David Crockett (36 page)
Authors: Michael Wallis
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Adventurers & Explorers, #Political, #Historical
From Memphis, Crockett and his followers were ferried across the Mississippi and into Arkansas. They reached the territorial capital of Little Rock in the late afternoon of November 12. “A rare treat,” declared the
Gazette
, one of the city’s daily newspapers.
Among the distinguished characters who have honored our City with their presence within the last week, was no less a personage than Col. DAVID CROCKETT—better known as DAVY CROCKETT—the
reel critter
himself—who arrived on Thursday evening last, with some 6 or 8 followers…. The news of his arrival rapidly spread, and we believe within bounds, when we say, that hundreds flocked to see the wonderful man, who, it is said, can whip his weight in wild-cats, or grin the largest panther out of a tree.
19
While in Little Rock, Crockett visited a popular tavern, was entertained by a puppet show, and bagged a deer he hung up and butchered behind the Jefferies Hotel. At one point, he showed off his skill with Betsey at a shooting match where it was said he struck the center of the bull’s eye with both his first and second shots. Later a large group of anti-Jacksonians toasted Crockett at a banquet held in his honor at the hotel. He obliged them by lambasting the president and vice president. Crockett also had high praise for Arkansas and told the overflow crowd: “If I could rest anywhere it would be in Arkansas, where the men are the real half-horse, half-alligator breed such as grow nowhere else on the face of the universal earth but just around the backbone of North America.”
20
But Crockett was not ready to rest and soon departed Little Rock with his followers bound for Texas. Many others were making the same journey. “The
Texas fever
is beginning to develope [
sic
] itself in Little Rock,” reported a Virginia newspaper. “Four young men, who have caught the patriotic flame, took their departure from our city…to gather laurels on the plains of Texas.”
21
Large bands of heavily armed men rode down the old military road that had been used to herd the displaced Choctaws to the western lands of Indian Territory. At the crossroads town of Washington, Arkansas, they paused to refresh and then continued on the Southwest Trail winding its way to the border crossings on the Red River.
Crockett may have traversed at least a short stretch of southern Indian Territory, and then near Lost Prairie, Arkansas, he finally crossed the meandering Red River to the Mexican side. He entered in the far northeast corner of Texas at the Jonesboro Crossing.
22
While in the area, a settler named Isaac Jones encountered Crockett, who bolstered his dwindling finances by swapping his old watch and thirty dollars in cash for Crockett’s fancy engraved timepiece given to him by the citizens of Philadelphia in 1834.
23
Crockett apparently liked what he found in the Red River country of northeast Texas. He spent his first night in Texas at the home of John Stiles, a Kentucky native, who helped guide Crockett to the home of Capt. William Becknell, the famed “Father of the Santa Fe Trade,” the route from Franklin, Missouri, to the ancient capital of New Mexico that came to be called the Santa Fe Trail.
24
Becknell opened the popular trade route in 1821, lived as a fur trapper for a short period, and returned to Franklin in 1825. Ten years later he led a party of Missourians to Texas and had only recently finished building his cabin when Crockett and his party showed up for a visit.
The Becknell homestead was about eight miles from Clarksville, founded by James Clark, an early white settler. Clark’s wife, Isabella Hadden Hopkins Hanks Clark, was the widow of John Hanks, who—according to local legend—was a relative of Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln.
25
When Isabella, 31, learned of Crockett’s plans to go hunting, she immediately saddled a horse and rode off to warn him of a band of Comanche raiders in the area. She “struck the trail of David Crockett and by following the trodden grass trailed him” and his party to the Becknell place on the prairie west of Clarksville. The young woman and Becknell strongly suggested that Crockett and his men “turn south down the Choctaw trail and strike the Spanish trail into San Antonio at Nacogdoches, thus avoiding these wild tribes who were then on the war-path west of here,” wrote Pat Clark, the grandson of James and Isabella.
David Crockett, being a great hunter, was prevailed upon by Capt. Becknall [
sic
] to stop for a few days and rest his horses; and the party went on a hunt in the country west of here. Old Uncle Henry Stout…himself being a great hunter and one of the most remarkable guides on any frontier, went with Mr. Crockett out for one hundred miles or more with the hope they might strike the famous herds of buffalo, which Mr. Crockett was extremely anxious to do. While out hunting they were riding through some skirts of timber with grass and weeds in the ravines often coming up to the saddle skirts of the horses. There were no roads or bridle paths anywhere. They suddenly rode into droves of bees nesting in the grass. Evidently the City of Honey Grove got its name from this circumstance and David Crockett afterwards referred to that place as Honey Grove.
26
The prairies, clumps of blackjack trees, fertile soil, and streams lined with cottonwoods appealed to Crockett, and he later wrote in a letter to family in Tennessee that he found this land to be “the garden spot of the world.”
27
There also was an abundance of game, and Crockett enjoyed hunting so much that he was hesitant to leave and explore any further. He stayed on for a while longer and even failed to show up on time for a Christmas rendezvous with other members of his party. Soon rumors began circulating that the great bear hunter and marksman had run afoul of some warring Indians. By early 1836 stories of Crockett’s death began appearing in eastern newspapers.
“A letter was read to-day by a member of Congress from Brownsville, Tennessee, in which it was stated that intelligence had been received there of the death of Col. David Crockett, in Texas, soon after his arrival in that country,”
28
reported the
New Bedford Mercury
, on February 26, 1836.
When it was learned that he was hunting and had not been scalped by Kickapoos or Comanches, Crockett came in for some barbs. Those who were following his journey presumed that he wanted to get into the heart of Texas to take part in the fight against the Mexican government. “You may have heard that David Crockett set out for this country with a company of men to join the army,” wrote Edward Warren, of Bangor, Maine, during an 1836 Texas visit. “He has forgotten or waved [
sic
] his original intention & stopped some 80 to 100 miles to the north of this place to hunt Buffalo for the winter! For a long time, it was feared that he & his party had been destroyed by the tribes of wild Indians through which he intended to pass. But, at last, it is ascertained that he is at his favorite amusement.”
29
Finally, in early January of 1836, Crockett and his original three companions reined up their horses in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas. He was reluctant to leave the good hunting grounds, but he had also heard stories about the successes of Sam Houston, his old Tennessee friend; Stephen Austin; and other land agents, or
empresarios
, who had established land agencies and were on their way to becoming wealthy men. Crockett believed that, at last, he could gain his own fortune, and in a place where he could hunt almost every day of the year. As one author noted, Crockett was “in a state of euphoria.”
30
Throughout Crockett’s long ride from Tennessee to Texas, Halley’s Comet, the most famous of all the celestial nomads, was clearly visible, just as it is every seventy-six years or so. Across the land people were in awe when they spied the object slowly making its way through the night sky.
31
For centuries people believed a comet appeared as a harbinger of chaos and disaster. Comets were to be feared. One medieval pope even excommunicated Halley’s Comet and declared it an “instrument of the devil.”
The appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835–1836 was blamed for catastrophes around the world, including a horrific fire in New York City that raged for several days and nights, the massacre of 280 people in Africa by Zulu warriors, and wars that erupted across Latin America. The Seminole Indians in Florida saw in the comet’s long tail a sign of the tragedy that soon descended on them as they lost their homes and were exiled to Indian Territory.
Among many Americans, especially Anglo Texans, Halley’s Comet signaled the impending fall of the Alamo. But for the Tejanos—the people of Mexican blood living in Texas—the comet was a portent of the Mexican army’s defeat at San Jacinto.
Halley’s Comet was rediscovered in August 1835, about the time of Crockett’s defeat for another term in Congress. It was visible for an extended period and could still be seen long enough for enterprising promoters to issue
The Comet Almanack for 1836
. It sold well but not nearly as well as the
Davy Crockett Almanack
of that year with a cover illustration of Crockett wading the Mississippi River on a pair of stilts. Stories made the rounds, in newspapers and future almanacs, claiming that Crockett and his nemesis Andrew Jackson had forged a truce and that Old Hickory had commissioned Crockett to scale the Alleghenies and wring the tail off the comet before it could char the earth.
32
By the time the comet finally vanished in May 1836, not to be seen again until 1910, the ashes of the Alamo, the last battle of Crockett’s life, were long cold and scattered.
L
A
LAMO
W
HEN THE
C
ROCKETT ENTOURAGE
rode into Nacogdoches on January 5, 1836, they were warmly greeted with a cannon salute, and that evening they were feted at a great banquet. Crockett had taken his time in getting to the old Spanish town, where many volunteers were gathering and some of the revolutionary leaders were plotting the overthrow of the Mexican government. The local citizens, of course, assumed Crockett’s sole purpose in coming to Texas was to join in the battle. Mindful of a future in politics and not wishing to disappoint, Crockett responded with one of his robust and colorful speeches.
“I am told, gentlemen,” Crockett said to his hosts,
that when a stranger like myself arrives among you, the first inquiry is, what brought him here. To satisfy your curiosity at once as to myself, I will tell you all about it. I was, for some years, a member of Congress. In my last canvass, I told the people of my district that if they saw fit to reelect me, I would serve them as faithfully as I had done before. But, if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas. I was beaten, gentlemen, and here I am.
1
The well-used “hell or Texas” phrase was a proven crowd pleaser and worked every time. Crockett beamed as everyone present at the banquet erupted in loud cheers. “We’ll go to the city of Mexico and shake Santa Anna as a coon dog would a possum,” one newspaper reported the “old bear hunter” shouted back. “The roar of applause was like a thunder-burst.”
2
Like other volunteers gathering in Nacogdoches, Crockett had to take the oath of allegiance and become a citizen if he was ever going to run for office in Texas and own land. The date that Crockett took the oath is not known but it is certain that he did appear before Judge John Forbes and swear his allegiance to the provisional government of Texas.
3
His young nephew William Patton took the oath as well, but the other two original members of the Crockett party from Tennessee—Abner Burgin and Lindsey Tinkle—apparently had second thoughts about staying in Texas. They bid Crockett and Patton farewell and returned home to the land of the shakes.
4
Before he raised his hand and swore the oath, Crockett examined the document and took exception with the requirement to uphold “any future government.” Most likely thinking of Andrew Jackson, Santa Anna, or both, Crockett expressed his fears of a dictatorship and urged Judge Forbes to insert the word “republican” just before the word “government.”
5
The judge obliged and quickly scribbled in the additional word. Crockett took the oath and joined other volunteers who enlisted for a period of six months in the Voluntary Auxiliary Corps of the Texian Army.
I do solemnly swear that I will bear true allegiance to the Provisional Government of Texas, or any future republican Government that hereafter may be declared, and that I will serve her honestly and faithfully against all her enemies and opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the Governor of Texas, the orders and decrees of the present and future authorities and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to the rules and regulations for the government of Texas. So help me God.
6
Crockett was told that, in exchange for his service as a mercenary for the Texians, he would receive a huge allotment of more than 4,000 acres of land and become eligible to hold elective office in the future. This prospect became even more certain on January 9, when Crockett and some followers rode into the town of San Augustine, about thirty-five miles from Nacogdoches. The citizens of San Augustine also greeted Crockett with a cannon salute and the women of the town laid out a sumptuous feast to mark his visit. Crockett stayed at the home of Shelby Corzine, an Alabama native and veteran of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814.
7
Besides reminiscing about the Creek War, the two veterans discussed the upheaval in Texas and a role for Crockett in Texas politics. A delegation of San Augustine civic leaders also approached their famous guest about the possibility of him representing their community in the forthcoming constitutional convention. Crockett was not quite ready to tackle such a job, and there was not enough time to get his name on the ballot for the March 1 convention. He wisely demurred, ingenuously telling the town fathers that he had come to Texas to fight and not run for office. He left the door open, however, when he went on to say that he would “rather be a member of the Convention than of the Senate of the United States.”
8
While still in San Augustine, Crockett began drafting a letter to his daughter Margaret and her husband, Wiley Flowers, in Tennessee. Penned less than two months before his death, it is Crockett’s last known surviving correspondence.
9
9 January 1836
Saint Augusteen, Texas
Mr. Wiley Flowers,
Crockett P.O.
Gibson County, Tennessee.
My dear Sone & daughter,
This is the first time I have had the opportunity to write to you with convenience I am now blessed with excellent health and am in high spirits although I have had many difficultys to encounter I have got through safe and have been received by every body with the open arm of friendship I am hailed with a hardy welcome to this country a dinner and a party of Ladys have honored me with an invitation to participate with them both in Nacogdoches and this place the cannon was fired here on my arrival and I must say as to what I have seen of Texas it is the garden spot of the world the best land and the best prospect for health I have ever saw is here and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here there is a world of country to settle it is not required here to pay down on your League of Land every man is entitled to his head right of 400-428 [4,428] acres they may make the money to pay for it off the land
I expect in all probability to settle on the Bodark or Choctaw Bayou of Red River that I have found no doubt the richest country in the world good Land and plenty of timber and the best springs and good mill streams good range clear water and ever appearance of good health and game plenty It is in the pass where the Buffalo passes from north to south and back twice a year and bees and honey plenty
I have a great hope of getting the agency to settle that country and I would be glad to see every friend I have settle there It would be a fortune to them all I have taken the oath of the Government and have enrolled my name as a volunteer for six months and will set out for the Rio Grand in a few days with the volunteers from the United States all volunteers is entitled to a vote for a member of the convention or to be voted for and I have but little doubt of being elected a member to form a constitution for this Province
I am rejoiced at my fate I had rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life I am in hopes of making a fortune for my self and family as bad has been my prospects
I have not wrote to William but have requested John to direct him what to do I hope you show him this letter and also your brother John as it is not convenient at this time for me to write to them
I hope you will do the best you can and I will; do the same do not be uneasy about me for I am with friends
I must close with great respects your affectionate Father Farewell
David Crockett
Crockett’s final letter very clearly spells out his objectives. His own words leave little doubt that he saw Texas as a place to make the fortune that had always eluded him and at the same time reemerge on the national political scene.
By January 13, four days after having written the letter, Crockett had returned to Nacogdoches, and, had they not yet departed, may have given the letter to Burgin and Tinkle to take back to Tennessee. William Patton, Crockett’s loyal nephew, either remained in Nacogdoches due to illness or, even more likely, accompanied Crockett to the Alamo, but left there before the final siege began.
10
Only three days later, on January 16, 1836, Crockett rode out of Nacogdoches and headed southwest among a gang of recruits dubbed the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers—a misnomer, since only a few of them hailed from the Volunteer State. Captain William B. Harrison, a young man from Ohio, was made company commander, and Crockett took his own place as a common private, although he clearly commanded much respect and influence due to his celebrity, age, and personality.
11
This final Crockett ride across Texas has been described as having “the air of a political campaign.”
12
In a way, that was precisely what it was—an audition for the rebels of Texas and a chance for Crockett to meet potential voters and inspect more land that could one day be added to his holdings. He made time to hunt and show off his marksmanship as the riders meandered toward the Trinity River and beyond to Washington-on-the-Brazos, a supply center and, as of December, Gen. Houston’s headquarters and the concentration point for volunteers and mercenaries. Houston was not present when Crockett and his party arrived. Squabbling factions had split the Texian force into two distinct camps. Simply put, there were those who followed the unconventional Sam Houston, who had come to Texas with strong ties to Andrew Jackson, and on the other side there were the powerful forces involved with establishing a provisional government that leaned toward a conservative Whig philosophy. This group was diametrically opposed to Houston and Jackson and had their own ideas about how Texas should be governed.
Originally, Crockett had thought he would be going all the way to the Rio Grande to help in the Texian cause. Once he got to Washington-on-the-Brazos, however, he seems to have changed his focus. His eyes turned to San Antonio de Bexar, where many of the anti-Jackson forces had gathered. They were fully prepared to defend the city and make their stand at the Alamo despite the orders of Houston to destroy the old mission and depart as soon as possible. The senior ranking men at the Alamo were not keen on Houston and wanted him replaced as commander in chief. When it came to choosing between the two sides, Crockett—despite his friendship with Houston—allowed his hatred of Jackson to cloud his better judgment. Crockett went to San Antonio.
After several days in Washington-on-the Brazos, Crockett and the other riders were San Antonio–bound. They took their leave and ferried across the Brazos River below its confluence with the Navasota River. As they headed west, the riders encountered the Swisher family at a settlement that came to be called Gay Hill.
“At the time I saw Colonel Crockett, I judged him to be about forty years old [Crockett was forty-nine],”
13
recalled John Swisher many years later. At the time, Swisher—a Tennessee native who moved to Texas with his family in 1833—was only seventeen years old, and although he was nine years shy when guessing Crockett’s age, his physical description appeared to be accurate in every detail. “He was stout and muscular, about six feet in height, and weighing 180 to 200 pounds,” Swisher wrote in his memoirs.
He was of a florid complexion, with intelligent gray eyes. He had small side whiskers, inclining to sandy. His countenance, although firm and determined, wore a pleasant and genial expression. Although his early education had been neglected, he had acquired such a polish from his contact with good society that few men could eclipse him in conversation. He was fond of talking and had an ease and grace about him which, added to his strong natural sense and the fund of anecdotes that he had gathered, rendered him irresistible.
14
Swisher—who would go on to serve as the youngest Texian at the Battle of San Jacinto—was skilled with a rifle, and when he lugged home a freshly killed deer, Crockett praised the youngster and challenged him to a friendly shooting match, which ended in a draw when Crockett handicapped himself to give the young man a chance. The “young hunter,” as Crockett called Swisher, was so thrilled that he declared he “would not have changed places with the president himself.” Crockett enjoyed his stay of several days with the Swisher family and each night entertained them with his growing arsenal of stories. “He conversed about himself in the most unaffected manner without the slightest attempt to display any genius or smartness,” Swisher recalled. “He told us a great many anecdotes, many of which were common place and amounted to nothing within themselves, but his inimitable way of telling them would convulse us in laughter.”
15
The laughter spread to San Antonio de Bexar when Crockett and about a dozen companions rode into town beneath a cold drizzle during the second week of February. Crockett’s presence boosted the spirits of the Alamo defenders. He spoke to the citizen soldiers and townsfolk in one of San Antonio’s plazas: “Fellow citizens, I am among you. I have come to your country, though not I hope, through any selfish motive whatever. I have come to aid you all that I can in your noble cause. I shall identify myself with your interest, and all the honor that I desire is that of defending, as a high private, in common with my fellow-citizens, the liberties of our common country.”
16
On the evening of February 10, Crockett received a warm reception from other volunteers—a ragamuffin band of Anglo and Hispanic rebels—who had heard that the Lion of the West was coming to join them. But the lighthearted mood at the celebratory fandango soon faded as the celebrants learned that Gen. Santa Anna was bearing down on San Antonio. Santa Anna—known as the “Napoleon of the West”
17
—led a sizable force made up of Mexican army regulars, Mayan Indians who spoke no Spanish, and raw conscripts.
