The Disappointed Politician.--Off for Texas.
Triumphal Return.--Home Charms Vanish.--Loses His Election.--Bitter
Disappointment.--Crockett's Poetry.--Sets out for Texas.--Incidents of
the Journey.--Reception at Little Rock.--The Shooting Match.--Meeting a
Clergyman.--The Juggler.--Crockett a Reformer.--The Bee Hunter.--The
Rough Strangers.--Scene on the Prairie.
Crockett's return to his home was a signal triumph all the way. At
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, crowds
gathered to greet him. He was feasted, received presents, was
complimented, and was incessantly called upon for a speech. He was an
earnest student as he journeyed along. A new world of wonders were
opening before him. Thoughts which he never before had dreamed of were
rushing into his mind. His eyes were ever watchful to see all that was
worthy of note. His ear was ever listening for every new idea. He
scarcely ever looked at the printed page, but perused with the utmost
diligence the book of nature. His comments upon what he saw indicate
much sagacity.
At Cincinnatti and Louisville, immense crowds assembled to hear him. In
both places he spoke quite at length. And all who heard him were
surprised at the power he displayed. Though his speech was rude and
unpolished, the clearness of his views, and the intelligence he
manifested, caused the journals generally to speak of him in quite a
different strain from that which they had been accustomed to use.
Probably never did a man make so much intellectual progress, in the
course of a few months, as David Crockett had made in that time. His
wonderful memory of names, dates, facts, all the intricacies of
statistics, was such, that almost any statesman might be instructed by
his addresses, and not many men could safely encounter him in argument.
The views he presented upon the subject of the Constitution, finance,
internal improvements, etc., were very surprising, when one considers
the limited education he had enjoyed. At the close of these agitating
scenes he touchingly writes:
"In a short time I set out for my own home; yes, my own home, my own
soil, my humble dwelling, my own family, my own hearts, my ocean of
love and affection, which neither circumstances nor time can dry up.
Here, like the wearied bird, let me settle down for a while, and shut
out the world."
But hunting bears had lost its charms for Crockett. He had been so
flattered that it is probable that he fully expected to be chosen
President of the United States. There were two great parties then
dividing the country, the Democrats and the Whigs. The great object of
each was to find an available candidate, no matter how unfit for the
office. The leaders wished to elect a President who would be, like the
Queen of England, merely the ornamental figure-head of the ship of
state, while their energies should propel and guide the majestic
fabric. For a time some few thought it possible that in the popularity
of the great bear-hunter such a candidate might be found.
Crockett, upon his return home, resumed his deerskin leggins, his
fringed hunting-shirt, his fox-skin cap, and shouldering his rifle,
plunged, as he thought, with his original zest, into the cheerless,
tangled, marshy forest which surrounded him. But the excitements of
Washington, the splendid entertainments of Philadelphia, New York, and
Boston, the flattery, the speech-making, which to him, with his
marvellous memory and his wonderful fluency of speech, was as easy as
breathing, the applause showered upon him, and the gorgeous vision of
the Presidency looming up before him, engrossed his mind. He sauntered
listlessly through the forest, his bear-hunting energies all paralyzed.
He soon grew very weary of home and of all its employments, and was
eager to return to the infinitely higher excitements of political life.
General Jackson was then almost idolized by his party. All through the
South and West his name was a tower of strength. Crockett had
originally been elected as a Jackson-man. He had abandoned the
Administration, and was now one of the most inveterate opponents of
Jackson. The majority in Crockett's district were in favor of Jackson.
The time came for a new election of a representative. Crockett made
every effort, in his old style, to secure the vote. He appeared at the
gatherings in his garb as a bear-hunter, with his rifle on his
shoulder. He brought 'coonskins to buy whiskey to treat his friends. A
'coonskin in the currency of that country was considered the equivalent
for twenty-five cents. He made funny speeches. But it was all in vain.
Greatly to his surprise, and still more to his chagrin, he lost his
election. He was beaten by two hundred and thirty votes. The whole
powerful influence of the Government was exerted against Crockett and
in favor of his competitor. It is said that large bribes were paid for
votes. Crockett wrote, in a strain which reveals the bitterness of his
disappointment:
"I am gratified that I have spoken the truth to the people of my
district, regardless of the consequences. I would not be compelled to
bow down to the idol for a seat in Congress during life. I have never
known what it was to sacrifice my own judgment to gratify any party;
and I have no doubt of the time being close at hand when I shall be
rewarded for letting my tongue speak what my heart thinks. I have
suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from
ruin and disgrace; and if I am never again elected, I will have the
gratification to know that I have done my duty. I may add, in the words
of the man in the play, 'Crockett's occupation's gone.'"
Two weeks after this he writes, "I confess the thorn still rankles, not
so much on my own account as the nation's. As my country no longer
requires my services, I have made up my mind to go to Texas. My life
has been one of danger, toil, and privation. But these difficulties I
had to encounter at a time when I considered it nothing more than right
good sport to surmount them. But now I start upon my own hook, and God
only grant that it may be strong enough to support the weight that may
be hung upon it. I have a new row to hoe, a long and rough one; but
come what will, I will go ahead."
Just before leaving for Texas, he attended a political meeting of his
constituents. The following extract from his autobiography will give
the reader a very vivid idea of his feelings at the time, and of the
very peculiar character which circumstances had developed in him:
"A few days ago I went to a meeting of my constituents. My appetite for
politics was at one time just about as sharp set as a saw-mill, but
late events have given me something of a surfeit, more than I could
well digest; still, habit, they say, is second natur, and so I went,
and gave them a piece of my mind touching 'the Government' and the
succession, by way of a codicil to what I have often said before.
"I told them, moreover, of my services, pretty straight up and down,
for a man may be allowed to speak on such subjects when others are
about to forget them; and I also told them of the manner in which I had
been knocked down and dragged out, and that I did not consider it a
fair fight anyhow they could fix it. I put the ingredients in the cup
pretty strong I tell you, and I concluded my speech by telling them
that I was done with politics for the present, and that they might all
go to hell, and I would go to Texas.
"When I returned home I felt a sort of cast down at the change that had
taken place in my fortunes, and sorrow, it is said, will make even an
oyster feel poetical. I never tried my hand at that sort of writing but
on this particular occasion such was my state of feeling, that I began
to fancy myself inspired; so I took pen in hand, and as usual I went
ahead. When I had got fairly through, my poetry looked as zigzag as a
worm-fence; the lines wouldn't tally no how; so I showed them to Peleg
Longfellow, who has a first-rate reputation with us for that sort of
writing, having some years ago made a carrier's address for the
Nashville Banner; and Peleg lopped of some lines, and stretched out
others; but I wish I may be shot if I don't rather think he has made it
worse than it was when I placed it in his hands. It being my first,
and, no doubt, last piece of poetry, I will print it in this place, as
it will serve to express my feelings on leaving my home, my neighbors,
and friends and country, for a strange land, as fully as I could in
plain prose.
"Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
The hills were our garners--our herds wildly grew
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshipped his plan.
"The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
The graves I forsake where my children repose.
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
The home I have loved as a father his child;
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;
The wife of my bosom--Farewell to ye all!
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.
"Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side--
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son--
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen--despised--will again go ahead."
A party of American adventurers, then called filibusters, had gone into
Texas, in the endeavor to wrest that immense and beautiful territory,
larger than the whole Empire of France, from feeble, distracted,
miserable Mexico, to which it belonged. These filibusters were
generally the most worthless and desperate vagabonds to be found in all
the Southern States. Many Southern gentlemen of wealth and ability, but
strong advocates of slavery, were in cordial sympathy with this
movement, and aided it with their purses, and in many other ways. It
was thought that if Texas could be wrested from Mexico and annexed to
the United States, it might be divided into several slaveholding
States, and thus check the rapidly increasing preponderance of the free
States of the North.
To join in this enterprise, Crockett now left his home, his wife, his
children. There could be no doubt of the eventual success of the
undertaking. And in that success Crockett saw visions of political
glory opening before him. I determined, he said, "to quit the States
until such time as honest and independent men should again work their
way to the head of the heap. And as I should probably have some idle
time on hand before that state of affairs would be brought about, I
promised to give the Texans a helping hand on the high road to freedom."
He dressed himself in a new deerskin hunting-shirt, put on a foxskin
cap with the tail hanging behind, shouldered his famous rifle, and
cruelly leaving in the dreary cabin his wife and children whom he
cherished with an "ocean of love and affection," set out on foot upon
his perilous adventure. A days' journey through the forest brought him
to the Mississippi River. Here he took a steamer down that majestic
stream to the mouth of the Arkansas River, which rolls its vast flood
from regions then quite unexplored in the far West. The stream was
navigable fourteen hundred miles from its mouth.
Arkansas was then but a Territory, two hundred and forty miles long and
two hundred and twenty-eight broad. The sparsely scattered population
of the Territory amounted to but about thirty thousand. Following up
the windings of the river three hundred miles, one came to a cluster of
a few straggling huts, called Little Rock, which constitutes now the
capital of the State.
Crockett ascended the river in the steamer, and, unencumbered with
baggage, save his rifle, hastened to a tavern which he saw at a little
distance from the shore, around which there was assembled quite a crowd
of men. He had been so accustomed to public triumphs that he supposed
that they had assembled in honor of his arrival. "Strange as it may
seem," he says, "they took no more notice of me than if I had been Dick
Johnson, the wool-grower. This took me somewhat aback;" and he inquired
what was the meaning of the gathering.
He found that the people had been called together to witness the feats
of a celebrated juggler and gambler. The name of Colonel Crockett had
gone through the nation; and gradually it became noised abroad that
Colonel Crockett was in the crowd. "I wish I may be shot," Crockett
says, "if I wasn't looked upon as almost as great a sight as Punch and
Judy."
He was invited to a public dinner that very day. As it took some time
to cook the dinner, the whole company went to a little distance to
shoot at a mark. All had heard of Crockett's skill. After several of
the best sharpshooters had fired, with remarkable accuracy, it came to
Crockett's turn. Assuming an air of great carelessness, he raised his
beautiful rifle, which he called Betsey, to his shoulder, fired, and it
so happened that the bullet struck exactly in the centre of the
bull's-eye. All were astonished, and so was Crockett himself. But with
an air of much indifference he turned upon his heel, saying, "There's
no mistake in Betsey."
One of the best marksmen in those parts, chagrined at being so beaten,
said, "Colonel, that must have been a chance shot."
"I can do it," Crockett replied, "five times out of six, any day in the
week."
"I knew," he adds, in his autobiography, "it was not altogether as
correct as it might be; but when a man sets about going the big figure,
halfway measures won't answer no how."
It was now proposed that there should be a second trial. Crockett was
very reluctant to consent to this, for he had nothing to gain, and
everything to lose. But they insisted so vehemently that he had to
yield. As what ensued does not redound much to his credit, we will let
him tell the story in his own language.
"So to it again we went. They were now put upon their mettle, and they
fired much better than the first time; and it was what might be called
pretty sharp shooting. When it came to my turn, I squared myself, and
turning to the prime shot, I gave him a knowing nod, by way of showing
my confidence; and says I, 'Look out for the bull's-eye, stranger.' I
blazed away, and I wish I may be shot if I didn't miss the target. They
examined it all over, and could find neither hair nor hide of my
bullet, and pronounced it a dead miss; when says I, 'Stand aside and
let me look, and I warrant you I get on the right trail of the
critter,' They stood aside, and I examined the bull's-eye pretty
particular, and at length cried out, 'Here it is; there is no snakes if
it ha'n't followed the very track of the other.' They said it was
utterly impossible, but I insisted on their searching the hole, and I
agreed to be stuck up as a mark myself, if they did not find two
bullets there. They searched for my satisfaction, and sure enough it
all come out just as I had told them; for I had picked up a bullet that
had been fired, and stuck it deep into the hole, without any one
perceiving it. They were all perfectly satisfied that fame had not made
too great a flourish of trumpets when speaking of me as a marksman: and
they all said they had enough of shooting for that day, and they moved
that we adjourn to the tavern and liquor."
The dinner consisted of bear's meat, venison, and wild turkey. They had
an "uproarious" time over their whiskey. Crockett made a coarse and
vulgar speech, which was neither creditable to his head nor his heart.
But it was received with great applause.
The next morning Crockett decided to set out to cross the country in a
southwest direction, to Fulton, on the upper waters of the Red River.
The gentlemen furnished Crockett with a fine horse, and five of them
decided to accompany him, as a mark of respect, to the River Washita,
fifty miles from Little Rock. Crockett endeavored to raise some
recruits for Texas, but was unsuccessful. When they reached the
Washita, they found a clergyman, one of those bold, hardy pioneers of
the wilderness, who through the wildest adventures were distributing
tracts and preaching the gospel in the remotest hamlets.
He was in a condition of great peril. He had attempted to ford the
river in the wrong place, and had reached a spot where he could not
advance any farther, and yet could not turn his horse round. With much
difficulty they succeeded in extricating him, and in bringing him safe
to the shore. Having bid adieu to his kind friends, who had escorted
him thus far, Crockett crossed the river, and in company with the
clergyman continued his journey, about twenty miles farther west toward
a little settlement called Greenville. He found his new friend to be a
very charming companion. In describing the ride, Crockett writes:
"We talked about politics, religion, and nature, farming, and
bear-hunting, and the many blessings that an all-bountiful Providence
has bestowed upon our happy country. He continued to talk upon this
subject, travelling over the whole ground as it were, until his
imagination glowed, and his soul became full to overflowing; and he
checked his horse, and I stopped mine also, and a stream of eloquence
burst forth from his aged lips, such as I have seldom listened to: it
came from the overflowing fountain of a pure and grateful heart. We
were alone in the wilderness, but as he proceeded, it seemed to me as
if the tall trees bent their tops to listen; that the mountain stream
laughed out joyfully as it bounded on like some living thing that the
fading flowers of autumn smiled, and sent forth fresher fragrance, as
if conscious that they would revive in spring; and even the sterile
rocks seemed to be endued with some mysterious influence. We were alone
in the wilderness, but all things told me that God was there. The
thought renewed my strength and courage. I had left my country, felt
somewhat like an outcast, believed that I had been neglected and lost
sight of. But I was now conscious that there was still one watchful Eye
over me; no matter whether I dwelt in the populous cities, or threaded
the pathless forest alone; no matter whether I stood in the high places
among men, or made my solitary lair in the untrodden wild, that Eye was
still upon me. My very soul leaped joyfully at the thought. I never
felt so grateful in all my life. I never loved my God so sincerely in
all my life. I felt that I still had a friend.
"When the old man finished, I found that my eyes were wet with tears. I
approached and pressed his hand, and thanked him, and says I, 'Now let
us take a drink.' I set him the example, and he followed it, and in a
style too that satisfied me, that if he had ever belonged to the
temperance society, he had either renounced membership, or obtained a
dispensation. Having liquored, we proceeded on our journey, keeping a
sharp lookout for mill-seats and plantations as we rode along.
"I left the worthy old man at Greenville, and sorry enough I was to
part with him, for he talked a great deal, and he seemed to know a
little about everything. He knew all about the history of the country;
was well acquainted with all the leading men; knew where all the good
lands lay in most of Western States.
"He was very cheerful and happy, though to all appearances very poor. I
thought that he would make a first-rate agent for taking up lands, and
mentioned it to him. He smiled, and pointing above, said, 'My wealth
lies not in this world.'"
From Greenville, Crockett pressed on about fifty or sixty miles through
a country interspersed withe forests and treeless prairies, until he
reached Fulton. He had a letter of introduction to one of the prominent
gentlemen here, and was received with marked distinction. After a short
visit he disposed of his horse; he took a steamer to descend the river
several hundred miles to Natchitoches, pronounced Nakitosh, a small
straggling village of eight hundred inhabitants, on the right bank of
the Red River, about two hundred miles from its entrance into the
Mississippi.
In descending the river there was a juggler on board, who performed
many skilful juggling tricks, and by various feats of gambling won much
money from his dupes. Crockett was opposed to gambling in all its
forms. Becoming acquainted with the juggler and, finding him at heart a
well-meaning, good-natured fellow, he endeavored to remonstrate with
him upon his evil practices.
"I told him," says Crockett, "that it was a burlesque on human nature,
that an able-bodied man, possessed of his full share of good sense,
should voluntarily debase himself, and be indebted for subsistence to
such a pitiful artifice.
"'But what's to be done, Colonel?' says he. 'I'm in the slough of
despond, up to the very chin. A miry and slippery path to travel.'
"'Then hold your head up,' says I, 'before the slough reaches your
lips.'
"'But what's the use?' says he: 'it's utterly impossible for me to wade
through; and even if I could, I should be in such a dirty plight, that
it would defy all the waters in the Mississippi to wash me clean again.
No,' he added in a desponding tone, 'I should be like a live eel in a
frying-pan, Colonel, sort of out of my element, if I attempted to live
like an honest man at this time o' day.'
"'That I deny. It is never too late to become honest,' said I. 'But
even admit what you say to be true--that you cannot live like an honest
man--you have at least the next best thing in your power, and no one
can say nay to it.'
"'And what is that?'
"'Die like a brave one. And I know not whether, in the eyes of the
world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of
rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived.
We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet
scarcely bestow a passing glance upon its noonday splendor.'
"'You are right; but how is this to be done?'
"'Accompany me to Texas. Cut aloof from your degrading habits and
associates here, and, in fighting for the freedom of the Texans, regain
your own.'
"The man seemed much moved. He caught up his gambling instruments,
thrust them into his pocket, with hasty strides traversed the floor two
or three times, and then exclaimed:
"'By heaven, I will try to be a man again. I will live honestly, or die
bravely. I will go with you to Texas.'"
To confirm him in his good resolution, Crockett "asked him to liquor."
At Natchitoches, Crockett encountered another very singular character.
He was a remarkably handsome young man, of poetic imagination, a sweet
singer, and with innumerable scraps of poetry and of song ever at his
tongue's end. Honey-trees, as they were called, were very abundant in
Texas The prairies were almost boundless parterres of the richest
flowers, from which the bees made large quantities of the most
delicious honey. This they deposited in the hollows of trees. Not only
was the honey valuable, but the wax constituted a very important
article of commerce in Mexico, and brought a high price, being used for
the immense candles which they burned in their churches. The
bee-hunter, by practice, acquired much skill in coursing the bees to
their hives.
This man decided to join Crockett and the juggler in their journey over
the vast prairies of Texas. Small, but very strong and tough Mexican
ponies, called mustangs, were very cheap. They were found wild, in
droves of thousands, grazing on the prairies. The three adventurers
mounted their ponies, and set out on their journey due west, a distance
of one hundred and twenty miles, to Nacogdoches. Their route was along
a mere trail, which was called the old Spanish road. It led over vast
prairies, where there was no path, and where the bee-hunter was their
guide, and through forests where their course was marked only by blazed
trees.
The bee-hunter, speaking of the state of society in Texas, said that at
San Felipe he had sat down with a small party at the breakfast-table,
where eleven of the company had fled from the States charged with the
crime of murder. So accustomed were the inhabitants to the appearance
of fugitives from justice, that whenever a stranger came among them,
they took it for granted that he had committed some crime which
rendered it necessary for him to take refuge beyond the grasp of his
country's laws.
They reached Nacogdoches without any special adventure. It was a
flourishing little Mexican town of about one thousand inhabitants,
situated in a romantic dell, about sixty miles west of the River
Sabine. The Mexicans and the Indians were very nearly on an
intellectual and social equality. Groups of Indians, harmless and
friendly, were ever sauntering through the streets of the little town.
Colonel Crockett's horse had become lame on the journey. He obtained
another, and, with his feet nearly touching the ground as he bestrode
the little animal, the party resumed its long and weary journey,
directing their course two or three hundred miles farther southwest
through the very heart of Texas to San Antonio. They frequently
encountered vast expanses of canebrakes; such canes as Northern boys
use for fishing-poles. There is one on the banks of Caney Creek,
seventy miles in length, with scarcely a tree to be seen for the whole
distance. There was generally a trail cut through these, barely wide
enough for a single mustang to pass. The reeds were twenty or thirty
feet high, and so slender that, having no support over the path, they
drooped a little inward and intermingled their tops. Thus a very
singular and beautiful canopy was formed, beneath which the travellers
moved along sheltered from the rays of a Texan sun.
As they were emerging from one of these arched avenues, they saw three
black wolves jogging along very leisurely in front of them, but at too
great a distance to be reached by a rifle-bullet. Wild turkeys were
very abundant, and vast droves of wild horses were cropping the herbage
of the most beautiful and richest pastures to be found on earth.
Immense herds of buffaloes were also seen.
"These sights," says Crockett, "awakened the ruling passion strong
within me, and I longed to have a hunt on a large scale. For though I
had killed many bears and deer in my time, I had never brought down a
buffalo, and so I told my friends. But they tried to dissuade me from
it, telling me that I would certainly lose my way, and perhaps perish;
for though it appeared a garden to the eye, it was still a wilderness.
I said little more upon the subject until we crossed the Trinidad
River. But every mile we travelled, I found the temptation grew
stronger and stronger."
The night after crossing the Trinidad River they were so fortunate as
to come across the hut of a poor woman, where they took shelter until
the next morning. They were here joined by two other chance travellers,
who must indeed have been rough specimens of humanity. Crockett says
that though he had often seen men who had not advanced far over the
line of civilization, these were the coarsest samples he had ever met.
One proved to be an old pirate, about fifty years of age. He was tall,
bony, and in aspect seemed scarcely human. The shaggy hair of his
whiskers and beard covered nearly his whole face. He had on a sailor's
round jacket and tarpaulin hat. The deep scar, apparently of a sword
cut, deformed his forehead, and another similar scar was on the back of
one of his hands. His companion was a young Indian, wild as the wolves,
bareheaded, and with scanty deerskin dress.
Early the next morning they all resumed their journey, the two
strangers following on foot. Their path led over the smooth and
treeless prairie, as beautiful in its verdure and its flowers as the
most cultivated park could possibly be. About noon they stopped to
refresh their horses and dine beneath a cluster of trees in the open
prairie. They had built their fire, were cooking their game, and were
all seated upon the grass, chatting very sociably, when the bee-hunter
saw a bee, which indicated that a hive of honey might be found not far
distant. He leaped upon his mustang, and without saying a word,
"started off like mad," and scoured along the prairie. "We watched
him," says Crockett, "until he seemed no larger than a rat, and finally
disappeared in the distance."