American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

by Buddy Levy

  He understood the dire nature of his situation, and knew that getting warm was his only way out. He attempted to run to get some blood pumping, but “couldn’t raise a trot for some time.” He staggered on, zombie-like, unable to step more than one foot forward at a time, and in this way he lurched and limped five miles to his brother-in-law’s place, near-dead and dreaming of fire. It was growing dark when he finally knocked feebly on the door, and the family let him in and warmed him slowly back to life in front of the fire and gave him horns of whiskey. The next day dawned bitter cold, snow drifts blowing into cornices along the river, and Crockett agreed to wait out his return. He knew that the river would be freezing over, but doubted its ability to bear his weight. Crockett used the down time to hunt, killing two deer for his in-laws, and the next day chasing after a “big he-bear” until nightfall but failing to bag him. Finally, on the third day, though it remained painfully cold, Crockett decided that he had to get back to his family, who were without food. He “determined to get home to them, or die a-trying.”

  The river had frozen over more completely, but as he had feared, not solidly enough to hold him, and before long he had broken through the ice up to his waist. He wielded his tomahawk as an icebreaker before him, hacking as he pushed on. Intermittently the ice would bear his weight, and he crawled those frozen distances until he broke through again, completely submerging himself but holding the powder keg dry above the water. He was now partially frostbitten, clearly hypothermic, and bordering on delirious, and he knew he was in trouble:

  By this time I was nearly frozen to death, but I saw all along before me where the ice had been fresh broke, and I thought it must be a bear straggling about in the water. I therefore fresh primed my gun, and, cold as I was, determined to make war on him, if we met. But I followed the trail until it lead me home, and I then found out it had been made by my young man that lived with me, who had been sent by my distressed wife to see, if he could, what had become of me, for they all believed I was dead. When I got home I wasn’t quite dead, but mighty nigh it; but I had my powder, and that was what I went for.25

  Though Elizabeth was understandably growing weary of his stubbornness, his near-death experiences, and the constant threat of losing a second husband, she also knew that he had to hunt, both for himself and to keep them in food and furs. Crockett would have measured his own self-worth in part by his hunting prowess, and the very next day he set out for bear, responding to a dream he’d had about a violent battle with one, and viewing it as a sign, adding that “In bear country, I never knowed such a dream to fail.”

  He went to likely ground “above the hurricane,” taking with him three dogs, and heading six miles down Rutherford’s Fork and then some four miles over to the main Obion. Sleet drove down in heavy slants across the iron-gray skies, and “the bushes were all bent down, and locked together with ice,” making the going cold and difficult. He was soon warmed by the flush of gobbling turkeys, and he brought down two of the largest, and slung them heavily over his shoulders and continued crashing through the cane. Eventually the birds grew too heavy to carry so he stopped to rest, and just then his oldest hound sniffed about a log, then raised his head to the sky and hollered out baying. Then he bolted, and the other dogs followed, with Crockett running hard behind, the turkeys a mass of feathers and wings and necks dangling and swaying. Soon the dogs were well out of sight, and Crockett could only follow the faint sounds of their barking and baying deep into the thickets.

  He finally found them barking up a tree, and he laid down his turkeys and readied to fire on the bear, but when he looked up there was nothing there. The dogs bolted, and when he caught them they were barking up an empty tree again, and he grew so frustrated he vowed to pepper the dogs with shot the next time he got close enough, figuring they were baying at the old scent of turkeys. He ran hard to catch them and finally reached a break in the cover, a big open meadow, and up ahead of his dogs he saw “in and about the biggest bear that ever was seen in America.” The bear was so big and black and frightening that it resembled an enraged bull, and Crockett understood that he was so large that the dogs had been hesitant to attack him, which explained their curious behavior. Crockett quickly hung the gobblers in a nearby tree, and, flushed full of adrenaline, he “broke like a quarter horse after my bear, for the sight of him had put new springs in me.” By the time he managed to get near the dogs and the escaping bear they had entered a deep thicket, and Crockett was slowed to a crawl, as the stuff was too low and tangled to walk through.

  Finally, Crockett broke through to see the bear ascending a giant black oak, and he scrambled to within eighty yards of the enraged but frightened creature. Breathing heavily with a mixture of fear and excitement, Crockett primed his rifle, leveled on the great black bear’s breast, and fired. “At this he raised one of his paws and snorted loudly.” Crockett knew full well that a massive black bear, angered and injured, was an extremely dangerous animal, so he reloaded as fast has he could, aimed once more, and fired. “At the crack of my gun he came tumbling down, and the moment he touched the ground, I heard one of my best dogs cry out.” Crockett brandished his tomahawk in one hand, a big butcher-knife in his other, and ran to within a few yards of the bear, which then released his dog and cast his wild eyes on Crockett. Crockett backed off, grabbed his gun again, loaded nervously and quickly, and put a third ball in the bear, this time killing him.

  Crockett slumped down and surveyed the bear and could not believe the size of it. He’d need help getting him out of there for sure, so he left the bear and “blazed a trail,” cutting saplings as he went to show him the way back. He arrived home and enlisted his brother-in-law and another man to go with him to bring in the bear. Returning to the kill at dark, they built a fire and butchered the animal. Crockett reckoned it was the second largest bear he ever killed, weighing about 600 pounds, and by now, warmed by the fire and the blood lust of this kill still in his throat and mouth, the trek to retrieve his gunpowder seemed justified. He also noted with some humor, using a phrase he might well have coined, that “a dog might sometimes be doing a good business, even when he seemed to be barking up the wrong tree.”

  Crockett devoted the remainder of that winter to the canebrakes, hunting long hours with his dogs and neighbors and occasionally making the forty-mile trek to Jackson to sell wolf, deer, and bear hides for the few dollars they would bring. And while his family needed any extra money his hunting could generate, his prowess afield transcended monetary value: on the frontier, one’s self-worth was measured by one’s ability in the hunt, in what a man could bring down with his gun—whether animal or enemy, and in the field, and as a marksman, David Crockett was peerless. Crockett was becoming not just a formidable hunter but a legendary one, and he would later boast of killing 105 bears in less than a year. Many of the pelts he sold, and much of the meat he used, or shared with family and neighbors. Far and wide throughout the South through the frontier grapevine of storytelling his name became synonymous with successful backwoods life. These bear-hunting tales followed the ancient storytelling motif in which the hero confronts a life-threatening adversary and slays it. His own tales of these adventures illustrate a finely tuned skill, the tall tale, the hyperbolic boasting demanded of the hunter and the hero.26 He may have been only vaguely aware of it, but David Crockett was in the process of manufacturing the myth and legend that would live long after him.

  Crockett’s hunts proved so successful that winter that by February, as he put it, he “had on hand a great many skins,” and he set out with John Wesley for Jackson, where he sold the hides and did well enough (wolf “scalps” going for three dollars apiece at the time) to purchase provisions, like sugar, coffee, salt, and more lead and powder for hunting, that might take him through to spring. While in town, Crockett ran into a few of his soldier friends from the war, and he decided that rather than return straight away, he’d take a few horns with the boys.

  While whooping it up in a local tavern, Crock
ett became acquainted with three legislative candidates, among them a Dr. William E. Butler, a nephew by marriage to Andrew Jackson. With Butler were Duncan McIver and Major Joseph Lynn, and the three of them would be running against one another in the coming election. Dr. Butler was, among other things, the town commissioner of Jackson; he was quite influential in the area, especially given his connection to General Andrew Jackson. McIver had been among the earliest settlers in the area, and all three men were known politicos, men of high standing and notoriety in the region.27 During the course of the evening it was suggested, in what Crockett suspected was a joke against him, that he ought to run, too. Crockett pointed out that he lived “forty miles from any white settlement, and had no thought of becoming a candidate at the time,”28 and the next day he and John Wesley headed home.

  Just a week or two later a friend arrived at Crockett’s house with a copy of the Jackson Pioneer, which contained an article that announced Crockett’s candidacy. Crockett immediately assumed, his insecurity flushing his cheeks even redder than they usually were, that he was being made fun of, and he said as much to Elizabeth: “I said to my wife that this was all a burlesque on me, but I was determined to make it cost the man who had put it there at least the value of the printing, and of the fun he wanted at my expense.” Riled and testy, Crockett hired an able young farmhand to help Elizabeth, and he set out electioneering, discovering quite quickly that his reputation preceded him. People were talking of Crockett the bear hunter, even referring to him reverently as “the man from the cane.”

  Butler, McIver, and Lynn were politically savvy, and they understood that they’d have a better chance working together than running against one another, so in March they held a caucus to decide which of the three would be best suited to oppose Crockett, settling on Dr. Butler as the man for the job. That Butler’s wife was Andrew Jackson’s niece likely played some role in the decision, but Butler was also well educated, articulate, and had the money to sustain a serious campaign. Crockett later admitted that it would be a tough race, and that Butler was a smart and worthy opponent: “The doctor was a clever fellow, and I have often said he was the most talented man I ever run against for any office.” Knowing the odds he was facing, Crockett would have to resort to the most creative campaign tactics he could summon, playing off his affability, his growing reputation as a backwoods character, and his uncanny ability to give voters exactly what they wanted to hear. He determined to exploit his authenticity as a man of the people against his opponents’ aristocratic background, hoping the people would be able to relate to him more easily than to Butler.

  Crockett’s first solid opportunity came at a political rally, where Colonel Adam Alexander happened to be campaigning for national Congress. Crockett was in attendance, and he saw that Butler was, too. Crockett relished innocent chicanery, and in the large assembly of people he saw his chance. After Alexander was finished speaking he introduced Crockett to a few folks, explaining that Crockett was running against Butler. People began to mill around, their curiosity piqued to see the bear hunter. Finally Dr. Butler also recognized Crockett, and he seemed surprised to see him there. “Crockett, damn it, is that you?” he asked quizzically.

  A master of comic timing, Crockett took the cue and ran with it. “Be sure it is,” he answered, grinning at his now substantial audience and launching into character, laying the backwoods drawl on thick as molasses, “but I don’t want it understood that I have come electioneering. I have just crept out of the cane, to see what discoveries I could make among the white folks.” By now, people were chuckling, fascinated by Crockett and his antics. Crockett kept right on, explaining to Butler exactly how he would defeat him:

  I told him that when I set out electioneering, I would go prepared to put every man on as good a footing when I left him as I found him on. I would therefore have me a large buckskin hunting-shirt made, with a couple of pockets holding about a peck each; and that in one I would carry a great big twist of tobacco, and in the other my bottle of liquor; for I know’d when I met a man and offered him a dram, he would throw out his quid of tobacco to take one, and after he had taken his horn, I would out with my twist and give him another chaw. And in this way he would not be worse off than when I found him; and I would be sure to leave him in a first-rate good humor.29

  Dr. Butler had to admit that such a tactic would be very tough to beat. Crockett conceded that in terms of campaign funds, they were certainly not on equal footing, so he would do what he knew how to, using his backwoods skills and ingenuity. With the audience hanging on each new and outrageous sentence, Crockett cited his own industrious children and coon dogs, which he would employ every night until midnight to raise election funds, and that he himself would “go a wolfing, and shoot down a wolf, and skin his head, and his scalp would be good to me for three dollars . . . and in this way I would get along on the big string.” The antics had the crowd in stitches, and though the clever Crockett had claimed not to have come electioneering, that’s exactly what he had done, selling his infectious personality to the voters.

  Crockett employed similar stratagems and more in the official electioneering, taking advantage of the generous and fair Dr. Butler whenever he could. Butler admired Crockett’s spunk and appeared to enjoy competing with him; he even sought out his company. Once, hearing that Crockett was in Jackson on the campaign trail, Butler invited him to his home for dinner. Crockett accepted, and when he arrived he could not help but notice the finery, the lovely furnishings, and especially the floor rugs to which Crockett was unaccustomed. The rugs on Butler’s floors were so fine that Crockett felt guilty even stepping on them, and he made an exaggerated point not to, hopping over them when he entered to dine with the Butlers. Deviously, Crockett used this episode in later stump speeches, relating the dinner episode to the people: “Fellow citizens, my aristocratic competitor has a fine carpet, and every day he walks on finer truck than any gowns your wife or your daughters, in all their lives, ever wore!”30 In this way Crockett undermined his opponent and continued to parade himself as a man of the people.

  Opponents often traveled together, coming into towns together and giving speeches one after the other. As this went on for some time, candidates came to know each other’s speeches nearly as well as their own. Though Crockett preferred to follow, offering up a comic anecdote and leaving the listener wanting more, once near the end of the campaign he took the opportunity to go first, and with devilish premeditation, he delivered Dr. Butler’s own speech almost verbatim. It left the good doctor with literally nothing left to say on that occasion, and Crockett’s coup became the talk of the town.31 David Crockett had found his stride, and expressions that the people understood flowed off his tongue as he entertained them. He promised them that he would “stand up to my lick log, salt or no salt,” and he did. When the votes were tallied, Crockett had won by 247 votes. The reluctant candidate, forced to run to save face, was heading to Murfreesboro once again. Though he would employ false modesty in calling this victory luck, he must have sensed his developing expertise in getting himself elected. He was a showman, a born orator with an uncanny sense of comic timing, and he understood intuitively the principle that most fine entertainers come to live by: “Leave ’em wanting more.”

  Crockett arrived back in Murfreesboro for the Fifteenth General Assembly, which convened on September 15, 1823. By now he would have been fairly comfortable with the town and environs, and with the routines involved in life as a state legislator. He had even gained a degree of respect among his colleagues, for his campaign practices were by now well documented, related at taverns and even in the assembly halls. And although as a campaigner David Crockett assumed the guise of a prankster, as a sophomore legislator he took his role seriously, bearing the added responsibility of representing five new counties—Madison, Carroll, Humphries, Henderson, and Perry. There had been, as yet, no constitutional convention, so his own district was not equally represented, but the fast formation of new counties cl
early illustrates the significant migration into the region and the prodigious growth spilling into the West.32 By the end of the session the district would swell to ten new counties.

  Crockett’s first week back on the job was frenetic. He immediately found himself on three significant committees, one having to do with specifying new county boundaries, one on military affairs, in which he had at least some experience and interest; and the last having to do with vacant lands, the one to which he would devote most of his attentions.33 Crockett quickly had the opportunity to assert his growing independence, an independence that would become a kind of contrary trademark and that would eventually be his political unraveling. That independence also signaled his first public and definitive rift with Andrew Jackson, a schism which perhaps began as far back as the Creek War, when Old Hickory quelled the attempted mutiny. Crockett later looked back at the Fifteenth General Assembly with this salient recollection: “At the session in 1823, I had a small trial of my independence, and whether I would forsake principle for party, or for the purpose of following after big men.” Principles, voting one’s conscience, being true to self and constituents—these were all tenets Crockett cared very much about. Often such idealism—and inability to compromise—hurt him politically.