On to the Alamo

3 Austin. Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) was the son of Moses Austin (1761-1821) and the heir to a grant of 66,000 acres of land in Texas, then under Mexican control. Attempting to fulfill the proviso that the land be colonized by three hundred families, in 1822 Austin set up a trading center that became the town bearing his name. He was in effect the ruler and chief empresario (colonial leader) of Texas, which greatly prospered under his leadership. Although opposed to the idea of Texas independence, in 1833 he traveled to Mexico City to negotiate the separation of Texas from the state of Coahuila, which was regarded by the Mexican government as a veiled attempt to annex Texas to the United States. Austin was jailed without trial until his release in 1835, when he returned to Texas and joined the revolution against Mexico. In 1836 he was defeated in the presidential election held in the now-independent republic of Texas by Sam Houston, but having successfully obtained U.S. support for Texan independence, he served as the president’s secretary of state until his death.

4 General Castrillon. D. Manuel Fernandez Castrillon was in command of one of four “columns” under the command of General Santa Anna organized to attack the Alamo. In one version of Crockett’s death (included in Smith’s narrative) he is credited with having asked Santa Anna that the brave American not be executed. Castrillon was later killed in the decisive battle of San Jacinto. The story of the twice-recovered diary is of course a fiction.

5 Charles T. Beale / Alex J. Dumas. These are fictitious names, part of Smith’s complex hoax. As an author familiar with French drama, Smith undoubtedly knew of Alexandre Dumas (père), well known in France by 1836 as a writer of melodramatic historical plays, and by 1844 famous in America as the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. But knowing that Dumas’s name would mean nothing to his probable audience, Smith was having a little joke, suggesting the sophistication and subtlety of the hoaxer.

1 go ahead. The first allusion in Smith’s narrative to Crockett’s famous motto, “Be sure you are right, then go ahead,” but by no means the last.

2 Major Jack Downing. Satiric persona invented by the Maine newspaper publisher Seba Smith (1792-1868) and later taken over by the anti-Jacksonian journalist Charles A. Davis. (See Introduction.)

3 Post Office . . . public lands. Policy matters on which Crockett differed with the Jackson administration. (See Introduction.)

4 Little Flying Dutchman. Derogatory reference to the ancestry, physical stature, and character of Martin Van Buren (1782- 1862), a powerful Democratic politician. Former senator from New York and governor of that state, he was Jackson’s secretary of state before becoming, in 1833, his vice president. Elected president in 1836 (after Crockett’s death), defeated in the election of 1840 by the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, his antislavery sentiments eventually led to Van Buren’s departure from the Democratic party.

5 “the greatest and the best.” Sarcastic reference to President Andrew Jackson.

6 “the Government.” Epithet frequently used by Crockett for President Jackson, a reference to his absolute power, evinced by his removal of government funds (“deposites”) from Biddle’s National Bank. (See Introduction.)

7 Adam Huntsman. Tennessee lawyer and democratic politician, who under the pen name “Black Hawk” published a satiric, pseudo-biblical “Chronicles” in 1833 that impugned Crockett’s motives regarding the Land Bill. He defeated Crockett in the congressional election of 1835. (See Shackford, 139-40.)

8 the Hero. Andrew Jackson, also called “the monster” below.

9 Sam Patch. Native of Pawtucket, R.I. (c. 1807-1827), who gained notoriety by leaping into rivers from great heights until his death from same. (See Introduction.)

10 Job Snelling. The cunning Yankee was by 1836 becoming a comic stereotype, thanks in part to sketches like this, inspired by similar anecdotes in Matthew St. Clair Clarke’s Life and Adventures of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee (1833).

1 governor Carroll. William Carroll (1788-1844), Democratic politician and hero of the War of 1812, was governor of Tennessee, 1821-1827 and 1829-1835, and a prominent supporter of Andrew Jackson. The substance of the pages that follow was taken, often verbatim, from a letter from Crockett to Carey and Hart written after his defeat in the election of 1835. (See Shackford, 205-06.)

2 Governor Poindexter. George Poindexter (1779-1835) was a prominent Mississippi Democratic politician who was briefly governor of his state (1820-1821), hence his title here, but was more importantly a U.S. senator from 1830 to 1835, and like Crockett a frequent critic of President Jackson.

3 Globe. The Washington Daily Globe was edited by Francis P. Blair (1791-1876) from 1830-1845, and was a stalwart Democratic organ, founded by President Jackson. Blair originated the phrase “the democracy” in reference to Jackson’s administration. (Cf. Crockett’s “the Government.”)

4 Fitzgerald. William Fitzgerald defeated Crockett in the congressional election of 1831.

5 Grundy. Felix Grundy (1777-1840) was a distinguished lawyer and Democratic politician from Tennessee. Serving in the U.S. Congress from 1811 to 1815, he was by 1836 a U.S. senator who was often at odds with President Jackson but a party loyalist nonetheless. Still, he was hardly “the General’s pet.”

6 show them the White feather. The presence of a white feather in the tail of a fighting cock (cf. “game cock” above) was taken as a sign of inferior breeding and therefore indicated a lack of courage.

7 “occupation’s gone.” Othello, III, 3, line 357.

8 Webster, Clay, and myself. Smith here is placing Crockett in distinguished company. Daniel Webster (1782-1852) and Henry Clay (1777-1852) were the most powerful Whigs of their day. They were frequently thought of (by themselves as well as others) as potential presidential candidates, and Clay was nominated by the anti-Jackson party as its candidate in 1831, but was badly beaten in the election of 1832. He thenceforth became a ferocious senatorial adversary of Jackson’s policies, mounting attacks tantamount to harassment and taking positions pretty much echoed by Colonel Crockett.

9 Flemish account. One showing a deficit.

10 M’Adamized road. A pavement made up of crushed stone rolled over with great pressure, hence smooth, the invention of J. L. McAdam (1756-1836). Perhaps also a punning reference to Crockett’s opponent in the election of 1835, Adam Huntsman.

11 Peleg Longfellow. The reference would seem to be to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), who within a decade would emerge as America’s most popular poet, but who in 1836 was (like Alexandre Dumas) an unknown quantity in the United States, having just returned from Germany to assume a professorship of modern literature at Harvard. The reference is even more intriguing if one realizes that Longfellow’s maternal grandfather was Peleg Wadsworth (1748-1829), a brigadier general in the American Revolution.

12 carrier’s address. Generally a poem printed on a single sheet of paper, called a “broadside,” which was purportedly addressed by a newsboy (“carrier”) to his customers at Christmastime in hopes of receiving a cash present. These ephemeral productions were hardly prestigious works, though they are interesting aspects of American popular culture. As an aspiring poet, Smith was familiar with such matters (and perhaps knew of Longfellow’s early work for magazines as well). What follows next is clearly a demonstration of his own talents and should have tipped off the reader early on that the Exploits were spurious, for Colonel Crockett never revealed a talent or taste for poetry.

1 promised . . . freedom. As Shackford tells us, at the start of his trip to Texas Crockett was concerned only with locating a promising site for his new farm, planning to be joined there by his family as soon as he was established.

2 tortled. Adapted from “tortile,” an adjective meaning twisted or winding, suggesting here a circuitous hence slow passage.

3 Biddle. Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844), here joined to Webster and Clay as a prominent Whig, was an accomplished scholar and statesman who in 1822 became president of the second National Bank of the United States, and was the target of the Jackson administration’s attack on that institution. (See Introduction.)

4 Betsey. Smith is confused here. Named for his wife, Elizabeth, Crockett’s favorite rifle, described by Clarke’s Life in 1833, was not the one given him by the “Young Whigs” of Philadelphia on Independence Day in 1834, which was left at home when he departed for Texas. (cf. note to p. 27, below)

5 came to a clearing. The anecdote that follows was taken from a sketch in A. B. Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes (1835). Titled “Georgia Theatrics,” it was according to James D. Hart’s Oxford Companion to American Literature (1941 ed.) “used in Crockett’s Autobiography, ” when it is presumably this book that was meant.

6 some things can be done as well as others. Another reference to Sam Patch’s boast.

7 Benton. Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858) was a prominent Missouri statesman; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1820, he remained in that body for thirty years. In the 1830s he was a spokesman in the Senate for Jackson’s administration and supported the president’s attack on the National Bank. He was nicknamed “Old Bullion” because of his ardent support of hard (gold and silver) currency, to which further mention is made below.

8 Isaac Hill. Hill (1789-1851), another supporter of Jackson, was a Democratic senator from New Hampshire from 1831 to 1836, when he became governor of that state until 1839.

9 Dick Johnson. Richard M. Johnson (1780-1850) was a Democrat from Kentucky, a hero of the War of 1812 (credited with killing Tecumseh), and a member of Congress who was a close friend of President Jackson. He supported his positions even when disagreeing with them—as in the president’s attack on the bank. He was rewarded by Jackson by being chosen as Van Buren’s running mate in the election of 1837. The “wool grower” tag is a reference to the fact that Johnson, who never married, had two children by Julia Chinn, a mulatto he inherited from his father’s estate; after her death he consorted, sequentially, with two mulatto (“high yellow”) sisters.

10 Lieut. Randolph. In 1833, while reading a newspaper aboard a steamboat bound for Fredricksburg, Virginia, the president was suddenly struck in the face by Robert B. Randolph, a former navy lieutenant who had been dismissed from the service for theft, on Jackson’s orders. Trapped between a table and his chair, Jackson could not rise to defend himself. Randolph was arrested and brought to trial, but the general (by then returned to private life) asked Van Buren to pardon his assailant. This was the first time in U.S. history that a president had been physically attacked and the incident suggested the vast changes affecting the republic at large. (See Remini, 252-53.)

11 slang-whang. Colloquial, often abusive speechifying. (See also p. 48.)

1 took a horn. Probably colloquial but perhaps a literal reference to a drinking horn.

2 Dick Johnson . . . darkie. See note to page 21, above.

3 forgave Colonel Benton. Refers to a violent brawl in 1813 involving Thomas Hart Benton, his brother, Jesse, and General Jackson, which left the Hero of New Orleans badly wounded and the Benton brothers in danger of their lives in Nashville, from which they soon departed. In 1823, when Benton (then a resident of Missouri) and Jackson served together in the U.S. Senate, they resolved their past differences with a handshake. (See Remini, 69-71.)

4 When it came to my turn. In Fenimore Cooper’s The Pathfinder, Leatherstocking actually succeeds in firing a bullet so that it lands on top of one previously fired at a target. Cooper borrowed the feat from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, where an arrow splits another already in the bullseye. By contrast, Crockett’s trick is a variation of the shell game, in which the gambler palms a pea so that the shell selected by the unsuspecting dupe is shown to be empty. (See below, p. 43.) But the resemblance between the two episodes is suggestive. Notably, Mark Twain included the unlikely display of Leatherstocking’s marksmanship in “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.”

5 And this is fame! “Such is fame” was the epitaph on Sam Patch’s wooden grave marker. The reference here, however, is to the dubious medium by which the landlord “handed his name to posterity,” the “lasting columns” of a local newspaper, suggesting that fame is a sometime thing. As I have already suggested, Crockett’s “fame,” like that of Sam Patch, was the kind of notoriety associated with temporal celebrity. Smith, a former editor himself, is suggesting that newspapers serve the moment only and are of the essence of ephemerality. The same holds for the almanacs that helped create “Davy” Crockett.

6 heir presumptive. Martin Van Buren. In a democratic society there is no “heir presumptive,” so this is another jibe at “King Andrew.”

7 “the times that tried men’s souls.” Echoes the famous words that open Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis, the first number of which was published in December 1776, when the fortunes of the new nation were bleak. Paine’s pamphlet was intended to arouse enthusiasm for the Revolution and so impressed George Washington that he had it read to his troops. But here Paine’s stirring words are so much generated by self-serving politicians, an expression of Crockett’s bitterness regarding Jacksonian democracy.

8 nem.con. Abbreviation for nemine contradicente, Latin for “no one contradicting,” a parliamentary usage meaning “passed unanimously.”

9 half horse half alligator breed. A humorous epithet of obscure origins used to describe the wilder elements of the western population; usually found along rivers, specifically the Mississippi, these roughnecks were in essence amphibious, hence the implication. The expression was made popular by Samuel Woodworth’s poem (as set to music), “The Hunters of Kentucky” (1818), celebrating the victory by frontiersmen over the British at New Orleans, and appears as well in Paulding’s play inspired by Crockett, The Lion of the West.

1 all bountiful Providence. This sermonette by the “parson” contains pious sentiments seldom if ever expressed by the “real” David Crockett, and like the character of the “old gentleman” are intended to increase the sentimental burden of the narrative, one more indication of the increasing imposition of Smith’s sensibility on the story.

2 Temperance society. The enthusiasm for total abstinence from “spirituous” drink was widespread in the 1830s, thanks to the missionary activities of the American Temperance Society. Crockett was inclined otherwise, as evidenced by his willingness to distribute liquor to voters and his fondness for taking a “horn” or two on social occasions. The parson’s joining him in taking a drink is evidence that he is no narrow-minded killjoy, that despite his piousness he is a regular fellow.

3 cutest clerk. Not a reference to the person’s physical attractiveness but a common abbreviation for “acute,” meaning sharply intelligent, even cunning.

4 following conversation. What follows is a demonstration of the stereotyped Yankee’s garrulous curiosity, which inspires the westerner’s stereotyped taciturnity.

5 slapsus slinkum. Malapropism for lapsus linguae, meaning a slip of the tongue. The mistake indicates the pretentiousness of the ignorant Yankee (cf. “detentive” above where “retentive” is meant).

1 blackleg. A swindler.

2 thimblerig. A game in which three downturned small cups (thimbles) are used, under one of which a pea is placed. The gambler swiftly switches the cups about on a table or board, then asks the player to choose the one containing the pea. If the player chooses the right one, the gambler palms the pea as he lifts the cup. Also called a “shell game,” it is here used to discount the reputation of Martin Van Buren, accused of swindling the American people.

3 “whole hog.” To go the whole way. The thimblerigger later becomes drunk, and his claim of being a temperance man is intended to convince Crockett that he is highly moral and honest.

4 Lynched. The world is capitalized here because it was derived from the name of Charles Lynch (1736-1796), a justice of the peace in Virginia who permitted the suspension of due process by mobs seeking to punish accused Tories during the Revolution. The practice spread to the frontier, where formal legal systems were weak and slow to act, and juries often returned judgments deemed insufficiently severe by the populace. Thimblerig later (pp. 55-57) renders an account of one such episode in Natchez. During Reconstruction, lynching was used in the South as an instrument to repress the civil rights of African Americans, while at the same time it was being practiced in the cattle country of the far West as a response to lawlessness, especially rustling.

In the 1830s and 1840s, abolitionists who expressed anti-slavery opinions in the deep South could expect rough treatment by mobs, explaining Crockett’s equivocation in that regard. One solution to the slavery problem was put forward by the American Colonization Society, which recommended that freed slaves be sent to Africa, where they could serve as missionaries. This resulted in the creation of the country of Liberia. But ultra-abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison were adamantly opposed to this rival movement, which they saw as a very imperfect solution to the problem. And in the deep South, as Crockett’s demurrer suggests, slavery was not regarded as a problem but a solution. The historic David Crockett owned a few slaves but while siding with the Cherokees against Jackson’s removal bill, which he regarded as unjust, seems to have had no opinions on the slavery issue.

5 Judge White. Hugh Lawson White (1773-1841), a jurist, banker, and Democratic senator from Tennessee (1825-1840). He backed Jackson’s Indian removal policy, but eventually broke with the president and became the Whig candidate in the presidential campaign of 1836 against Van Buren with John Tyler as his running mate.

6 Old Tippecanoe. Refers to William Henry Harrison, yet another veteran-hero of frontier battles in the War of 1812 (though the one for which he was named occurred in 1811, against the confederated tribes led by Tecumseh). Nominated by the Anti-Masonic party for president in 1835, he made such a surprising showing in 1836 that he was chosen by the Whigs (over Henry Clay) as their candidate in 1840. Armed with a log cabin as a symbol and the slogan “Tippecanoe and [ John] Tyler too,” and dispensing large quantities of hard cider, the Whigs handily defeated Van Buren, characterized as a tool of eastern elites.

7 blunt. Slang for money, presumably in reference to coins, which have a round edge, hence blunt.

8 He talked loud. We hear more about this loud-mouthed Democrat later (pp. 61-66).

9 Mr. Clinton. DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), famous for his support of the Erie Canal while governor of New York (1817-1823 and 1825-1828), had a very complex political record, typical of the tangled loyalties during a period when the Jefferson Republicans were in power and the Federalist party was in decline. Nominally a Republican, Clinton (then mayor of New York City) allowed himself to be considered for nomination by the Federalists as their presidential candidate for the election of 1812, on the basis of his opposition to the war with Great Britain, even though he had already been nominated by the Republicans of the state legislature in Albany. Clinton ran against James Madison and lost, and by changing parties he lost his credibility and was removed in 1815 as New York’s mayor.

Van Buren, a Republican who by 1812 had already gained a well-warranted reputation for political shiftiness, backed Clinton. He further demonstrated his hostility to President Madison’s policies in 1813 when, as a member of the New York state legislature, he voted for Rufus King (1755-1827) for the U.S. Senate. King was a Federalist who was also opposed to the war with Great Britain—as were many New Yorkers—because of its negative impact on international trade. In 1836, these actions were hauled up by the Whigs (many of whom were former Federalists who had opposed the War of 1812) as evidence that Van Buren was a sunshine patriot opposed to the nation’s best interests, which Smith’s Crockett identifies with the war against Great Britain. But as this same speech reveals, his hostility to Van Buren was chiefly based on the New York senator’s opposition to measures favored by western residents.

10 wrote his life. The foregoing attack on Van Buren sums up the materials and tone of the biography of the vice president written over Crockett’s name in 1835. (See Introduction.)

1 frog in the fable. Aesop’s fable about a frog, who, hearing an admiring description of a large bull, attempts to swell up to comparable size and explodes.

2 Johnson’s wife. See note to p. 21, above. “Figuring” suggests “making a figure,” that is, to become prominent in Washington society.

3 “pump upon me.” That is, to be held under a pump and doused with water. See p. 66 below for a dramatic example of this punishment.

4 Natchez under the hill. Located on low ground and providing a landing place on the Mississippi, this was a community notorious in its day for gambling dens, saloons, and bawdy houses, catering to the crews of river craft.

5 leg bail. Leaving town so as to avoid being arrested.

6 “yellow boys . . . Benton’s mintage.” “Yellow boys” is slang for gold coins, hence the reference to Benton, but here it is mulatto children that are meant. (See Introduction and p. 62 below.)

7 “Lynchers.” See note to page 45, above.

1 The evening preceding . . . put in circulation. This anecdote is intended to be humorous, but is akin to Mark Twain’s remark about the woman who was relieved when her child was born white, being both misogynistic and miscegenational. As we have already learned, the gentleman duped into passing the woman off as his wife, presumably in hopes of sexual favors, is a Jacksonian Democrat.

2 a tall figure. We are introduced here to Edward, the Bee hunter, who will accompany Crockett and Thimblerig to the Alamo. Unlike the rascally but humorous gambler, he is a stalwart frontiersman, and with his love of song, a romantic creation, as opposed to the picaresque Thimblerig. Expressing the poetic sensibility of Smith, he was undoubtedly borrowed from Cooper’s Paul Hover in The Prairie (see Introduction). A courageous, forthright representative of the common man, he faces down the blustering, bullying Jacksonian, and in effect is a cosmeticized Crockett.

3 cucumber blooded. Cf. “cool as a cucumber.”

4 honey trees are abundant in Texas. In his last surviving letter home, Crockett describes the Red River region as the place where he hopes to settle, having fertile soil, good hunting, “and bees and honey plenty” (Shackford, 214-15).

1 heard the Woods sing. I have not been able to identify this reference. There was a well-known minstrel company organized by Henry Wood in the 1840s, advertised as “Woods Minstrels,” but such groups did not exist in 1836.

2 Jim Crow. Refers to the entertainer, Thomas Rice (1808-1860), credited with fathering the American minstrel show. In Louisville, Kentucky, in 1828, Rice introduced a song of this title to which he added a grotesque dance keyed by the words “Ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.” By 1836, Rice and his song had become universally acclaimed, and he had performed in New York, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia, most often between the acts of comic dramas. As with “Crockett’s” allusions to Sam Patch, Smith’s tribute to Rice is an example of the extent to which he was aware of the popular culture of his day.

3 “Andrew Tumlinson.” What follows is an incident typical of the Indian-hater type, yet another aspect of frontier myth, and the subject of Robert M. Bird’s sensational novel, Nick of the Woods (1837). As Richard Slotkin tells us, James Hall’s Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West, published in 1835, gives an account of Colonel John Moredock, a “classic sketch of the ‘Indian Hater’ . . . [and] a well-known and frequently reprinted piece of Frontier history and legend” (Fatal Environment, pp. 129-30). Here again, we find Smith working into his narrative folkloric aspects of western life, in effect bolstering Crockett’s mythic status.

4 Caddo. Member of a confederated tribe of Native Americans, found throughout southern Louisiana and Texas. They were not a particularly warlike people, so that the behavior of the Caddo in question, if the anecdote is true, was not typical.

5 “What did he do that made him leave home?” During the early days of Texas settlement, as the Bee hunter suggests, it was considered rude—even fatal—to ask this question, given the often unsavory backgrounds of people who had left the East for that region in the hope of beginning their lives anew.

6 Vicksburg hat. The description defines the article in question. Mitford M. Mathews, in his Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principals (1951), quotes a similar passage (p. 133) in this book as his only source.

7 lazo. More properly “lasso,” as on p. 92 following.

8 “grin down.” So ferocious was Crockett’s grin in the mythic version that it had the power to destroy as well as kill. Shackford quotes an anecdote credited to Matthew St. Clair Clarke, author of the Life of Crockett, in which the redoubtable colonel, during a visit to a zoo, threatens to grin two hyenas to death and declares himself willing to take on a lion (Shackford, 259-60). In Clarke’s Life the hyenas became wildcats, and Crockett tells the story of his attempt to “grin” a raccoon out of a tree, but the object in question turns out to be a great knot in a limb that loses its bark from the intensity of his effort. This is the sort of thing that inspired the almanac version of “Davy” Crockett.

1 ruling passion. An overwhelming desire for a particular activity that cannot be controlled, this was an eighteenth-century concept associated with the poetry of Alexander Pope: “The ruling passion, be it what it will, / The ruling passion conquers reason still” (Moral Essays, Epistle I). Crockett’s love of hunting may be attributed in part to the need of keeping his family in food, but certainly his autobiography is filled with stories about the many bears and deer he has killed. There is no account of a buffalo hunt on his trip through Texas in the slim factual record, but what follows on pp. 83-84 is an acceptable transliteration of Crockett’s stories of bear hunting, including his encounter with one resembling a very large black bull.

2 dressed in a sailor’s round jacket. Another fictional invention, the pirate who joins Crockett’s party helps round out the cast of American types. In the almanacs, Crockett will be given a boon companion, Ben Hardin, an old salt who seems out of place on the Mississippi River.

3 Lafitte. Jean Lafitte (c. 1780-c. 1826), French-born freebooter who headed a gang of pirates operating out of Barataria Bay in Louisiana and who assisted the Americans in defeating the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Lafitte subsequently moved his operation to Galveston, then still under Spanish rule.

4 hunter belonging to a settler. This is the only mention in Smith’s narrative of slavery in Texas. In fact, in order to bypass the Mexican law against slavery, American settlers freed their human property, then immediately converted them to indentured servants.

5 Post office accounts. See Introduction.

6 Benton’s mint drops. Another slighting reference to the senator’s preference for hard currency, with a pun on “mint.”

7 John Gilpin’s celebrated ride. In William Cowper’s comic poem, first published in 1785, a linen-draper takes an involuntary gallop on a borrowed horse from London to Ware and back again: “Now let us sing—Long live the king, / And Gilpin long live he; / And when he next doth ride abroad, / May I be there to see!”

8 “race is not always . . .” Ecclesiastes 9:11.

1 fifty mounted Cumanches. Shackford (p. 215) tells us when Crockett was on the trail in Texas, heading toward the south-west, he was warned that the Comanches were on the warpath, and changed his route accordingly. Smith, however, adds further color to his narrative by including this Cooper-like episode.

2 Bexar. The full name of San Antonio was San Antonio de Bexar (Spanish: “Bejar”). See p. 98, below.

3 Bowie knife. First fashioned by the brother of Colonel James Bowie, another of the Alamo heroes, these awesome weapons were called “Arkansaw tooth-picks.”

4 Philip Hone, Esq. Hone (1780-1851) was a wealthy and affable Whig activist and mayor of New York City (1825), but is chiefly known for his extensive secret diary covering the years 1828 to 1851.

5 Plucking pigeons. That is, the gambler is skilled at skinning suckers.

6 Burnet’s Grant. Large tract of land settled by the American empresario David G. Burnet under the terms of the Mexican colonization law of 1825. It lay to the northeast of San Antonio and was bisected by the Trinity River. It is details like this that gave credibility to Smith’s narrative.

7 fortress of Alamo. The modern-day Alamo is represented by the mission chapel built in 1756 that by 1836 had fallen into ruins, thanks in no small part to the damage caused by the American rebels the year before. At the time of the attack by the Mexican army the fort itself was of considerable size, surrounded by a thick wall (hastily repaired in anticipation of the Mexican attack) and barrack buildings, and the chapel occupied a only a small space in the southeast corner. The “independent flag” is another of Smith’s embellishments. According to Albert Nofi, “there may have been at least four flags in use at the Alamo,” none of which was the one bearing the familiar lone star (p. 110, below), another matter that “remains unresolved” (Nofi, 129).

1 revolution in 1812. Refers to the start of the long struggle for Mexican independence from Spain.

2 Colonel Travis. William B. Travis (1809-1836) was a native of South Carolina practicing law in Texas when, opposing Mexican rule, in 1835 he led a company of volunteers and successfully attacked the fort at Anahuac, recently garrisoned by the Mexican government as a gesture of its authority over increasingly restive settlers. Though many Americans in Texas disavowed this action, it in effect was the start of the revolution against Mexican rule. Once the revolution proper began, Travis was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of cavalry and ordered to assume joint command of the fort with Colonel James Bowie. Twenty-seven years old at the time, Travis was a handsome, charismatic leader, who apparently deserved Smith’s epithet, “gallant.”

3 Santa Anna. Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876), a career soldier and politician, was born in Vera Cruz, the province that he governed after Mexico overturned Spanish rule in 1821. He was instrumental in making his country a federal republic, but in 1832, having led a successful revolt against President Bustamante, Santa Anna abolished the federal constitution and declared himself dictator. Although he commenced his political career as a liberal, he now pursued a reactionary policy, including the establishment of Mexican garrisons in Texas, a step that only strengthened the colonists’ resolve to gain full independence. (See Smith’s account, pp. 101-105 below).

Following the surrender of the fort at Anahuac and the fall of the garrison at San Antonio (see next note), Santa Anna led a large army north with the intent of quelling the American revolt. Victorious at the Alamo and Goliad, he was defeated by Sam Houston at the battle for San Jacinto, and though his conduct of the campaign warranted his execution, Santa Anna was set free on the condition that, as dictator of Mexico, he would use his influence to guarantee Texan independence. During this period, he traveled to Washington and paid a visit to Andrew Jackson, who was impressed by the bearing, dress, and suave manner of his fellow general-president. Santa Anna was likewise impressed by Jackson, but proved to be a slippery negotiator regarding the extension of the U.S. border to include what had been Mexican territory. Despite his dictatorial status, the general deferred to the power of the Mexican congress, which, after Santa Anna’s return (facilitated by a U.S. warship), refused the surrender of Texas on any terms. (See Remini, 312-13.)

For a time Santa Anna retreated to his Santa Cruz estate, but when the province was attacked by the French in 1838, he was instrumental in its defense, exhibiting (as always) great courage and suffering the loss of a leg. In 1844 he once again became dictator of Mexico, was overthrown in 1845, and sought refuge in Cuba until 1846. He was then recalled to command the forces defending Mexico against the invading American army, hostilities attending the formal annexation by the United States of Texas, still regarded by the Mexican government as its property. He was defeated at the Battle of Buena Vista in 1847 by General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), resulting in a return to exile for Santa Anna and the successful candidacy for president of Taylor in 1848, in the grand Whig tradition of nominating old generals for that office.

In 1853 Santa Anna was brought back to Mexico and was given the title Serene Highness, signaling his appointment as president for life, an office that ended in 1855, though Santa Anna lived on for another twenty years, seeking through various means to regain power, whether legitimately or by revolution. Eventually he was able to return to Mexico, having been granted amnesty on the grounds that he was too old to pose a threat to the then and future governments. He died in obscurity in 1876.

A thorough account of Santa Anna’s political and military career would occupy several more pages, for he seems to have combined the political agility of Van Buren with the autocratic personality and military bravado of Andrew Jackson, to which must be added an extra measure of arrogance and pride. Though Santa Anna was fully justified in his invasion of Texas, which was still Mexican territory, his merciless cruelty at the Alamo and Goliad served to arouse the patriotism of all Americans, eventually contributing to his defeat and capture at the battle of San Jacinto. Whatever the consequences of his several adventures and administrations for Mexico, it must be said that he had a powerful influence on Texan and U.S. affairs, though much different from that which he intended. Certainly it can be said that without Santa Anna there would never have been a mythic Davy Crockett. For a succinct account of the Mexican general’s own “legend,” including the inspiration for the minstrel song, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” see Nofi, 160-65.

4 General Burlison. Edward Burleson (1798-1851) was a native of North Carolina who as the text states was the victorious commander of the attack on San Antonio in 1835; he subsequently fought at the battle for San Jacinto, became a state senator in 1836, and was elected vice president of the Texas republic in 1841.

5 Colonel Milam. Benjamin F. Milam (1791-1835), Texas pioneer and surveyor, led the successful attack on the Mexican garrison at Goliad a week after the revolution had begun. Later, he figured in the week-long siege of the garrison at San Antonio that ended with the surrender of the Mexican defenders. “Old Ben,” age forty-four, died in the battle and is honored with a square named after him and a larger-than-life-size statue placed therein.

6 General Cos. Martin Perfect de Cos, having fought for Mexican independence, and having married Santa Anna’s sister, was advanced to the rank of brigadier general and assigned the military and political command of Texas, a rank and responsibility “for which he was wholly unsuited” (Nofi, 28). General Cos, despite the terms of surrender, participated in the siege of the Alamo, commanding the First Column of Santa Anna’s army.

7 Morales. Like General Cos, Colonel Juan Morales, commander of the San Luis Potosi Battalion, participated in Santa Anna’s attack on the Alamo.

8 General Ugartechea. Domingo de Ugartechea was in command of the Mexicans at Fort Velasco, and having refused to allow the Texan rebels free passage on the Brazos River with artillery for the siege of Anahuac, was himself attacked shortly thereafter and after eleven hours of fighting surrendered his garrison.

9 Colonel Bowie. James Bowie (1796-1836), one of the three immortals associated with the defense of the Alamo, is perhaps best remembered for the large knife of his brother’s invention. Born in Tennessee, raised in Louisiana, Bowie settled in San Antonio in 1828, becoming a citizen of Mexico, a Roman Catholic, and the husband of Maria de Veramendi, daughter of a prominent Mexican family. He had already made a fortune in the slave trade, had a dubious reputation for crooked land deals, and after the death of his wife, in 1832, he allied himself with the revolutionary element. In 1836, he was in joint command with Travis of the American garrison at the Alamo, but by the time of the Mexican attack, was bedridden with typhoid fever. According to the legend propagated by Smith’s account (among others), the colonel was armed with loaded pistols, firing them at the soldiers as they came through the door before being killed, but by all dependable accounts, he was already near death before Santa Anna’s men arrived.

10 Mina. In 1816, Francisco Xavier Mina joined Don Luis Aury, another soldier of fortune and filibuster, at Galveston, which was being used by Aury as a base for ships attacking the Spanish merchant fleet. Seeking to gain advantage during Mexico’s ongoing war of independence from Spain, they planned an invasion of the Mexican coast, but the two leaders quarreled, and Aury pulled out, leaving Mina and his men to their fate.

11 only live to tree him. It is language like this that validates Slotkin’s thesis that frontier hunters (as in Woodworth’s song) were nascent soldiers waiting for the right occasion. But as Smith’s narrative tells us, after his defeat at San Jacinto, Santa Anna fled, and being pursued, was found to “like a hard pressed bear have taken [to] a tree” (p. 125), explaining the words put into Crockett’s mouth before the event.

1 Gunter’s . . . scale. Edmund Gunter (1581-1626), English mathematician and inventor. Gunter’s scale was an instrument used for purposes of navigation and trigonometric calculations, hence a byword for exactness.

2 the steamboat and alligator breed. What follows is a typical frontier boast, associated with Crockett himself in Clarke’s Life, Paulding’s play, and the almanac anecdotes. Mark Twain renders a luxuriant example in the raftsmen episode taken from the manuscript of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and published in Life on the Mississippi (1883).

3 Tampico. The reference is to an attempt by Spain to regain control of Mexico in 1829. Though the soldier’s story does not mention it, the invasion was successfully repulsed by Santa Anna. The point of the story is to emphasize the barbarity with which prisoners of war were handled by Mexican authorities.

4 General Sesma. Joaquin Ramirez y Sesma was in command of the Mexican cavalry.

5 national flag. See the note to p. 97.

6 Colonel Fanning. James Walker Fannin [sic] (1804-1836), a native of Georgia, briefly attended West Point, and by 1834 had settled in Texas with his wife and two children. Prospering in slave smuggling and land speculation, he naturally was drawn to the revolutionary faction, and participated in a number of early battles of the war, culminating in the attack on San Antonio in December, 1835. He was then placed in charge of a force gathering in Goliad with the intention of invading Mexico, an event that never came off but which was responsible for Fannin’s failure to commit any of the four-hundred-odd men under his command for the relief of the garrison at San Antonio. (His eventual fate is recounted on p. 125, below, the massacre at Goliad serving as a powerful motive for revenge against Santa Anna, second only to the fate of the Alamo.

7 Upas. Antiaris toxicaria, a large tree native to Java, the sap of which was used to poison arrows, but which was not so deadly as to kill anything within range of its branches, a fable promulgated by Erasmus Darwin’s “Loves of the Plants” (1789).

1 General Houston. Samuel (“Sam”) Houston (1793-1863) was born in Virginia but raised in Tennessee, in Cherokee country. He served under Jackson in the Creek War, was wounded, and having served as a Democratic representative to Congress (1823-1827), he was in 1827 elected governor of Tennessee. When his wife left him for unknown reasons, he resigned his office and went to live with the Cherokees as an adopted member of the tribe, whose removal he opposed but not to the point of breaking with Jackson. In 1835, he became identified with the Texan revolution and commanded the rebel army. His Fabian strategy was unpopular, but Houston’s reputation was redeemed after his victory over Santa Anna at San Jacinto. As president of the Republic of Texas, he negotiated the recognition by the United States of the new republic in 1836 and, though not in favor of annexation, did not oppose it. He represented the state as U.S. senator from 1846-1859, when he was elected governor of Texas. An ardent Unionist, he refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy, and resigned his office, still believing that Texas was an independent nation.