Why does command line BOSSA not recognize Arduino Due?
from the IDE's menu you can activate the verbose upload (and compile) mode, that will print all the command executed; Probabibly what you miss is the necessity to open the serial at 1200baud, that will trigger the reboot and consequent bootloader's start ont DUE chip, and bossac need to find the bootloader. see autoReset

edit: i've now a pc with a physical Serial, so i've tryed to upload in verbose mode:

Sketch uses 10,380 bytes (1%) of program storage space. Maximum is 524,288 bytes.
Forcing reset using 1200bps open/close on port /dev/ttyS0
/home/xxx/arduino-1.5.6-r2/hardware/tools/bossac -i -d --port=ttyS0 -U false -e -w -v -b /tmp/build8035422101690460839.tmp/sketch_apr14a.cpp.bin -R 


as you can see he is resetting the board by opening the serial at 1200, forcing the bootloader to start. You have to do the same on your script befor launching bossac. How this can be done depends on your OS

Please note that the reset is triggered by the 8u2 chip used as USB to serial adapter on the arduino board, so bypassing it by connecting through tx/rx pin (like using your own conversor, like in my example with hardware serial) won't work unless you do a manual reset at the right time