Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Few now were Travis's creditors, though he was still paying off debts from 1832 as late as February 1834.60 Instead he became increasingly an investor, more recently in land, though never on the Bowie scale. He picked up a tract on the west side of the San Bernard River, twelve hundred acres or more in the Cane Creek and New Year's Creek vicinity, took Williamson's promise of a full league of land in return for representing him in his own speculating interests, and continued working with Sam Williams, including an agency to sell nearly twenty leagues in the still-disputed Robertson grant.61 Though he occasionally borrowed small sums from friends, in the first half of 1834 he paid back all but $9 of what he borrowed, and at the same time himself loaned others more than $260.62

  “I do just what I think right.” So said a character in Paulding's Westward Ho! obviously modeled on David Crockett, borrowing even on his trademark phrase “be always you are right, then go ahead.”63 William B. Travis did the same, though until this period of his life it appeared more that he did what he pleased. He continued to indulge his appetite for reading, moving from Vivian Grey to Court and Camp of Bonaparte, The Scottish Chiefs, a good spate of Sir Walter Scott, including Guy Mannering and Rob Roy, as well as most of the Texas newspapers from San Felipe and Brazoria.64 If there was a party or a fandango on offer, he was sure to go, especially now that the lawyers and politicians invariably made speeches on the latest turn of events with Mexico, and when the mood took him, he still parted with fifty cents or a peso for a night with a woman, though the encounters were less frequent, and apparently less satisfying for him. He stopped numbering his conquests in his diary.65 Moreover, in April he all but quit gambling.

  The cause was Rebecca Cummings. John Cummings had opened his inn at Mill Creek crossing in February 1832, a modest place where he impressed some callers as shrewd if illiterate. His sister Rebecca, however, seemed to be responsible for the good running of the place. “Everything is in plenty, and of good kind,” wrote one diner.66 Travis probably met her for the first time at fellow lawyer Maj. Ira Lewis's Christmas season party on December 27, 1833, and since he paid for the fiddler for the party and fair bit of its liquid cheer, she was certain to notice the gregarious young counselor. Courtship moved quickly, and on February 16, 1834, Travis made at least a firm expression of his interest, if not a conditional proposal, at the same time telling her of his situation with Rosanna. From then on the trips to Mill Creek came frequently, weather allowing. When high water forced him to give up crossing the boggy prairie early in March, he returned to San Felipe dejected, complaining to his diary that it was “the first time I ever turned back in my life.” He seems not to have considered running out on Claiborne, debt, and his family as giving up.67

  The courtship was not without its difficulties. Rebecca took some persuading. If his rather indiscriminate relations with women of the past two years had become known to her, the knowledge could have given her pause, and the equivocal nature of his marital situation created some definite problems. Travis may in fact have told her that he was already divorced, for in March he spoke to Rebecca about Rosanna, whom he called “my former wife,” even though they were still very much married. But by late March her doubts disappeared, and Travis delighted in visit after visit to meet “many caresses” in “the company of my beloved.” On March 31 they came to what he called “a simple understanding,” and soon agreed that they would be married as soon as his divorce could be effected. Giving up gambling must have been one of Rebecca's conditions, for after March 31 he gambled only twice in the next three months, losing all of $1.75.68

  Still there were problems, with Travis himself to blame. Just five days after first expressing his love for Rebecca, he went to a prostitute, though he found he could not perform, perhaps from a guilty conscience. Yet again, five days before their “understanding,” he went to another woman and paid the tariff, though he commented that the experience was “malo”—bad—another pang of conscience perhaps. Some word of this must have reached her, for on May 31 she gave him a cold reception, and Travis spoke bitterly of someone repeating slanders about him. Well into June the see-saw continued. On June 21-22 he may have engaged in some kind of flirtation with two young women that got to Rebecca, for she was cool to him yet again three days later. Yet Travis always seemed to calm her anger or fears, and there was an inevitable reconciliation. While they may not have made a general announcement, the rumor soon spread through the colony that Travis and Rebecca were to wed.69

  Of course there remained the problem of Rosanna, the wife he already had. Travis kept up a steady correspondence both with her and her brother William, on one occasion even using him as a reference, suggesting that his estrangement from Rosanna did not entirely extend to the rest of her family. Then, too, it is just possible that Travis himself may have wavered in his determination to separate from her, even though she was plaint enough to his demands to agree to let him have Charles. The arrangement with Monroe Edwards to go to Brazoria in January 1834 to collect him fell through, and so did a subsequent plan for William Huff to go to New Orleans in March, where Rosanna was to have taken the children. Either through confusion, or out of willful revenge, she went to Natchez instead, and once again the exchange failed to happen. This, and perhaps information from Claiborne of her liaison with Samuel Cloud, if it had started yet, enabled Travis to go to Rebecca on March 20 and explain his situation by portraying Rosanna as the culprit, which helped in persuading her to accept his suit.70

  Not until September did final action commence, and then it was Rosanna who initiated events. She had finally given up on any reconciliation with Travis, and the fact that she waited this long suggests that she clung to hope long after he had given every assurance of wishing to be free of her, unless he did, in fact, fluctuate afterwards in his expressions. Having heard that her husband's old mentor Dellet had actually volunteered his services in procuring her a divorce—which gave some idea of Dellet's opinion of Travis's behavior—she now accepted, asking him to institute the legal proceedings as soon as possible, hoping that it could start at the spring 1835 term of the court in Monroe Country. It now became evident, too, that she was learning a trade, because she received no support from Travis either for herself or her children, despite his considerable prosperity. Evidence suggested that by now, in the natural progression of things, Travis had gone from regarding Rosanna as an inconvenience to seeing her with some animosity.71 The divorce would not be easy, for the state legislature had to pass on such acts. Only Rosanna could initiate the matter, more than three years, and she could only claim a divorce on three grounds—abandonment for three years or longer, adultery, or “cruel, barbarous, and inhuman” conduct. Abandonment would do. If her trials with Travis included either of the others, she kept it to herself.

  Yet now at last the divorce would start to put an end to a marital situation that had festered for more than three years. More than just Travis's love life headed toward a resolution that fall. Like him, Texas too faced the prospect of separation. Already thousands of Texians had made the break in their hearts, few earlier or more completely than Travis himself. The months ahead would reveal what sort of break it was to be. On November 30 that year the moon passed between the sun and the earth, and most of Texas was in a solar eclipse. As events around them picked up speed once more, few Texians, even Travis, knew what would await them on the other side of the darkness.72

  16

  CROCKETT

  1834-1836

  I am rejoiced at my fate Do not be uneasy about me I am with my friends

  DAVID CROCKETT, JANUARY 9, 1836

  The trip north must have been the most enjoyable experience of David Crockett's life, despite a nagging chest pain that may have been a very mild recurrence of his old ailment.1 Just before leaving he met his old friend Sam Houston, now finished with his years of seclusion with the Cherokee, and in the East pursuing several agenda. He looked into securing the agency for a land speculation firm that hoped to get a grant in Texas.
He also met with his old friend Jackson, who had been trying to manage either the cession or purchase of Texas for years. Even now Jackson's emissary continued the negotiations, and no doubt Houston fed the president—and Crockett—with stories of the vastness of the place and the temper of its inhabitants. Listening to his old friend, Crockett must have liked the sound of what he heard, especially the opportunity for huge tracts of land at almost no cost.

  Perhaps now, for the first time, Crockett heard the name of James Bowie. Perhaps he had heard dim accounts of the fight on the Natchez sandbar, though most of those in the press omitted Bowie's name. Maybe, too, he connected the name with the new Bowie knife rapidly occupying the nation's cutlers. From Houston he would have heard of the man's reputation for daring and for his remarkable influence with the Mexicans where land grants were concerned. Certainly Houston knew Travis, if only passingly, but there was no occasion to talk about one more lawyer. Whatever Houston told his friend, it impressed Crockett. Never before in either speeches or correspondence did David mention Texas even once. Within months it stole into his sentences repeatedly. If Crockett entertained any serious thoughts about the province, they remained unformed, but Houston passed the germ there in Washington in April, 1834.2

  Crockett left Washington on April 25 for a whirlwind tour that included his first trip by sailing vessel and his first ride on a railroad train, taking in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, Boston, Lowell, and then back via Providence and Camden. With his itinerary carefully planned and publicized by his Whig friends, he met enthusiastic crowds at every stop. In New York he finally met and dined with Seba Smith, an interesting meal for four—two men and two legends—requiring a table only for two. No doubt Crockett boasted that just a few days before, while in Philadelphia, he visited his publishers and arranged for them to do another printing of at least two thousand copies of the Narrative to meet the demands just from his own district.3 For his part Smith revealed his growing disenchantment with Jackson, and the two may well have discussed a collaboration in which Jack Downing and Crockett would “correspond” on the issues of the day. That same evening Crockett dined with Verplank, the congressman who defended his behavior at the Adams dinner years before, and Augustin Smith Clayton, a Georgian who backed John C. Calhoun and therefore loathed Jackson and Van Buren. Apparently amid all the conviviality Crockett gave up on his pledge to abstain from liquor, if it had lasted even that long. One of his hosts suggested that the guest help himself to the decanter on the sideboard in his drawing room, then turned his back while Crockett poured, which Crockett took as a sign that he could drink as much as he wished, pronouncing his host “the most through and through gentleman, to the very backbone.”4

  Crockett went everywhere there were people, acting the tourist that he truly was in part, and yet every visit was orchestrated by local Whig committees. He attended theaters, flag raisings, factories, museums, and more, and at each stop either made a speech that castigated the administration or at least offered a few quips that both amused the people and made his single-minded point about Jackson. In New York he visited Peale's Museum to see a ventriloquist, something entirely new to him, and watched intensely, even as others in the audience studied Crockett. “He is wholly different from what I thought him,” a woman present noted. “Tall in stature and large in frame, but quite thin, with black hair combed straight over the forehead, parted from the middle and his shirt collar turned negligently back over his coat. He has rather an indolent appearance and looks not like a ‘go ahead’ man.” When the ventriloquist did a few sleight-of-hand tricks, one of them involved magically moving money from one closed box to another, and as he performed the feat the artist joked that he was “about to remove the deposits.” The trick accomplished, Crockett said in a voice loud enough for all to hear that “he can remove the deposits better than Old Hickory,” winning himself cheers and applause.5

  All along the way there were the gifts, a new suit of plain clothes from a Lowell cotton mill, a watch fob engraved with “go ahead,” the promise of a fine custom rifle from the Philadelphia Whigs, a hunting coat, and more. At every dinner Whig hosts and audiences treated him as a conqueror, laughed at his stories, and applauded his increasingly harsh pronouncements on Jackson. In the euphoria at his reception, Crockett may not even have realized that in part his journey was designed as a parody of a similar trip made by Jackson the year before while on his way to collect his Harvard degree.6 Indeed, he most probably never grasped the extent to which his new friends were using him. This whole tour was a trial that could not fail. Even if the voters did not see a likely 1836 prospect in him, still the attention and the press all served to embarrass the administration with Crockett, the tame Democrat, denouncing Old Hickory and pouring hot oil into the cracks in his party to sear the breaches. If the Whigs did, indeed, make a successful presidential candidate of him, so much the better, for he seemed malleable enough, though if ever in the White House that independent and honest streak in him would have served them a hearty disappointment. Crockett would not have been a good chief executive, but he would have been his own president.7

  David returned to Washington on May 13, exhausted and somewhat ill tempered from the trip, no doubt weary of having to compromise his sense of dignity by posing for all those who came to see him. The news that his son John had gotten religion ordinarily would not have troubled him, especially given his own flirtation with conversion a few years before, but now when his son sent him a letter with the news, Crockett turned morose. “Thinks he's off to Paradise on a streak of lightning,” grumbled his father. “Pitches into me pretty considerable.”Crockett was not accustomed to being chastised, especially by his children. He lost his patience in the House at the endless speeches that seemed to accomplish nothing, and more and more often he simply left. The painter Chapman met him on the Capitol steps one day “looking very much fagged,” and obviously on the way home or to a tavern. “You look tired, Colonel, as if you had just got through a long speech in the House,” he said. “Long speech to thunder, there's plenty of'em up there for that sort of nonsense, without my making a fool of myself at public expense,” Crockett growled. “I can stand good nonsense—rather like it—but such nonsense as they are digging at up yonder, it's no use trying to—I'm going home.”8

  When he did sit through the sessions, he became more and more vitriolic in his attacks on Jackson.9 Crockett lost any sense of propriety or proportion in his mounting attacks on Old Hickory, and yet through it all he may have been following a conscious plan, however ill advised. Maintaining the attack on the president furthered the growing impression that there was a battle between himself and Jackson alone for the future of the country. On top of his celebrated trip through the Northeast, maintaining and enhancing such an impression ought only the more to establish him in the minds of the nation's opposition as the right man to trounce Van Buren in 1836. Thus he unreservedly used his final blasts of the brief session to advance that cause.10 When a measure was introduced to censure Jackson, Crockett heartily approved, and fought against Polk's tabling motion so strenuously that Speaker of the House Andrew Stevenson had to call him to order several times. “Let members stand up to the rank and say to their constituents that we have supported the laws and constitution,” he cried. They must give evidence of whether “we have a government or not.” Repeatedly Crockett's temper, and the aroused growls and cheers of the Whigs, forced the Speaker to reprimand him. In what must have appeared more petty spite than policy, he even voted against the customary resolution of thanks to the speaker at the end of the session, apparently solely because Stevenson was a Jacksonian.11

  Crockett could not wait to get out of Washington. “I now look forward to our adjournment,” he said on June 15, “with as much interest as ever did a poor convict in the penitentiary to see his last day come.”12 In fact, convinced that this long session had accomplished nothing for the good of the country, he decided not even to wait for the adjournment on June 30.13 Orig
inally he had intended to go straight back to Tennessee at the adjournment, but now he changed his plans to capitalize on the success of his recent tour by returning to Philadelphia and a few other cities.14 Traveling by stagecoach to Baltimore, he made Philadelphia his first stop, there to remain nearly a week to include an invitation for a July Fourth celebration. Since the time of his last visit in late April, a local gunsmith had completed the presentation rifle and sent Crockett targets that displayed the weapon's accuracy. He had already given some instructions on adjusting its sight to correct a tendency to shoot too low, and shortly before leaving Washington sent an order for several canisters of fine rifle powder to be sent to Carey and Hart so they could pack them in his shipment of books.15