David Crockett: The Man and the Legend

This remains the definitive biography of David Crockett. Shackford is a firm believer that the real David Crockett is a much more interesting man than the legendary Davy Crockett, and although he recounts both the real and the legendary about the man here, it's the real he concentrates on - sometimes in great detail, but never to the point of totally overwhelming the reader. Crockett was born in 1786 in Tennessee. His grandparents were killed by Indians near today's Rogersville, TN. From an early age Crockett was a drover between Tennessee and Virginia. A poor farmer but excellent hunter, he was able to put food on the family table with his gun. It is also here that some of the legendary accounts of his life begin, although some seemingly exaggerated exploits are true (killing over 100 bears in one season, for example, though the number would rise with the telling). He volunteered in Andrew Jackson's army against the Creeks in Alabama, though he was glad when his service was through. After his wife died, he remarried and soon was involved in politics, getting elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. He made many friends and was finally elected to Congress in 1827, after an unsuccessful bid two year earlier. It was in Washington that his legend rocketed. An ally of Jackson's, he became a symbol of "the common man." A play and biography about him fanned the legendary fire (they were more tall-tale than factual, as Shackford demonstrates), and his autobiography appeared in 1834. (Shackford dissects the autobiography carefully, noting that it was written with a great deal of help from Crockett's friend Thomas Chilton, and that it was Crockett who insisted that many of the exaggerations about him not be included; he also shows how most of what remained was true and accurate, which corrects past interpretations.) Crockett didn't last long in Congress, mainly because of his strong support for "the little guy" (squatters' rights) and his opposition to Jackson's Indian removal policy, which he abhorred (interesting in light of his family's history). He went home, licked his wounds, and joined the Whig party. Re-elected to Congress as a Whig in 1833, he toured the eastern states, had more sensational biographies about him published, and began issuing (or rather had issued "for" him or "about" him) the famous Almanacs in which his exploits took on Olympian proportions. He was defeated in Congress again in 1835 and in November of that year, headed for Texas. He made his way to San Antonio in time to be among the slaughtered "immortals" killed at the Alamo by Santa Anna in February 1836. Crockett's death, as related by editor Michael A. Lofaro in the Introduction, is interesting and quite different from many other accounts, including Shackford's own (based on "new information"). Apparently seven men, Crockett being one of them, were captured by Mexican soldiers and spared, in defiance of Santa Anna's orders that no prisoners were to be taken.