it poses the question of just who the legendary 19thcentury frontiersman really was.
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu points out that “the spine of the film is inspired by true events,” with the screenplay filling in the holes left in Glass’ sparsely chronicled history.
“The only thing factual about Hugh Glass is he was attacked by a bear, was abandoned and survived,” Iñárritu says. “You can interpret as you like, because anything could have been possible.”
But even that truth might have been embellished by storytellers of the day and later generations fascinated with the figure.
“It’s kind of this campfire legend,” DiCaprio says. “The whole journey represented the new frontiersman in American history, the idea of conquering and surviving nature.”
Elements of the Glass legend: THE BEAR ATTACK REALLY HAPPENED. The real Glass was gruesomely mauled by a bear after Glass came across her two cubs sometime in August or September 1823. The actual location probably was around the plains of North Dakota, not in the film’s mountains.
Accounts of the attack and Glass’ survival quickly spread around the country in a time before telegraphs, which gives an idea of the immediate fascination.
“He was horribly injured, especially along his back by one account,” says historian Jon T. Coleman, author of Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, A Bear and the Rise of the American
Nation. “There were numerous bear attacks on trappers around this time. The movie does a great job with what a bear attack would look like and the injuries.” GLASS WAS LEFT FOR DEAD, SURVIVED AND SET OUT FOR REVENGE. Though the veracity of reports from the time are still debated, they state that two men were left behind to tend to Glass and perhaps bury him properly. They were spooked in Indian country and abandoned him.
“They left Glass without any guns and any means of living,” says Clay Landry, historian at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, Wyo., and a consultant on the film. “Glass traveled 200 to 250 miles, depending on the route. He hobbled and crawled to get back to civilization.” THERE WAS NO SON ON THE JOURNEY. Accounts claim Glass had lived among the Pawnee Indian tribe, Landry says, which opens the possibility of a wife and family. But no son was part of the bear mauling or the revenge journey, as depicted in the movie. HE NEVER GOT REVENGE, BUT HE DID GET HIS GUN BACK. Glass caught up to one of the men who left him (John Fitzgerald, played by Tom Hardy in the film), who had enlisted in the U.S. Army in Missouri.
“Glass wanted to administer his own justice. And the Army said, ‘Nope, Fitzgerald belongs to us now,’ ” Landry says. “‘But we’ll get your gun back.’
“Guns were special,” Landry adds. “That gun was for life.”