methods of the Murrell gang, a story too sickening for repetition.
The existence of such a fraternity of criminals had a great influence
upon the history of Texas and its neighbors, the United States and
Mexico. Under the great cottonwoods in the swamps of Madison County,
men met who had plundered and burned ships and cut throats all the way
from Curaçoa to the Bahama Banks and Barnegat; who had both filled
and emptied the unspeakable barracoons of the slave-trade on the
Guinea coast; who had been midnight assassins in Paris and Madrid,
brigands from the ruins of the Appian Way, pirates from every maritime
nation of the globe; and always besides, there was the more or less
gentlemanly gambler of the Mississippi river-boats, ready to lead or
follow where there was promise of plunder. There were secret signs,
passwords, and grips, relay stations on their highways of crime, and
everywhere confederates who ranked with the first citizens in unsullied
reputations and sober living. The gang sold slaves trained to run away,
to be sold again and then again, until led into the tangled pathways
of some reeking swamp, to die the death of a dog at the hands of men
who left no danger of detection overlooked. In 1835 their operations as
gamblers upon the great river, and as robbers and swindlers along its
shores, led to their being driven out of the jurisdiction of the courts
and vigilance committees of the frontier. They went to Texas, because
there was no other place to which they dared to go. Here their reckless
habits infused new life into the discontent already existing among the
colonists, and hastened the inevitable conflict that was so soon to
occur.
During the years 1832 and 1833, Davy was a private citizen, but he
was by no means an idle one. If he still hunted the bears of the
“harricane” at his back door, he tells nothing in regard to such
pursuits. His time was taken up in writing the story of his own life,
and in planning for the next election. That he wrote his autobiography
in the two years mentioned is shown by the work itself. His constant
reference to the removal of the “deposites” from the United States Bank
is good proof that much of the book was written after the date of the
removal.
In his canvass of his district for votes, while fighting his way back
to Washington, Davy found his lessons in history and national questions
of great assistance. His easy familiarity with the names of famous
statesmen, his crude painting of Eastern life and manners, and his new
self-possession in speaking before a crowd, all served to awaken the
admiration and win the support of a people who loved the spectacular
in politics. His readiness to pit himself against all comers, in
everything from oration to sharp-shooting, made him an attraction at
every public gathering. The story of the Middle Fork camp-meeting has
not yet faded from the memory of the men who lived upon its banks.
It was a splendid summer afternoon, when Davy rode into an open place
in the forest, twenty miles east of his cabin, where two or three
hundred men and women had come to listen to the exhortations of the
“rider,” a long, ungainly preacher.
He was about to lead in a hymn when a rough and red-nosed man with a
bottle of whisky in his pocket, leaped upon the rock and levelled his
rifle in the faces of the astonished people.
“The first man sings has got to fight!” he yelled. “I’m the wild-cat
hunter from the Wolf Creek branch of the Rutherford Fork. I’ve et up
all the Injuns, bears, an’ wildcats ez fur ez the Big Sandy, an’ I’m
dying hungry now fur hymn-books an’ preachers an’ folks thet sings.”
He stopped, glared at the astonished old “rider,” then took out the
bottle and drank a half-dozen swallows with a gurgling sound. Some one
spoke in the crowd. “Shut up!” he yelled, lifting his bottle and waving
it above the shrinking women and children below. “Shut up an’ git out
o’ sight before ye see the wildcat hunter eat the preacher, hide and
hair!”
There was the crack of a rifle, and the bottle was shattered into
fragments, dashing the raw liquor into the rowdy’s eyes and cutting
his face with bits of glass. When he could see, Davy Crockett’s gun was
almost touching his nose.
“Hand the preacher your gun,” said Davy, “stand where you are, and sing
like all possessed. If you don’t, we’ll make you eat a wildcat for
sure. All right, preacher, go ahead!”
After the singing was over, the wildcat hunter hung about, trying in
vain to recover his gun, and finally departed in discreet silence as
the daylight faded in the west.
Many of Davy’s admirers became acquainted with him at the barbecues
and shooting-matches that were frequent during his campaigns. With so
little diversion in their narrow lives, the frontiersmen flocked to
such meetings from far and near, bringing their wives and children, and
driving before them the cattle to be put up as prizes for the marksmen.
Davy was always ready for such a competition, and was never obliged to
content himself with the “hide and tallow.” The usual method in such
matches was to sell several chances on each animal. The best marksmen
took their choice of the several parts of the beef, the order of their
choosing to be fixed by the result of the match. The one making the
lowest score took the hide and tallow as a consolation.
The score of such a match was kept about as follows: each man handed
the judges a burnt board, rubbed down nearly to the sound part of the
wood. On this circles of one half-inch, one inch, and one and a half
inches, were made with a pair of dividers or the ruder compasses of the
carpenter. Each man shot the agreed number of times at his own board,
at from fifty to sixty yards’ distance, “toeing the mark” made by the
judges. Upon many an occasion Davy divided up his winnings with the men
who had been unsuccessful.
Davy won this election after much hard work on the stump.
XVII.
DAVY’S POPULARITY
Rejoicing in the East over Davy’s reëlection――One of his attacks
upon Jackson in Congress――He undertakes a journey to the Atlantic
cities――Starts for Baltimore by stage――The Steamboat _Carroll of
Carrollton_――Davy first sees a railway train――A grand welcome in
Philadelphia――Davy addresses five thousand people in front of the
Exchange――He visits Fairmount, the United States Mint, the Walnut
Street Theatre, and sees Jim Crow――His reflections upon Eastern
manners――He is dined by the young Whigs――Gives directions for making
the celebrated rifle “Betsy,” the gift of Philadelphia admirers.
The news of Davy Crockett’s reëlection, in spite of the opposition
of the Jackson party, was received in the Eastern States with joy,
and even the Southern States of the Atlantic coast, hugging to their
bosoms the fragments of the new idol of Nullification, heard of the
backwoodsman’s victory with grim satisfaction. Clay and Webster and
John Quincy Adams stood with such men as Albert Gallatin and the
Quaker statesmen of Philadelphia. The voters who had made the hero
of the treaty at Hickory Grove their President still had a kindly
feeling for the man who had dared to offer an honest opposition to
the irascible old General. The wily politicians cultivated the renown
of Davy Crockett as a plant of great promise, that might even make
Presidential timber.
Davy’s opposition to Andrew Jackson was outspoken and undisguised.
After his tour of the Eastern cities, to be hereinafter described, he
spoke in Congress upon the subject of the “Bill Making Appropriations
for Fortifications.” The records show that his words were in part as
follows:
“Sir, we have no Government but Andrew Jackson, without Secretaries;
and, sir, he is surrounded by a set of imps of famine that are as
hungry as the flies that we have read of in Æsop’s Fables, that came
after the fox and sucked his blood. Sir, they are a hungry swarm, and
will lick up every dollar of the public money.”
Mr. Dunlap, of Tennessee, replied to Crockett with heated language, and
Crockett again took the floor to reply, saying that he wished it to
be distinctly understood that he took back nothing that he had said,
but that he would reassert everything and go even further. Standing in
his place for almost the last time, he lifted his hand in passionate
protest against the proposed use of the public funds, and took his seat
with these words:
“We have no Government, no Government at all. God only knows what is
to become of the country in these days of misrule. Sir, I am done.”
Such attitude as this accounts for the infinite pains with which the
opposition fought him two years later in his campaign for a fourth
term. While he was attending to his Congressional duties, his political
fences were demolished by the stay-at-homes, and in their places were
set up what in these days of such unsightly nuisances might be called
the bill-boards of partisan defamation.
The comparatively inactive life of a Congressman had begun to tell
upon the scout and bear-hunter of the Mississippi cane. He decided to
take a trip through the Eastern States for the benefit of his health.
Although it was in the midst of the spring session of Congress, he
left Washington on the 25th of April, 1834, and did not return until
the latter part of June. He says of this proposed journey:
“During this session of Congress, I thought I would take a travel
through the Northern States. I had braved the lonely forests of the
West, I had shouldered the warrior’s rifle in the far South; but the
North and East I had never seen. I seemed to like members of Congress
who came from these parts, and wished to know what kind of constituents
they had.”
Up to this time his knowledge of the East was confined to Baltimore
and Washington. He had read and heard much of the wonders of the
greater cities of the Atlantic seaboard, but he had never felt free to
describe them to his fellow-citizens of western Tennessee. He has left
no word regarding his impressions of the nation’s capital. It would be
interesting to compare his views with those of Charles Dickens, who
visited many of the same cities a few years later. This is what Dickens
thought of Washington in 1842:
“Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the
straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest,
preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and
dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by
furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of
birds. Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster;
widen it a little; throw in part of St. John’s Wood; put green blinds
outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a white one
in every window; plow up all the roads; plant a great deal of coarse
turf in every place where it ought _not_ to be; erect three handsome
buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the more entirely out of
everybody’s way the better; call one the Post Office, one the Patent
Office, and one the Treasury; make it scorching hot in the morning, and
freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of wind and
dust; leave a brick-field without the bricks, in all central places
where a street may naturally be expected; and that is Washington.”
From this sort of place, perhaps even less beautiful, Davy was whirled
away on the April morning before mentioned, viewing from his seat on
the top of a great coach the roadside scenes between Washington and
Baltimore. Upon arriving at the latter city, he put up at Barnum’s
Hotel, kept by “Uncle Davy,” whom he gladly hailed as a namesake.
He says that no one could find better quarters or a more hospitable
city. He was asked to dine with his friend Wilkes and other Baltimore
gentlemen, and spent the evening pleasantly in their company.
The next morning he was up early, in order to take the steamboat to
Philadelphia. At this time only seventeen miles of railroad existed
between the two cities, crossing the land in the vicinity of Wilmington
and Havre de Grace. It was called the Charlestown and Augusta Railway.
The departure from Baltimore seems to have given Davy a sense of
lonesomeness. He felt what so many others since have felt――poor human
mites among a swarm of busy ants!――that the loneliest place in all the
world is a great city. He realized, and tells us so, that the tens of
thousands who passed him by in the noisy streets neither knew nor
cared who he might be, and that at the best he might expect to be
valued at about the price of a coon-skin. This we have already seen to
be no more than a York shilling, or a quart of New England rum.
“The steamboat,” says Davy, “was the _Carroll of Carrollton_, a fine
craft, with the rum old Commodore Chaytor for head man. A good fellow
he is――all sorts of a man――bowing and scraping to the ladies, nodding
to the gentlemen, cursing the crew, and his right eye broadcast upon
the ‘opposition line,’ all at the same time. ‘Let go!’ says the old
one, and off we walked in prime style.”
They soon passed Fort McHenry, forever glorified by the stubborn
defense that has made “The Star-Spangled Banner” our national song of
victory, and North Point was pointed out to Davy as the spot where
the British had once planned to land their attacking forces. The run
to Charlestown was soon finished, and here Davy saw the sight of his
life: a train, on the seventeen-mile railroad between Delaware City and
Chesapeake Bay. As the first locomotive in the United States came from
England in 1825, it may be believed that what Davy saw in 1834 would
be almost as astonishing to people of to-day. A dozen vehicles that
resembled old-fashioned coaches stood in line on the flat rails that
formed the railroad, while an ungainly locomotive, with a smoke-stack
nearly as large as the boiler, and with a flat-car behind, loaded with
wood and barrels of water for use on the run, was blowing off steam and
showing every sign of a desire to make a start. The locomotive looked
much like the kind now used by threshing outfits.
Behold, then, Davy, seated upon the top of one of the coaches, as if on
a diligence in the days of Claude Duval, intent upon every move:
“After a good deal of fuss we all got seated and moved slowly off, the
engine wheezing as if she had the tizzick. By and by she began to take
short breaths, and away we went with a blue streak after us.”
Soon after starting a team was sighted in the gathering darkness of
the evening. When they saw the shower of sparks from the stack of the
infernal machine that was coming towards them, the horses ran away
with a right good will, upsetting the wagon, and scattering the freight
along the way.
Let us now follow Davy’s own story of his visit. After the dinner on
the boat, he went on deck, in time to see that a great display of
flags was taking place on board. When he asked the reason, the captain
told him that it was to be a signal that Crockett was coming, given on
account of the desire of the Philadelphia people to meet him at the
wharf.
“We went on till we came in sight of the city,” says Davy’s account,
“and as we drew near to the wharf I saw the whole face of the earth
covered with people, all anxiously looking on towards the boat. The
captain and myself were standing on the bow deck. He pointed his finger
at me, and people slung their hats and huzzaed for Colonel Crockett. It
struck me with astonishment to hear a strange people huzzaing for me,
and made me feel sort of queer. But I had to meet it, and so I stepped
on to the wharf, where the folks came crowding around me, saying, ‘Give
me the hand of an honest man.’ I did not know what all this meant; but
some gentlemen took hold of me, and, pressing through the crowd, put
me into an elegant barouche, drawn by four fine horses. They then told
me to bow to the people; I did so, and with much difficulty we moved
off. The streets were crowded to a great distance, and the windows full
of people, looking out, I supposed, to see the wild man. I thought I
would rather be in the wilderness, with my gun and my dogs, than to be
attracting all that fuss. I had never seen the like before, and did not
know exactly what to say or do. After some time we reached the United
States Hotel, in Chestnut Street.”
The crowd having followed his carriage to the hotel, Davy at last
showed himself upon the balcony front, bowing repeatedly with hat in
hand, as we have seen Taft and Roosevelt do upon so many occasions,
in these days of Presidential travel. At the last he was constrained
to speak a few words of thanks, in which he recognized the existence
of a state of high excitement in political affairs, which he wished
to make no worse. He promised to speak again at one o’clock the next
afternoon, and then withdrew. That night, as he lay restless in a
strange place, he looked forward to the promised speech with much doubt
and fear, but at last consoled himself by trusting to the good luck
that had already got him “through many a scrape before.”
The next morning Judge Baldwin, Judge Hemphill, John Sergeant, and
others, called upon Davy, and afterwards he was invited to visit
the Fairmount waterworks, then the pride of the whole State. He was
astonished at the volume of water lifted by a “few wheels,” but even
more so by the lavish use of the supply. He says that such scrubbing
of steps and even of pavements he had never seen, and he strongly
suspected the housemaids of having web feet. The next place visited
was the Mint, and the sight of real money, as he calls it, stirred him
to comment upon the flood of paper then in circulation. The statement
made to Davy that the workmen were too much accustomed to handling coin
ever to think of stealing it, was a “poser.” He had thought that such
constant temptation was the most powerful cause of crime. During the
forenoon a visit was made to the Asylum for the Insane, whereat Davy
thanked God for the bounty and humaneness of the city in thus providing
for the unfortunates within its walls. When the round of the city had
been made, the time for the promised speech had nearly arrived. He says
that he had made set speeches in Congress, when all his colleagues were
against him, and further:
“I had made stump speeches at home, in the face of all the little
office-yelpers who were opposed to me; but indeed, when I got in sight
of the Exchange, and saw the streets crowded, I ’most wished to take
back my promise, but I was brought up by hearing a youngster say, as
I passed, ‘Go ahead, Davy Crockett.’ I said to myself, ‘I have faced
the enemy; these are friends. I have fronted the savage red man of the
forest; these are civilized. I’ll keep cool, and let them have it.’”
Davy went to the Exchange, and in a few moments stood before that great
crowd, bowing in response to the continued cheering that delayed the
possibility of his being heard. He says there were five thousand people
in front of the building; it was Philadelphia exalting to the skies
the symbolism of its dislike and hatred of Andrew Jackson, personified
in “the wild man from the West.” For half an hour Davy spoke to the
immense audience, and for an hour afterwards stood upon the steps of
the Exchange, shaking hands with eager admirers.
Here is the spectacle of a man who had risen, as we have seen, from
the lowly log-house settlement of the Western slopes, unschooled,
unpolished, except by the rude processes of hardships and necessity,
yet who could rise to such self-command as this. Thousands of men
of the higher order of the educated fail when they try to think and
talk at the same time. The possibilities that were in Davy Crockett’s
pathway were without limit; a vision of political greatness hovered
about his pillow in the midnight hours, and beckoned him onward in
the glare of day. That he should thus be known by the people of the
seaboard filled his soul with pride and his heart with hope. He forgot
the bitter words he had spoken in honest wrath against what he believed
to be the misdeeds of the administration of Andrew Jackson. Like one
camping in the peaceful forest, unmindful of the stern and silent foe
upon his trail, he rested in a contentment that was undisturbed by
doubt. He looked forward to reëlection the next year, or to a gift
from the people of even greater power. There is no sign of his honest
nature being spoiled by so much attention. He was never blind to the
possibility of deception in the adulation of the public, but the loud
cheers of the men of the Quaker City rang true in his ears, and he
believed them as sincere as himself.
In the evening Davy visited the Walnut Street Theatre, where he saw Jim
Crow――“as good a nigger,” he says, “as if he was clean black, except
the bandy legs.” After the theatre, Davy said that he thought his own
people found quite as much pleasure in their own simple recreations as
did the city folks in their more expensive and showy ones, and against
anything the city could show he would put the fun of the all-night
country dance.
“It would do you good to see our boys and girls dancing,” said he.
“None of your straddling and mincing and sadying, but a regular
sifter, cut-the-buckle, chicken-flutter set-to.” It is well, sometimes,
to get another view of ourselves from such a standpoint as Davy’s.
The Philadelphia people, especially the politicians of the Whig party,
outdid themselves in entertaining the hero of the hour. The next
morning he was presented with a forty-dollar seal for his watch-chain.
The design showed a “match race,” as he styles it, with two horses at
full speed, and with the motto, “Go Ahead!” He thought it the finest
seal he had ever seen, and says that after his return to Washington in
June, the members of Congress almost wore it out in making impressions
to send all over the country.
The seal had hardly been presented before Mr. James Sanderson was
announced. He had come to ask Davy for his wishes and advice in
procuring a rifle that the Young Whigs of the city desired to present
to Colonel Crockett. Davy was perhaps more pleased with this gift
than by any other that could have been offered him. He gave the
specifications as to size, weight, and so on, and it was arranged that
the rifle should be given to him on his way back to Congress.
On Tuesday Davy visited the Navy Yard and saw on the stocks the largest
ship that had ever been laid down in the United States. He also visited
the Schuylkill bridge, and was shown the railroad that had been
extended a hundred miles into the State, “without making any fuss about
it.” Upon seeing Girard College, he remarked that blood is thicker than
water, and that he would have made his own kin rich first of all, and
afterwards might have given away the rest. His last evening was the
occasion for a “pick-knick” supper. He says this meant as much as he
and his friends could eat and drink, with nothing to pay.
XVIII.
TRAVELLING HARD
Davy visits New York City――His astonishment at the sight of the
shipping――Davy wants to run to every fire――He visits Peale’s
Museum――“Whole rows of little bugs and such-like varments”――Dined by
the Young Whigs of New York――The first of May was moving day――Meets
Albert Gallatin, whose house is being demolished to make room for the
Astor Tavern――Visits the Five Points, and sees an artillery parade at
the Battery――A rifle match at Jersey City――His journey is continued
to Boston by way of Hell Gate and Providence――Davy is welcomed at the
Tremont Tavern――Visits Faneuil Hall, Bunker Hill, the Constitution, and
is the guest of the Young Whigs――Makes a speech to a meeting in front
of the State House, and visits Lowell――Davy is given a broadcloth suit
made from Mississippi wool――He returns to Washington――The news from
Texas in 1834.
The next day――the 29th of April, according to his story――Davy went
to New York, by steamboat up the Delaware, thence by rail to Perth
Amboy, and then again by boat. He says New York was certainly “a
bulger,” and especially was he astonished by the forest of masts at the
wharves. At the dock he was met by a committee and a crowd anxious to
see him. After three cheers had been given and repeated, a committee
representing the Young Whigs escorted him to the American Hotel, where
many New Yorkers had gathered to meet him.
That afternoon Davy was taken to see the new fire-engine, and then saw
Fanny Kemble play at the Park Theatre. He pays an honest tribute to
that charming actress, when he says, “She is like a handsome piece of
changeable silk: first one color and then another, but always the clean
thing.”
While here, a sudden alarm of fire was heard. Davy jumped for his hat,
and almost had to be held by his friends to keep him from rushing into
the street. He told them that many a time he had ridden bareback to
fires in his own neighborhood, and the city’s indifference to such
exciting happenings was hard for him to understand.
During the 31st Davy visited some of the newspaper offices, among them
those of the _Courier_, the _Enquirer_, and the _Star_. Then he saw
Pearl Street, making his way with much dodging about through the boxes
that covered the sidewalks. His party next took in the Stock Exchange,
and before he left he made a speech from the steps leading down to the
main floor. Returning to the hotel for dinner, he visited with friends
until they all decided to go to Peale’s Museum. This, says Davy, was
“over my head.” He makes no attempt to describe what he saw, but was
filled with wonder at seeing “whole rows of little bugs and such like
varments” set up in boxes, and could not see why they should be thought
worthy of exhibition.
From the Museum Davy went to the City Hall, where he met the Mayor, who
had once been a tanner, and Davy remarked to him that they “had both
clumb a long way up from where they started.” Before leaving the City
Hall he was invited to dine at Colonel Draper’s, where he met Major
Jack Downing, then a great celebrity.