American Legend

By 1821, Moses Austin and his son, Stephen F. Austin, had negotiated a deal with Spain to set up the first authorized Anglo colony in Texas, and a clause allowed a grant to bring in 300 families to settle on the Colorado River within two miles of the ocean.² Later that same year, Mexico declared independence and Stephen F. Austin took on the mantle of colonization alone. His father Moses fell ill, most likely to pneumonia, and his dying wish was that his son would continue their colonization plan.³ By 1824, Austin was able to lure prospective colonists with sweet land enticements—granting up to a full league (4,428.4 acres) of land to those willing to convert to Catholicism and sign an oath of allegiance.⁴ Free land, or virtually free land was sufficient temptation, and settlers began to pour across the Red and Sabine Rivers—eventually by the thousands—carrying what little money they might have, hope for a better life, and not a lot else.

Wide-ranging and mobile bands of Apaches, Kiowas, and Comanches often attacked settlers in night raids, “sweeping down from their camps west of the Balcones Escarpment, . . . stealing horses, burning ranches, killing men, and carrying off terrified women and children.”⁵ Texas remained a dangerous and inhospitable land that would need better incentives to entice the right kind of men to settle there, those willing to risk their own lives as well as the lives of their families. The land itself would ultimately prove that lure.

Initally resident Mexican settlers known as Tejanos were content with the influx of Anglo settlers, as it buffered them against the hostile Indians and provided potential for commerce and trade.⁶ Over time laws were enacted to restrict further immigration from the United States, but many downtrodden U.S. settlers ignored the laws and bolted for Texas anyway, creating tension among the Tejanos and drawing the ire of President-General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. As early as 1830, Santa Anna ordered the expulsion of all illegal settlers, “and all Texians (as they now preferred to call themselves) disarmed.”⁷ The power-hungry Santa Anna went so far as to dismantle the constitutional government and Federal Constitution of 1824, effectively taking over as dictator of Mexico. Austin, watching his dream of settlement begin to disintegrate, struck out for Mexico City to lobby for Texas statehood.⁸ Austin was imprisoned shortly after his arrival in early January 1834, and would have to work toward an independent Texas state from the confines of the very same prison cell once used during the Mexican Inquisition.⁹

NOT ONE TO SLINK AWAY from a defeat in silence, Crockett planned to depart with flying colors, making a feast of the occasion and throwing a “going-away” barbecue for himself and the others who had agreed to join him.¹⁰ Family and friends convened at his farm in Gibson County, the late October air sweet and cool, the scent of adventure and opportunity on the wind. Crockett dug barbecue pits, and hired men tended the spitted meats while “the boys” were competing at logrolling and other games of strength and agility, and, of course, draining horns of whiskey. As the day wore on it turned into a full-fledged frolic, with dancing, more drinking, and fiddle-playing on into the evening, even through a pouring rain.¹¹ They reveled late into the night, with Crockett talking up Texas, convinced it was the right place to go. He could scout the land and report back to his family, and if he liked it there as much as he hoped to, perhaps he could convince them, including Elizabeth and her family, to follow him west once more. It was certainly worth a shot, perhaps the last such shot he would ever have.

On the first of November Crockett loaded the horses, packing as he would for an extended autumn-long hunt. It promised to be an expedition, like many of his scouting forays in the past, riding out to new and unknown country, the familiar thud of hoofbeats on the roadway, the acrid scent of horse sweat in his nose, saddle leather squeaking as they trotted along. He’d salted down as much meat as he could carry in saddlebags and packed plenty of powder and ammunition for the hunting, no doubt including as many canisters of the fine Du Pont powder. He must have been happier than he had been in years, finally about to embark on what he loved more than anything else in the world—a journey into a new frontier, with a few friends and his trusty hunting rifle Betsey.¹² He could hardly contain his anticipation of the journey ahead, writing with optimism to his brother-in-law George Patton, “I am on the eve of Starting to the Texes . . . we will go through Arkinsaw and I want to explore the Texes well before I return.”¹³ It promised to be a trip of a lifetime, and Crockett had no set schedule for his return; it all depended on what he found when he got there.

Crockett would not be traveling alone, a fact that would have pleased the stoic Elizabeth, for she and David remained amicable if separated. Accompanying him for the long ride to the Southwest would be his nephew, William Patton, with whom Crockett got on well. Also saddled up were two friends, Abner Burgin and Lindsey Tinkle.¹⁴ A small party was better than going solo, especially once they shook free of civilization and headed into open range and Indian country. On the morning of November 1, 1835, the four men swung onto their mounts, heeled their spurs into the flanks of their horses, and waved good-bye to their families and friends.

They rode steadily, reining their horses south to Bolivar, then onto the well-traveled road heading west toward Memphis, where they planned to hole up for a few days for a series of unofficial sendoffs. Crockett’s celebrity preceded him, as usual, so that even without a Whig-tailored itinerary, the word-of-mouth buzz was that Crockett was coming. He took his time to visit with old acquaintances along the way, and some, having heard that a small band was heading toward Texas, took it as a muster-call and were packed up and ready to join as he passed through their towns. Riders joined their party along the way, some with real intentions of sticking it out, others just for the bragging rights—to say they had ridden the trail in the company of the great David Crockett.

While Crockett’s intentions had been clear at the outset—this was an extended scouting and hunting expedition—news of the uprisings in Texas had some men’s dander up, and certainly some of those who strung along the military road from Jackson to Bolivar believed they were heading south to fight for freedom. On October 5, Sam Houston had written an appeal from Texas to the American citizens, and it appeared with remarkable celerity just two days later in the Red River Herald, which printed the following near-panicked exclamation: HIGHLY IMPORTANT FROM TEXAS!!!! WAR IN TEXAS—General Cos landed near the mouth of the Brazos with 400 men.¹⁵ The story received a great deal of attention and wide circulation, appearing also in the Arkansas Gazette and filtering around the region to many papers, including the Lexington Observer, the Kentucky Reporter, and the Commonwealth, most including Houston’s personal appeal:

War in defence of our rights, our oaths, and our constitutions is inevitable, in Texas! If volunteers from the United States will join their brethren in this section, they will receive liberal bounties of land. We have millions of acres of our best lands unchosen and unappropriated. Let each man come with a good rifle, and one hundred rounds of ammunition, and come soon.¹⁶

The references to “liberal bounties of land” piqued the interest of many and the allusions to “millions of acres” of essentially free land were not lost on the entrepreneurial mind of David Crockett. Whether he intended to or not, Crockett had become the de facto leader of what resembled a small military band, and as one onlooker reported, seeing Crockett and the men depart Jackson, “Col. Crockett went on some time ago at the head of 30 men well armed and equipped.”¹⁷ The natural-born leader of men now traveled with an entourage.

Crockett and company trotted into Bolivar, where Crockett was hosted by his friend Dr. Calvin Jones, the very man who had given him such equitable terms in leasing him his Gibson County farm.¹⁸ Dr. Jones could not help but be impressed by the bustling crowds that poured onto the streets in advance of Crockett’s arrival, and he noted that “every eye was strained to catch a glimpse of him.”¹⁹ Jones added that as Crockett rode through town “every hand extended either in courtesy or regard,” some reaching out to pat him on the back or brush against his shoulder. The treatment Crockett received from complete strangers, the awe, the cheers and shouts of good luck, proved to Jones that David Crockett was no ordinary man, he was a full-blown legend in the flesh. Dr. Jones later admitted that he was “more of a Lion than I had supposed.”²⁰

As they rode on toward Memphis, some of the group begged off, perhaps realizing the gravity of their potential journey, so that by the time they reached Memphis on November 10 they were a small hunting party again. Crockett looked forward to dismounting and sidling up to the bar with a few of his old cronies, including his good friend and patron Marcus Winchester. Crockett liveried his chestnut and checked into the City Hotel, freshened up a bit, then spent the day walking about the town, reconnecting with old friends and gathering a kind of posse as he went. By nightfall the boys were in a reveling mood, piling into the half-brick, half-frame Union Hotel bar.²¹ Their numbers bursting to the walls of the smallish establishment, the crew decided they needed better comfort to take a social horn, so they backed out and headed to a proper emporium, Hart’s Saloon on Market Street, where the drinking began in earnest. The men ordered round after round, and soon the place was loud and smoky, with shouting over the bar tab and proprietor Royal Hart worried that he was going to get stiffed, as Gus Young, who had done most of the ordering, assured Hart he would pay for the drinks the next day.²² Hart wasn’t keen on the idea, and was close to drubbing the intoxicated Young when Crockett intervened, offering to pay for the liquor himself. Soon the lot of them were arguing over who would pay, and in the end the tab was taken care of and the rowdy gang now lifted Crockett onto their shoulders and carried him down the street to the next venue, McCool’s.

There, the boisterous band of brothers hoisted Crockett right onto the bar and demanded a speech from the legendary man. He knew what they wanted to hear, and he’d made this short speech more than once. He hushed the group as they raised their glasses, and offered up this rendition:

My friends, I suppose you are all aware that I was recently a candidate for Congress in an adjoining district. I told the voters that if they would elect me I would serve them to the best of my ability; but if they did not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas. I am on my way now.²³

With that, the theatrical Crockett leapt from the bar, and into the shouting and cheering mass. Owner and barkeep Neil McCool lost his cool when he saw Crockett’s grimy boots staining the linen on his bar top, and he flew into a rage, demanding that the rowdy bunch leave. A scuffle commenced, with items like sugar crushers and tumblers flying through the air, some broken glass, and most embarrassing of all, McCool’s wig being yanked from his head and tossed about from person to person, his shiny bald dome coming as a delicious surprise to the locals.²⁴

The sensible Crockett suggested they disperse and hit the sack, for he had a long journey ahead of him, and as they had already been booted from one bar, perhaps they should cut their losses. But the momentum had them rolling, and the diehards of the group dragged Crockett to Jo Cooper’s on Main. Here Crockett submitted to a couple more impromptu speeches, his words by now slurring. Cooper liked having Crockett in his place, and he happily “brought out liquors in quantities. He had the largest supply and the best quality on the bluff, but only sold by the barrel or cask.”²⁵ The men partied for hours, drinking themselves into a staggering stupor which they finally took home to their beds at an hour closer to morning than night.

Crockett was no stranger to the odd hangover, but the one that greeted him on November 11 must have been memorable; still, Crockett managed to roust himself, shake off the cobwebs, gather his boys, and head down to the Catfish Bay ferry landing, where he would cross the “American Nile” and step onto Arkansas soil. Winchester and some other Memphis old timers like Edwin Hickman and C. D. McLean escorted Crockett and his traveling companions onto a large flatboat used to ferry folks across the river. An aspiring young journalist named James D. Davis followed the historic walk “in silent admiration” down to the water, with no way of knowing that those would be the final steps that David Crockett would ever take in his home state of Tennessee. Davis recounted the scene, claiming to remember it “as if it were yesterday”:

He wore that same veritable coon-skin cap and hunting shirt, bearing upon his shoulder his ever faithful rifle. No other equipment, save his shot-pouch and powder-horn, do I remember seeing. I witnessed the last parting salutations between him and those few devoted friends. He stepped into the boat. The chain untied from the stob, and thrown with a rattle by old Limus into the bow of the boat, it pushed away from the shore, and floating lazily down the little Wolf, out into the big river, and rowed across to the other side, bearing that remarkable man away from his State and kindred forever.²⁶

Knowing he would have an audience, Crockett may well have been wearing his Nimrod Wildfire regalia for effect, the consummate showman giving his audience what they wanted to see. He’d stuffed his dress attire deep in his saddle bags, figuring a formal fête or dinner might offer itself along the way to Texas.²⁷ The hoots and hollers diminished as they entered the bigger water and finally there was just a knot of men waving good-bye from the banks. They were waving good-bye to more than a man. The onlookers stood and saluted the person who had become the legend, the self-made man who, lore had it, Old Hickory had commissioned to scale the Alleghenies and personally wring off the tail of Halley’s Comet.²⁸ That night, and for the remainder of the nights of Crockett’s journey, those who paused to gaze skyward would have seen the languid but fiery luminescence of Halley’s Comet scoring its path across the southern sky and into the people’s memory, almost as if the conjuror Crockett had orchestrated the timing of his departure and the return of the feared and famous comet, to coincide.

Having crossed the river and disembarked in the Arkansas territory, Crockett and his company struck west, following the military road roughly 130 miles toward Little Rock. Crockett would likely have pondered, with some bitterness, that the road they traveled was part of the “Government’s” (aka Jackson’s) grand plan, used primarily to carry out the removal of eastern Indian tribes to the western territories.²⁹ That ironic (and to him, unfortunate) fact would not have been lost on Crockett as he rode along. He was essentially following the Trail of Tears.

The men rode with purpose, and two long days in the saddle brought them to Little Rock, a young capital city now serving as a thoroughfare for people emigrating to the Red River country. The quiet community had perhaps heard rumors that Colonel Crockett was on the move and heading west, and some were already out lining the streets. Crockett had a deer slung over the saddle behind him, the limp carcass slapping at the flanks of his horse.

The group boarded at the Jeffries Hotel, hoping to rest for a night and then strike due south the next morning, but that plan was derailed when a small group of excited civic leaders paid a visit to the hotel to invite David Crockett to a banquet in his honor. The men could not find Crockett about his room or in the bar, but one spotted him out behind the hotel, where he bent over to butcher his recent kill, his knife and tomahawk bloody. One of the citizen leaders was a Colonel Robert Childers, an old acquaintance, and he barked out Crockett’s name. Pleased, Crockett lifted his head from his work, “Robertson Childers, as I’m alive,” he quipped. Crockett quickly took the opportunity to brag about the shot he’d made on the buck, just outside of Little Rock. Nodding to his trusty Old Bet, Crockett grinned, reminiscing about the shot. “Made him turn ends at two hundred yards.”³⁰ They talked of the hunt, and Crockett realized that though he was tired, he would have no chance to escape the dinner party.

Knowing at least one of the community leaders, Crockett shifted into performance mode, stepping up for a patented anti-Jackson harangue, recalling his recent election defeat and his reasons for being there, and the predominantly anti-Jackson audience ate it up, stomping and cheering wildly.³¹ He was heading to Texas, he told them, with no intention of coming back. The evening festivities proved a grand success, and his remarks were met with general enthusiasm, as evidenced by an article that appeared a few days later in the Arkansas Gazette:

A rare treat. Among the distinguished characters who have honored our City with their presence, within the last week was no less a personage than Col. David Crockett . . . who arrived . . . with some 6 or 8 followers, from the Western District of Tennessee, on their way to Texas . . . Hundreds flocked to see the wonderful man. In the evening, a supper was given him, at Jeffries’ Hotel, by several Anti-Jacksonmen, merely for the sport of hearing him abuse the administration, in his out-landish style.³²

In public forums such as these, especially if he performed impromptu, Crockett rarely disappointed his audiences. The hundreds who lined the streets and riverbanks to watch the charismatic man would remember him always, and tell their children, and their children’s children, that they had seen “the real critter himself.” Some would make up their own tall tales of their experiences with him. One surfaced soon after he left, that in a Little Rock drinking establishment, Crockett was offered a shot of “Ozark corn,” a crude and discolored form of grain alcohol. Not wanting to offend the offering host, Crockett eyeballed the stuff, then belted it back in one quick swoop, grimacing mightily. The story goes that Crockett later admitted, “Gentlemen, I et my victuals raw for two months afterwards. My gizzard so all-fired hot, that the grub was cooked afore it got settled in my innards.”³³

Another story held that while in Little Rock, Crockett had agreed to a friendly shooting competition against Arkansas’s finest marksmen. He upstaged the locals by sending a ball dead center of the target, a shot of such accuracy that it was hard to believe, and some even called it lucky. Crockett smirked, walked back to his place, leveled Old Betsy again, and fired. A quick inspection revealed no other hole in the target, and everyone assumed that the noted marksman had inexplicably missed. The clever Crockett simply smiled, then pointed out that he had not missed, but rather had shot with such precision that the second ball had followed exactly the trajectory of the first, passing through and exiting the very same hole! Mouths agape in awe and disbelief, everyone headed to the tavern to talk it over.³⁴

Early the next morning Crockett arose, took some breakfast, then stopped by a local carpenter’s shop to sharpen his tomahawk’s blade, no doubt dulled in the butchering and cleaning of the deer.³⁵ Crockett didn’t know when he would have the luxury of a grinder, workshop, and tools again, so it made sense to head out with tools whetted sharp.

At mid-morning he rounded up his party and nosed his horse south. He wanted to get out into the open country, the likely river bottoms flush with game. Little Rock had been a pleasant diversion, but it was a long ride to Texas. As they left town, they rode past curious and admiring onlookers, many of them cheering and shouting words of encouragement and good luck. Many assumed, as did the local papers, that Crockett was leading his men to the revolution. The Gazette described the scene of his leaving with a nod toward that purpose:

The Colonel and his party, all completely armed and well mounted, took their departure on Friday morning, for Texas, in which country, we understand, they intend establishing their future abode, and in defence of which, we hope they may cover themselves with glory.³⁶

It is true that Crockett and his men were well armed, for they did not know when, or if, they would ever return to their native Tennessee. Crockett and other men on long hunts typically traveled with more than one rifle, providing for loss, something valuable with which to barter, as well as not uncommon mechanical failure. It was easy to assume that Crockett headed south with military intentions, but nothing so far in his language about the trip had indicated as much. Still, he certainly was not beyond letting people attribute noble thoughts to him if it suited his public relations purposes. The migration to the Southwest to aid the revolution was obviously on everyone’s minds and tongues around this area, close as the skirmish was to their border.

They continued south, pushing hard and riding long hours, scaring up game as they drove along. The country began to show great promise, with dense stands of pin oaks, good cover for game, shrouding the banks of the Red River. Somewhere along the river here, near the little town of Lost Prairie, David Crockett rode across the river and into Texas.³⁷ That night, no doubt elated to be in Texas at last and encouraged by the terrain, Crockett accepted an offer to spend the night at the home of Isaac Jones. He could use the free food and billet, for once again, in what must have seemed to Crockett a perturbing and pesky perpetual state, he was completely broke. What little money he had started with had gone to lodgings, food, provisions, and a few horns, and now he rode with empty pockets and purse.

Though he no doubt hated to do it, Crockett needed to sell his engraved watch, the timepiece given to him by the Philadelphia Whigs during his book tour, which Isaac Jones purchased for thirty dollars and another, less ornate watch.³⁸ Content that it was a fair deal, Crockett consented. Despite being humbled and embarrassed by his predicament, Crockett nevertheless impressed Jones, who later commented on his chance but memorable meeting with him, and on the deal they struck:

With his open frankness, his natural honesty of expression, his perfect want of concealment, I could not but be very much pleased. And with a hope that it might be an accommodation to him, I was gratified at the exchange, as it gave me a keepsake which would often remind me of an honest man, a good citizen and a pioneer in the cause of liberty, amongst his suffering brethren in Texas.³⁹

Crockett would have been grinning like a wildcat to see the country underfoot, the great prairie rolling to the south, the dense stands of timber along the rivers where animals could hole up to cool themselves during the heat of the day, and sleep safely at night. They rode miles of level ground to a place called Big Prairie. They spent the night before continuing on to Clarksville, where they took refuge at the Becknell home and determined that this would be the very place to serve as a staging point for a big hunt. Crockett was referred to a man named Captain Henry Stout, a tough, knowledgeable woodsman who was known about the area as a phenomenal hunter and “one of the most remarkable guides on any frontier.”⁴⁰

Stout took them west, toward a remarkable region which, to Crockett’s great delight, was entirely uncivilized. The towns had receded into memory, and there were no houses or settlements of any kind, just endless land unfurling in all directions, wild and free. To the west the ground was open, dry, sun-parched and cracked, but easing to the east the land soaked up moisture from the rivers, the canopy of trees cooling the ground, fueling the moist grasses and woodlands. The wildness of the place also brought the specter of potential danger, and it was rumored that aggressive Indians rode the very region into which they were heading. In fact, a band of Comanches were at that very moment “on the warpath.”⁴¹

Henry Stout knew where he was going and he kept them out of harm’s way as he led them through stirrup-high prairie grasses, riding some eighty idyllic miles west into pristine wilderness the likes of which Crockett had not seen in decades, since his scouting days in the Creek War. They finally arrived at the lush land separating Bois d’Arc Creek and what Stout called Choctaw Bayou, the two gorgeous waterways draining into the Red River. Crockett surveyed the flowing meadows and prairies sprawling every direction but north, where the land skirting the Red River grew dark, choked with thick timber and extending southward nearly 300 miles. This was it; this was the sort of place he had dreamed of all his life, an Eden of his own. Crockett could see himself living here; there would be no need to move back to Tennessee or revisit his troubles there; he would only have to go back to retrieve the family, those who still had faith in him, those willing to follow him and his western dream.⁴²

Crockett’s elation poured forth in the letter he wrote the family some weeks later, after he had discovered not only some of the best hunting ground in the world, but that the land was practically being given away, with qualified settlers handed over 4,428 acres each. He could barely contain his enthusiasm as he reported his incredible discoveries to his family:

It’s not required here to pay down for 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 on the land. I expect in all probability to settle on the Border or the Chactaw Bro of Red River that I have no doubt is the richest country in the world. Good land and plenty of timber and the best springs and will [wild] mill streams, good range, clear water, and every appearance of good health and game aplenty. It is 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 county and I would be glad to see every friend I have settled thare. It would be a fortune to them all.⁴³

Crockett was so impressed, so utterly enamored of the place, that he is said to have carved the words “Honey Grove” into a tree in celebration of a quaint little tree-lined grove where his hunting party had camped and dined on wild honey. He essentially named the place, for it is known as Honey Grove to this day.⁴⁴ By now, Crockett must have been nearly frothing, for he had heard that men like Stephen Austin and his friend Sam Houston were setting up land agencies, through which, if they played things right, and Texas became a part of the United States, as was surely inevitable, the land agents or empresarios (akin to modern realtors or developers) stood to become immensely wealthy men. Crockett was feeling superb physically, and the stings from his recent emotional wounds were now a distant memory as the land and his current situation showed nothing but opportunity and promise. If he kept his head about him, looked for and seized the chances as they came to him, David Crockett was on the cusp of finally making his fortune, in a magnificent wilderness where he could hunt practically year-round, catching the buffalo on two migrations per year and bears in the autumn as they foraged in preparation for hibernation, in their dens in winter, and once again when they awoke and reemerged in the spring.

He continued hunting, in a state of euphoria, right through Christmas, missing a rendezvous he had planned with other members of his party, which had split up, at the “falls of the Brazos.”⁴⁵ The hunting was simply too good, the outriding, sleeping under the explosion of stars in the immense Texian sky, too enjoyable for Crockett to leave just yet. He traveled a leisurely pace, hooking up with the Trammel’s Trace, the main link connecting Red River country and Texas, by New Year’s and heading south, in the direction of Nacogdoches.⁴⁶ Crockett had heard that his old friend Sam Houston was in Nacogdoches, once again practicing law and now setting up land agencies, and in fact Houston was at the time the “newly named commander in chief of the forces of the provisional government of Texas”⁴⁷ and he would likely be able to set Crockett up with an agency of his own in the Red River country that had so mesmerized him.

Even out on the open prairie and sparse plain, news traveled with fair speed by word of mouth via horseback, so when Crockett rode into Nacogdoches on January 5, word of his coming had beaten him there, and he was heartily welcomed by scores of people, including his old friend and protégé Ben McCulloch.⁴⁸ It was good to see some familiar faces in the bustling little town that now served as the gateway to the South. Prominent townsfolk hosted the national celebrity at a large dinner, where Crockett had no choice but to trot out his requisite “go to hell speech” to thunderous applause.

During his few days in Nacogdoches he learned of some crucial developments that may have shifted his attentions and refocused his goals for the future. Word was afoot that a Constitutional Convention was to be held, designed to make a formal declaration of independence for Texas and compose a constitution, essentially creating a new republic.⁴⁹ Though before leaving Tennessee Crockett had soured on politics, this was different. Here no one seemed to know of his recent failures, or if they did, they didn’t care—he was treated like a celebrity and frontier hero, titles he had earned. As he knew from jealously regarding the meteoric rise of his nemesis Andrew Jackson, military fame equaled political success, and now there was news that the Mexican armies had been driven south of the Rio Grande, and that their leader Santa Anna, the feared “Napoleon of the West,” rode hard from the south with a large force of men. With a military skirmish looming, and nearly free land for any man willing to fight for Texas statehood, the stars seemed to be intentionally aligning in Crockett’s favor once again.

The ladies of Nacogdoches invited Crockett and company to a grand dinner a few days hence, which he graciously accepted; then he gathered a few of his men and rode east, to the town of San Augustine, where he was exuberantly greeted by booming cannon fire, then invited to a dinner in his honor. Crockett stopped to deliver one of his “corner speeches,” which impressed resident James Gaines deeply, prompting him to conclude the next day: “David Crockett gave one of his Corner Speeches yesterday in San Augustine and is To Represent them in the Convention on the first of March.”⁵⁰ Later that evening Crockett attended the opulent dinner in his honor, then spent the night at the home of Judge Shelby Corzine, whose daughter wrote that she would never forget that day when David Crockett visited and stayed in their home.⁵¹

Though he had been practically invisible and anonymous while out hunting in the Choctaw Bayou, news of the great Crockett once again spread in all directions, even as far back east as New York, where it was reported that Crockett was “urged to become a candidate for the Convention; but the Colonel told the Texians that he came to fight for them and not seek office; but as he took care at the same time to tell them that he had rather be a member of the Convention than the Senate of the United States, we dare say he will be elected.”⁵² Of course, his claim that he came to fight is suspect and illustrates his shrewd political savvy and ability to respond to a situation as well as the desire of an audience. He had come to hunt and scout turf, but this potential windfall was simply too good to pass up. Brimming with hope and enthusiasm, Crockett found the time in San Augustine to begin a letter to his oldest daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Wiley Flowers, his final surviving correspondence:

My Dear Sone and daughter

This is the first I have had an opportunity to write you with convenience. I am now blessed with excellent health and am in high spirits, although I have had many difficulties to encounter. I have got through safe and have been received by everyone with open cerimony of friendship. I am hailed with hearty welcome to this country . . . I must say what I have seen of Texas it is the garden spot of the world. The best land and best prospects for health I ever saw ... There is a world of country here to settle ...⁵³

Crockett appears not to have finished the letter in San Augustine,⁵⁴ but instead packed it away in his satchel and ridden back to Nacogdoches, where he honored his acceptance to appear at a dinner celebration and party with the town’s prominent women and other notable citizens. That out of the way, flush with his rekindled fame and notoriety, he made his way to the office of Judge John Forbes at the Old Stone Fort on January 12. There Crockett and those who had ridden with him read over the “oath of allegiance to the provisional government of Texas,” which they had come to sign. Doing so would allow them to vote, and be voted for, in the coming constitutional convention, but also, of course, required that they fight for Texian liberty, apparently a price Crockett was more than willing to pay given the potential upside of land, leadership, military fame, and high governmental station. He would be a fool not to sign up.

But before he did, Crockett took his time, reading over the document carefully. It began, “I do solemnly swear that I will bear true allegiance to the provisional government of Texas, or any future government that may be hereafter declared.” Crockett stopped right there, read it over again, and looked up at Forbes. This would simply not do, as he was unwilling to support “any future government.” That could easily include a dictatorship, and as he ’d shown before, he refused to be yoked to any individual man. In a defiant move, no doubt accompanied by murmurs and chatter in line behind him, Crockett refused to sign unless Forbes agreed to insert the word “republican” just ahead of “government.” Impressed at Crockett ’s intense scrutiny, Forbes willingly consented, and with a stroke of the quill Crockett had signed on as a volunteer, come what may. More than twenty years since he had last carried a firearm against an enemy, Crockett had once again joined the army. His future was now.⁵⁵

They would be riding out in just a few days, and Crockett revisited the letter that he had begun in San Augustine. His tone remained confident, reflecting his thrill at the coming adventure and the incredible promise that his future in Texas held. He told them of his taking the oath, and said that “We will set out for the Rio Grande in a few days with the volunteers from the United States,” and then he pointed to his newfound political chance: “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.” That last comment illustrated how his short-term memory operated, for not long before he had claimed he was completely finished with politics of any kind. He had not anticipated the reception he would receive in Texas, and Crockett was ever an opportunist. He added the firm indication that he fully intended to prosper, then bring his family to Texas to share the wealth of his bounty: “I am in hopes of making a fortune yet for myself and my family,” he wrote proudly, “bad as my prospect has been.”⁵⁶

David Crockett stood on the cusp of fulfilling his dreams, for himself, for his family, and perhaps most important of all, for his ego. He would show those doubters back in Tennessee what he was really made of, winning the wealth he had always craved, winning his family back, and in the offing, reclaiming his own identity, so long subsumed by everyone else ’s desires about who he should be.