David Crockett: The Lion of the West

by Michael Wallis

  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 missi
on 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.

  For the next several days, the volunteers and mercenaries stepped up their preparations for the coming confrontation with the Mexican army. While they stocked the Alamo with rations, water, and ammunition, Crockett did his best to keep everyone entertained with his litany of backwoods yarns and jokes. On February 22, with the Mexican force within striking distance, another fandango was held to celebrate George Washington’s birthday and also out of defiance in the face of what was expected to be a horrific fight. The following day, the garrison of about two hundred Texians barricaded themselves inside the Alamo just before Santa Anna and his troops marched into town. There would be no quarter—only the promise of death. The siege was on.

  Crockett was undoubtedly the most famous person to take part in the thirteen-day siege at the Alamo. Sharing the limelight with him were James Bowie and William Travis. This Alamo trio has often been portrayed as romanticized heroes. In truth, they were—like all humans—flawed and no more or less heroic than any of those from either side who took part in the siege and storming of the Alamo. Bowie had become famous in many circles because of the trademark knife he used with much proficiency in bloody duels and altercations. He did not himself make the knife; rather, his brother Rezin commissioned it for him. Some years earlier, the Bowie brothers partnered with Jean Lafitte, the notorious privateer who supplied mercenaries for Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The Bowies helped Lafitte traffic the many slaves he smuggled into Galveston Island and sold to plantation owners.

  Beside making a fortune as a dealer in human cargo and subverting the ban on the slave trade, Bowie—like Stephen Austin—also became a land speculator. He sold fraudulent claims in Arkansas Territory, masterminded a series of property swindles in Louisiana, and speculated in Texas land. Bowie saw that there was an immense profit to be made in Texas real estate. He learned Spanish, joined the Catholic Church, became a Mexican citizen, and married into one of San Antonio’s prominent Tejano families. When his wife and two children died during a cholera epidemic, Bowie went into an alcoholic depression that lasted until his death in a sickbed at the Alamo, where he served as commander of volunteer soldiers.

  William Barrett Travis, commander of the regular army troops defending the old mission fortress, was an attorney by trade. He knew Bowie from San Felipe, where he served as the knife fighter’s counsel. A South Carolina native, Travis—like many others—came to Texas to escape bad debts and avoid going to prison. After abandoning his pregnant wife and young son in Alabama, he entered Texas illegally and immediately became involved in the slave trade.18 He settled in San Felipe de Austin in 1831, obtained some land from Stephen Austin, and established his law practice. He enjoyed the company of women, was known to devour Sir Walter Scott novels, and divorced his wife in 1836 when she showed up to save their marriage.19 Although he neglected to pay off the debts left behind in Alabama, Travis soon began acquiring land and slaves, including a young black man known only as Joe.20 He would stay with his white master all the way to the end at the Alamo, where his life was spared because he was a slave. Travis was one of the first to die at the final Alamo assault, of a bullet to the brain. He was twenty-six years old.

  Then there was Crockett—the real-life Nimrod Wildfire and Lion of the West. What transpired at the Alamo was pure theater and an ideal venue for Crockett, who was center stage. His participation in the quint-essential event in Texas history was all part of a drama that had been playing out for the almost half-century that he had lived, and the final scene took place at the Alamo. The curtain calls, however, have never ceased for the Davy Crockett of imagination. The Alamo is what most people think of when they hear his name. Other than the ubiquitous raccoon cap only worn in later years for the benefit of his adoring fans, it is the Alamo that most evokes the image of Crockett.

  Accounts of Crockett’s activities during the siege include reports of his effort to bolster morale among the men with stories and playing lively jigs on a borrowed fiddle. It was said that Crockett and a Scotsman named John McGregor, who brought his bagpipes to the fight, amused the garrison, and perhaps even the surrounding Mexican troops, with their musical interludes in between skirmishes and repulsed assaults.21

  The storming and seizing of the Alamo was inevitable, coming as it did after nearly two weeks of steady bombardment. On the night of March 5, the Mexican guns went silent. In the cold early morning darkness of the following day, the Mexican soldiers advanced. This time, despite great ca
sualties, they were not turned away. They came in great waves and penetrated the walls and defenses. The battle lasted less than an hour. Every defender of the Alamo was killed. Only Travis’s slave and the wife and infant of one of the slain defenders survived.

  Almost immediately the “last stand” at the Alamo was compared to the resolve of the Spartans facing the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae. A newspaper editorial published just eighteen days after the fall of the Alamo read:

  That event, so lamentable, and yet so glorious to Texas, is of such deep interest and excites so much our feelings that we shall never cease to celebrate it, and regret that we are not acquainted with the names of all those who fell in that fort, that we might publish them, and thus consecrate to future ages the memory of our heroes who perished at the Thermopylae of Texas.22

  The press and the public dissected the lives and deaths of the principal players, including Crockett. Even his estranged wife, Elizabeth, and his family back in Tennessee could not grasp the fact that this seemingly invulnerable frontiersman was dead. He had fooled death too many times in the past. Not until several months after the fall of the Alamo did Elizabeth know for sure that her husband would never again walk through the cabin door. She was convinced when a parcel was delivered to her home. Inside was Crockett’s watch, the one he sold for thirty dollars to help with costs during his trek to Texas. There was also a letter to Elizabeth from Isaac Jones, the man who had purchased the timepiece.