 | "Storybooks
say they were all cut low, But the truth of it is it just ain't so! Their spirits a-live and their legends grow, As long as we remember the Alamo. Davy -- Davy Crockett, The man who don't know fear! Davy -- Davy Crockett, King of the wild frontier!"* |
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AFTERMATH
(King of the "New Frontier")
"Poor
Davey Crockett! -- We lament the fate of the sick Bowie -- we feel sad and
angry, by turns, when we think of the butchery of the gallant Travis -- but there
is something in the untimely end of the poor Tennessean that almost wrings a tear
from us. It is too bad -- by all that is good, it is too bad. The quaint, the
laughter-moving, but the fearless upright Crockett, to be butchered by such a
wretch as Santa Anna -- it is not to be borne!"
--The Natchez Courier
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Elizabeth learns of David's enlistment and death on the same day, two weeks after the siege is over. Although distant from David and resistant to the idea of a move to Texas during his lifetime, she then accepts a full soldier's pension and 1,280 acres from David's estate in Texas, and wears widow's black until her death in 1860 -- faithful to the legend as well as the man. She is awarded $24 for his death at the Alamo (see claim at right).
Six weeks after David's death, Santa Anna's army is routed by the Texans at San Jacinto. Apparently not buying into his own "fight or die" rhetoric, Santa Anna dons the uniform of a common soldier in order to escape. He is rounded up with other prisoners and brought back to the Texas camp. His disguise almost works, until the other prisoners see him and begin chanting, "El Presidente" as he rides up.
Caught, the "Napoleon of the West," who gave no quarter and executed all prisoners, signs over Texas to Sam Houston in exchange for his life. Ironically, the victory also opens the door for David's most hated enemy, President Andrew Jackson, to fulfill his dream of capturing Texas as a state.
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Some say Travis and Crockett hid under mattresses together, and Travis even offered money in exchange for his life but was executed. One report claims that the bed-ridden Bowie was thrown onto the burning funeral pyre while still alive.
The imprisoned General Cós tells Dr. George Patrick that Crockett survived the battle. According to Cós, Crockett had locked himself in one of the rooms of the barracks. When the Mexican soldiers discovered him, Crockett explained that he was on a visit and "had accidentally got caught in the Alamo after it was too late to escape." Cós further said that Crockett wanted him to intercede with Santa Anna, asking for mercy, which Cós agreed to do--only Santa Anna had ordered "no quarter" and was incensed at such a request. The Mexican leader refused to spare Crockett's life.
Much the same story appears later, when the diary of Lt. Col. José Enrique de la Peña is published in Mexico City -- only in this version David surrenders to General Manuel Castrillón. (For more accounts of David's death, click here.) (It should be noted for angry Davy-fans that these stories were not meant to make David look cowardly -- they were meant to make Santa Anna look bad. General Cós was a prisoner of war when he told his story, and José Enrique de la Peña was in a Mexican prison when he wrote his memoirs . . . And up until the 1950's, David's surrender was well-discussed -- it was recounted in many newspapers in 1836, as well as in "Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas" -- a book supposedly written by David and published after his death at the battle of the Alamo. In fact, the above illustration is from Scribner's edition of David's autobiography -- published in 1924!)
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In 1841, David's son, John Wesley, is elected to Congress. Calling on the memory of his father, John Wesley finally passes the land bill, completing David's dream. (It became what is now known as the Homestead Act.) He tells Congress:
"You have doubtless seen the account of my father's fall at the Alamo in Texas. He is gone from among us, and is no more to be seen in the walks of men, but in his death like Sampson, he slew more of his enemies than in all of his life. Even his most bitter enemies here, I believe, have buried all animosity, and joined the general lamentation over his untimely end."
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Still, the rumors persist, if only as bedtime stories. At left is a lithograph of David, supposedly drawn on his 99th birthday, by Louis Mauer.
So, as it turns out, the big winner in the posterity sweepstakes after the battle for Texas is David Crockett. Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, and even Tennessee, the state that rejected him, now praise him as their native son.
 "Do you see what that cow has just let drop? It ar not honey or apple sarse, ar it? Now if you don't sit down and eat every atom of it, I'll make daylight shine through you quicker than it would take lightning to run round a potato patch."-- Davy makes a squatter eat a cow pie in the 1839 Crockett Almanac. |
"Everything here is Davy Crockett. He was a member of Congress. His voice was so rough it could not be described -- it was obliged to be drawn as a picture. He took hailstones for "Life Pills" when he was unwell -- he picked his teeth with a pitchfork -- combed his hair with a rake -- fanned himself with a hurricane, wore a cast-iron shirt, and drank nothing but creosote and aquafortis.... He could whip his weight in wildcats -- drink the Mississippi dry -- shoot six cord of bear in one day -- and, as his countrymen say of themselves, he could jump higher, dive deeper, and come up dryer than anyone else.... he could slide down the slippery end of a rainbow, and was half-horse, half alligator and a bit of snapping turtle."
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Each generation has pulled from David the part of him that defines their time, and so David's legend is constantly evolving: He becomes the racist, expansionist Crockett of the late 1800's; the romantic hero of the early 1900's; the Disney-ized patriotic hero of the 50's (so popular that it can be argued that Davy is now a bigger 1950s icon than a 19th Century one); John Wayne's Cold Warrior of the Sixties; the back-to-nature-child-of-the-Earth-can-talk-to-the-animals woodsman of the 1980's (okay, it was a bad TV series by Disney that nobody watched); in 2004, a wizened old bear-hunter and yarn spinning publicity whore played by Billy Bob Thornton; and finally, the man we have uncovered here.
All in all, that's a pretty good run for a poor, illiterate farmer from the backwoods of Tennessee.
Books,
films, links ..... Main Page
Top photo: The Alamo at daybreak on the morning of March 6, 2007, exactly 171 years after the battle. The tributes on the front lawn include a yellow wreath from the descendants of David. Bottom: The official Davy Crockett stamp -- lick it like fine salt!
In
the end, the man who was dwarfed by his legend in his own lifetime finally lived
up to that legend -- and even surpassed it with his bravery and heroism. And
because of that heroism, he went from being the most popular humorist of his day
to something much greater -- an American icon, that each generation reinterprets
and celebrates. He is defined by his victories and his failures . . . as
well as ours as we reinvent him with each new generation.
By
dying in another country as a citizen of a new republic, David ironically became
the ultimate symbol of the United States, exhorting us to "go ahead."
He is at once both who we are, who we wish we could become. (And, for revisionist
historians, he is the embodiment of expansionist rhetoric.)
In
that respect, he has become something that his legend could never hope to be.
Because while the legend can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a
streak of lightning, and whip his weight in wildcats, he can't break your heart.
That has to be left to the real heroes -- human beings who can triumph,
fail, and make you identify. Someone who you care about -- and David Crockett
is certainly that.
*
The Ballad of Davy Crockett, by Tom Blackburn; Music by George Bruns. Copyright
1954 Wonderland Music Co., Inc.
Music: "Exit Music," from "The Alamo" (1960) by Dimitri Tiomkin.