57. Davis, Travis Diary, 179, June 2, 1834.
58. Ibid., 112, January 29; 131, February 27; 137, March 2; 138, March 4, 5; 139, March 8; 142, March 20; 158, April 25; 172, May 18, 1834.
59. Ibid., 107, January 17; 109, January 23; 127, February 13; 182, June 11, 1834; Instrument of sale, April 16, 1834, William B. Travis Legal Documents, DRT; Statement of William B. Travis, November 15, 1834, Streeter Collection, Yale; Travis to Burnet, February 1834, quoted in David Drake, “‘Joe’, Alamo Hero,” Negro History Bulletin 44 (April-June 1981): 34.
60. Davis, Travis Diary, 129, February 19, 1834.
61. Brazoria Courier, June 9, 1840; Houston Telegraph and Texas Register, March 21, 1837; Davis, Travis Diary, 152, April 6, 160, April 30, 183, June 16, 185, June 23, 1834; Malcolm D. McLean, “Tenoxtitlan, Dream Capital of Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 70 (July 1966): 34.
62. figures calculated from Davis, Travis Diary, Entries for January-June 1834.
63. Paulding, Westward Ho!, vol. 2, 181.
64. Davis, Travis Diary, 103, January 3; p 104-5, January 9, 11; 125 February 8; 129, February 20; 180, June 6, 1834.
65. Harris, “Reminiscences, I” 102, 110; Davis, Travis diary, 129, February 21; 144, March 26, 1834.
66. Brazoria Texas Gazette, February 18, 1832; Gray From Virginia to Texas, 110.
67. Davis, Travis Diary, 93, December 27, 1833; 128, February 16; 139, March 9, 1834.
68. Ibid., 140, March 12; p 142-43, March 21, March 20; 151, April 1; 154, April 11; 157, April 19, 1834. Travis's gambling habits are complied from this source for the months of March-June, 1834.
69. Ibid., 129, February 21; 144, March 26; 174, May 31; p 184-85, June 20-21; 186, June 25, 1834; Amelia Williams to Asbury, March 15, 1932, Asbury Papers, UT. The assumption has been common in recent years that Travis had picked up a venereal disease from one of the women with whom he slept. This derives entirely from the March 28, 1834, entry in his diary (Davis, Travis Diary, 145) that states, with no explanatory context: “Venerao mala.” The editor has translated this as “Venereal (disease) bad.” There are several references to Travis buying vials of medicine, including mercury, in the diary, and these are taken as evidence that he was dosing himself for the unspecified disease. It is entirely possible that Travis did contract a venereal disease. However, it must be pointed out that “venerao mala” could mean something else entirely. Certainly it is incorrect Spanish. It could also be a flawed transcription from the original, as there are many such errors in the Davis edition of the Travis diary. Travis could have been writing “veneno malo,” for instance, which in his imperfect Spanish might refer to food poisoning. Or, as Steve Hardin has pointed out, the “venerao” could in fact be a reference to the goddess Venus, a classical allusion to romantic problems, and certainly his next diary reference to Rebecca Cummings on April 1 says that he met a “cold reception” from her. The phrase's being in Spanish definitely makes it a reference to something in his love life, as those were the only occasions in which he used Spanish. And again, it is certainly possible that he did mean venereal disease, but to conclude that on the basis of this single reference would be—no pun intended—rash. The example does point up the need for an entirely new, more accurate, better edited and indexed edition of the diary.
70. Davis, Travis Diary, 105, January 9; 10, 108, January 18; 112, January 29; 125, February 10; 127, February 14; 130, February 25; 137, March 2; 142, March 20; 143, March 24; 152, April 5; 168, May 5; 184, June 19, 1834. On March 20 Travis said of Rebecca Cummings that “I showed a letter to her about the conduct of my former wife.” He gives no indication of what that conduct may have been. It could have dealt with the failure to hand over Charles, it could have been about her posited—but completely unsupported—romance with Cloud, whom she would marry immediately after her divorce. It may even have related to behavior of hers that led to, or helped lead to, the original breakup in the spring of 1831.
71. Rosanna Travis to Dellet, September 6, 1834, Dellet Papers, ADAH.
72. Parker, Trip to the West, 158-59; F. J. Starr Memo Book, November 30, 1834, Starr Papers, UT.
Chapter 16 Crockett 1834-1836
1. Crockett to Hack, June 9, 1834, Miscellaneous collection, Tennessee Historical Society, TSL.
2. Shackford, Crockett, 308n, cites an autograph book of Octavia Walton signed by both Houston and Crockett, the latter on April 23, 1834, with information from an autograph dealer's catalog in April 1936 indicating that the book established that the two visited her together. Crockett's inscription no longer rests in the album but most recently appeared in the Philpott Collection Catalog as item no. 226.
3. Crockett to Carey and Hart, May 27, 1834, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, N.Y.
4. Chapman in Galveston Daily News, January 27, 1895.
5. Helen Chapmen to Emily Blair, May 1, 1834, William W. Chapman Papers, UT.
6. Arpad, “Crockett,” 40.
7. Shackford, Crockett, 157-60 gives a basic capsule account of the tour.
8. Chapman in Galveston Daily News, January 27, 1895.
9. On May 17, just a few days after returning to Washington, he proposed an amendment to an appropriation bill to provide funds for improving navigation on the Forked Deer, Hatchie, and Obion rivers, all in his district. It was one of those days when he could not make himself stay in his seat, and he went home for his dinner, only to discover that his amendment came up in his absence and was tabled. Thus he was in no mood to support anyone else's appropriations bills, especially one from Polk, and two days later when his old nemesis offered such a bill, Crockett rose to suggest that the House henceforth table all such legislation, arguing that it was useless for the them to pass these measures. “A majority of this House has determined, by their vote, that Andrew Jackson shall be the Government,” he ranted. The only “honest face” he had seen in Jackson's government, he said, was Secretary of State Louis McLane, and he was resigning, thought Crockett, because he could not stand his colleagues any longer. “Let us all go home,” he declared. Maybe the outcry from the people would bring congressmen to their senses and return them to Washington “to make the gentleman in the white house take down his flag.” The people would let him know that they wanted no autocrat. When a fellow Tennessee delegate answered, charging Crockett with sour grapes because his own amendment had failed, David only responded the more vehemently. They had no government now, he said. Only the almighty could save the country from Jackson and tyranny.
10. The previous fall Jackson fired Treasury Secretary William Duane for refusing to remove the deposits, and replaced him with Roger B. Taney, who happily did the president's bidding. That so enraged the largely Whig Senate that Jackson did not dare submit Taney's name for confirmation, knowing it would be rejected. By June, with the end of the session approaching, he still had not done so, and on the floor of the House Crockett attacked Old Hickory vigorously for the delay.
11. Shackford, Crockett, 164-67.
12. Crockett to Hack, June 15, 1834, in Davis, Memphis, 155.
13. Crockett to Carey and Hart, May 27, 1834, Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, N.Y.
14. Crockett to Wallis, May 26, 1834, Crockett Papers, UT.
15. Crockett to J. M. Sanderson, June 25 [or perhaps 15], 1834, Frederick Dreer Collection, HSP.
16. St. Martinville Attakapas Gazette, June 12, 1834; Cooper, “Crockett Firearms,” 66.
17. Shackford, Crockett, 167-68, 309-10.
18. Gary S. Zaboly, “Davy Crockett: New Eyewitness Description—and More,” Alamo Journal 105 (June 1997): 10; Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 5, 1836.
19. Folmsbee, “West Tennessee,” 20.
20. St. Martinville Attakapas Gazette, July 5, 1834.
21. Crockett to Hack, June 9, 1834, Miscellaneous Collection, Tennessee Historical Society, TSL.
22. Shackford, Crockett, 169-71; Crockett to Carey and Hart, December 8, 1834, Autograph File, Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
23. Crockett to Carey and Hart, Autograph Files, Harvard.
24. Crockett to Carey and Hart, December 21, 1834, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia.
25. Crockett to Charles Schultz, December 25, 1834, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Crockett to Carey and Hart, December 24, 1834, American Book Prices Current, 1993 99 (Washington, Conn., 1994), 49. This document was originally in the Slack Collection at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio, but the library sold it in 1993, and no text appears in either Shackford's dissertation or Crockett.
26. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 1, 1835, “Documents of the Texian Revolution,” Alamo Journal 97 (July 1995): 17.
27. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 8, 1835, Crockett Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society; Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 12, 1835, Miscellaneous Personal Collection, New-York Historical Society.
28. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 12, 1835, Miscellaneous Personal Collection, New-York Historical Society, Crockett's suggestion as to the credit of authorship offers further evidence that the writing in the Narrative was indeed mainly his own, seemingly it offended his sense of honesty to present himself to the public in a false guise.
29. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 22, 1835, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia.
30. Crockett to Carey and Hart, April 11, 1835, Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pa.
31. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 16, 1835, in Shackford, Crockett, 186-87.
32. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 22, 1835, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia.
33. Shackford, Crockett, 189-93; Folmsbee, “West Tennessee,” 21-22; Crockett to John R. Ash, December 27, 1834, University of the South Archives, Sewanee, Tenn. On December 9 he tried to get it on the calender for the next day, without success. Still he predicted to a constituent that he would pass the measure this session. “I have no fears of passage,” he said. “If so it will bless many a poor man with a home.” He tried again in January, to no avail, and yet again early in February, with only a month of the session remaining. His frustration showed as he complained that all the long partisan speeches only delayed addressing the pile of bills sitting on the table, one of them his own. He accused the House of being “a better place to manufacture orators than to dispatch business,” and continued fighting unsuccessfully, encouraged only by the fact that in his annual message Jackson had reiterated his own favorable position on setting public lands back on the states for sale to the poor. Crockett's sense of the ironic even returned briefly, when he suggested that he “began to think the President was almost turning a Crockett man.” But still no action came on the land bill, not even the last time Crockett took the floor this session on February 20, 1835. Someone else actually made the motion to take up the bill, and when David stood to make a few remarks, others in the House simply beat him into sitting down with their objections. Moreover, in the votes on his several motions, many of the Whigs who had stood by him in the previous session reversed their positions. The same fate befell his attempt to revive his improvement measure for the rivers in his district.
34. The United States stood on the verge of a crisis with France for more than a year thanks to French repudiation of a substantial debt, and Jackson had threatened to commission privateers to take French shipping in reprisal. The crisis cooled short of war, but by the time this session of Congress opened, there were genuine fears in some quarters, fears shared by Crockett. “The western & southern men dare not sustain Jackson in his mad carear,” he said, predicting that when they refused to back him, Old Hickory would loose on them “all the Blood hounds in the nation.” To take advantage of the situation, Crockett began work in January on an essay proposing that he would himself go to France and meet with the head of state and King William IV of England, to mediate a solution, the intent being to put the essay in the William Clark compilation (Crockett to Schultz, December 25, 1834, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 22, 1834, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia).
35. Crockett to Dobings, May 27, 1834, U.S. Manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
36. Crockett to Schultz, December 25, 1834, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
37. Crockett to Ash, December 27, 1834, University of the South.
38. Crockett to R. R. Waldron, February 2, 1835, American Book Prices Current Index, 1965-1970, 2226. Sadly, this letter has not been found, and only the catalog description indicates that it comments on the assassination attempt.
39. Swisher, Swisher Memoirs, 21.
40. Crockett to Biddle, December 8, 1834, Gratz Collection, HSP.
41. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 8, 1835, Crockett Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society, says that as of that date hen is writing “an answer to Bentons letter,” and his subsequently published letter enclosing his parody 1833 letter to the convention is itself headed January 1, 1834, lending support to the idea that Crockett definitely took at least some role in writing the series of letters.
42. Shackford, Crockett, 179-83.
43. Crockett to Ash, December 27, 1834, University of the South.
44. Quoted in Shackford, Crockett, 179.
45. Crockett to Carey and Hart, January 1, 1835, Alamo Journal 97, 17.
46. Crockett to Ash, December 27, 1835, University of the South.
47. Huntsman to Polk, January 1, 1835, Herbert Weaver and Kermit L. Hall, eds., Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 3, 1835-1836, (Nashville, 1975), 3.
48. Jackson to Alfred Balch, February 16, 1835, 21, Jackson to Polk, May 12, 1835, 190-92, Weaver and Hall, Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 3.
49. Chapman in Galveston Daily News, May 1, 1836.
50. New York Sunday Morning News, May 1, 1836.
51. W. Eugene Hollon and Ruth Lapham Butler, eds., William Bollaert's Texas (Norman, Okla., 1956), 168.
52. Crockett to Carey and Hart, April 11, 1835, Roberts Autograph Collection, Haveford College Library, Haverford, Pa.
53. Shackford, Crockett, 186-88.
54. Ibid., 200-2.
55. Crockett to Carey and Hart, April 11, 1835, Roberts Autograph Collection, Haveford.
56. Crockett to Henderson, March 10, 1834, in Shackford, Crockett, 151.
57. Ephraim Dickson to Polk, May 7, 1835, Weaver and Hall Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 3, 187.
58. Crockett to Carey and Hart, July 8, 1835, in shackford, Crockett, 204. This is a reconstruction by Shackford of a letter Crockett almost certainly wrote at this date, and that could only have been addressed to his publishers.
59. Davis, Memphis, 151-52. Davis tells the story as if it took place in 1833, but misdates the tale. Keating, Memphis, vol. 1, 180 questions the story without saying why.
60. Crockett to the Truth Teller, July 20, 1835, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
61. Crockett to Carey and Hart, August 11, 1835, Crockett Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society.
62. New York Sunday Morning News, May 1, 1836.
63. Little Rock Arkansas Advocate, August 28, 1835.
64. Swisher, Swisher, Memoirs, 21-22.
65. “Brazos,” Life of Robert Hall (Austin, 1992), 15. It has been commonly assumed that the subject Hall was himself “Brazos,” but the introduction by Stephen L. Hardin rather effectively demolishes this contention. For one thing, the 1850 Texas census establishes that Robert Hall was born in 1811 in Arkansas, and thus would have been about twenty-four, well above legal voting age, in 1835, and not likely to be voting in Tennessee anyhow.
66. Joel R. Smith to Polk, August 9, 1835, William Armour to Polk, September 7, 1835, Weaver and Hall, Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 3, 261, 286.
67. Little Rock Arkansas Advocate, August 25, 1835.
68. Crockett to Carey and Hart, August 11
, 1835, Crockett Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society.
69. Folmsbee, “West Tennessee,” 23-24.
70. Crockett to committee of Invitation, September 30, 1835, in R.M. Smythe Winter Autograph Auction 175, February 26, 1998, item #380.
71. New York Sunday Morning News, December 6, 1835.
72. Keating, Memphis, vol. 1, 180.
73. New York Sunday Morning News, May 1, 1836.
74. Drake to the Editor of the News, October 17, 1877, Crockett Biographical File, DRT; “Brazos,” Robert Hall, 19. There are numerous examples of Crockett's “go to hell” aphorism, but it is uncertain when he first used it, and whether he actually said it during the campaign—which would seem unwise—or only coined it afterward.
75. Crockett to George Patton, October 31, 1835, in Shackford, Crockett, 210.
Three Roads to the Alamo Page 89
