American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (43 page)

Billy Bob Thornton’s Crockett pauses beautifully, a man completely aware of his own ironies and paradoxes, of his own mortality, a man who can no longer exist outside his own legend. He looks toward the walls and speaks with moving honesty to Bowie. “If it was just me, simple ol’ David from Tennessee, I might drop over that wall some night and take my chances—But that ‘Davy Crockett’ feller . . . They’re all watching him.”

The finest Crockett moment of the film comes on the eve of the attack, as the band from the Mexican army continues to torment the besieged men with the incessant playing of
Degüello,
the “no quarter” death march that signifies the act of beheading or throat-cutting. The dirge is unnerving the defenders, but suddenly David Crockett knows exactly what to do. He grabs his fiddle, ascends the wall, and proceeds to answer the band with a sweetly whimsical harmonizing that is just discordant enough to sound slightly irreverent. It’s a magnificent performance, Crockett alone on the wall, utterly exposed yet unafraid and defiant, keenly aware of his performance yet simultaneously natural, honest, and true to himself. The man and the legend merge into one figure, silhouetted there on the wall, against a fiery Texas sunset, playing his fiddle, entertaining people. All eyes and ears are upon him as he finishes the song, quieting the Mexican band. Columns and columns of orderly soldiers stare back in amazement at the singular man on the wall who has managed to command the attention of all present, each and every defender and the entire Mexican army. Finally, an older soldier knowingly nudges a younger compatriot next to him on the shoulder. He smiles and nods, whispering to him a single word like a gift, telling him who he has just been fortunate enough to witness, as if with the very utterance of his name he will live forever in memory, immortalized:

“Crockett!”

NO DOUBT THORNTON’S CROCKETT WILL NOT BE THE LAST. Such is the nature of men who become legends, and especially the nature of David Crockett of the state of Tennessee, who wrestled bears, spun yarns, managed to get himself elected to offices for which he was only dubiously qualified, and perished, achieving martyrdom and immortality. His is an image and a story that refuses to die. Crockett, in the end, transcends the facts of his own mortal life to become an enduring symbol of possibility, remembered not for his deeds or his greatness as a head of state but for the sheer tenacity of his spirit, for what he came to represent. Benjamin Franklin became a model of the self-made man, his life the “classic American success story—the story of a man rising from the most obscure of origins to wealth and international preeminence.”
²⁴
Crockett knew the story well (among the few personal possessions he took to Texas is thought to have been Franklin’s
Autobiography
),
²⁵
and he attempted to live it himself and very nearly did, and one can only speculate on what he might have achieved had things turned out differently that cold morning of March 6, 1836. He never achieved the wealth, and in that respect he failed, but he managed the international prominence, at least in name and in memory. In the end David Crockett’s importance lives on, not in what he achieved but because he never stopped trying, he never quit and he never lost hope. He kept his eye on that western horizon, pulled his hat down tight, gritted his teeth, and rode on into the blazing sunset, come what may.

Frank Mayo starred as Crockett in an amazing twenty-four-year run of the play
Davy Crockett; Or, Be Sure You’re Right, Then Go Ahead,
by Frank Murdock and Frank Mayo. (Score from “Davy Crockett March.” Rose Music Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.)

NOTES

Prologue

1
David Crockett,
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee: A Facsimile Edition with Annotations and an Introduction by James A. Shackford and Stanley J. Folmsbee
(Knoxville, 1973), 11.

Chapter 1: Origins

Direct Crockett quotes in this chapter are taken from his
Narrative,
unless otherwise noted.

1
There remains ongoing discussion regarding Crockett’s heritage, including the possibility that he is the descendant of a French Huguenot named Antoine de Crocketagne, who immigrated to England, then Ireland, in the seventeenth century. For a detailed discussion of this uncertain lineage, see James A. Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1956), 293n. Also see Crockett,
Narrative,
14; Stanley J. Folmsbee and Anna Grace Catron, “The Early Career of David Crockett,”
East Tennessee Historical Society’s Publications
28 (1956): 59-60; William C. Davis,
Three Roads to the Alamo
(New York, 1998), 9; and Robert V. Remini,
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
(New York, 2001), 11.

2
Quoted in Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 59.

3
Richard Boyd Hauck,
Crockett: A Bio-Bibliography
(Westport, CT, 1982), 9.

4
Ibid, 9. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
3-5.

5
Davis,
Three Roads,
10. Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
9. Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 59-60.

6
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
4.

7
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
9. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
5.

8
Davis,
Three Roads,
12. Mark Derr,
The Frontiersman: The Real Life and the Many Legends of Davy Crockett
(New York, 1993), 40. Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 60.

9
Derr,
Frontiersman,
40-41.

10
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
7.

11
Ibid, 5.

12
Derr,
Frontiersman,
41.

13
Ibid. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
6.

14
Davis,
Three Roads,
13.

15
Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 61-62. Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
11.

16
Crockett,
Narrative,
22.

17
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
6.

18
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
12. H. W. Brands,
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
(New York, 2000), 20.

19
Crockett,
Narrative,
23.

20
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
8-9. Davis,
Three Roads,
16.

21
Crockett,
Narrative,
24.

22
Davis,
Three Roads,
16-17. Joseph J. Arpad,
David Crockett: An Original Legendary Eccentricity and Early American Character
(Duke University, 1968), 171-72. Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 62.

23
Derr,
Frontiersman,
46. Davis,
Three Roads,
17.

24
Crockett,
Narrative,
29.

25
Ibid, 31.

26
Ibid, 34.

Chapter 2: Runaway

Direct Crockett quotes in this chapter are taken from his
Narrative,
unless otherwise noted.

1
Arpad,
Original Legendary,
130.

2
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
10.

3
Crockett,
Narrative,
35.

4
Ibid, 36.

5
Ibid, 37.

6
Ibid.

7
Ibid, 38.

8
Ibid.

9
Ibid, 38-39.

10
Ibid, 40.

11
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
10-11.

12
Crockett,
Narrative,
41.

13
Ibid, 42.

14
Ibid, 9.

15
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
11. Crockett,
Narrative,
42.

16
Crockett,
Narrative,
43.

17
Crockett appears to have dropped a year in his narrative, claiming that he was “almost fifteen” at this point, when actually he would have been nearly sixteen. See Crockett’s
Narrative,
43, 22n. See also Shackford,
Man and Legend,
11 and 294n.

Chapter 3: The Dutiful Son Becomes a Man

Direct Crockett quotes in this chapter are taken from his
Narrative,
unless otherwise noted.

1
Crockett,
Narrative,
45.

2
Ibid.

3
Ibid, 47.

4
Ibid.

5
Ibid, 47-48.

6
Stanley Folmsbee, in his marginal annotations of Crockett ’s
Narrative,
points out in note 12 on page 49 that Crockett exaggerates his ignorance for political reasons. Time and again, Crockett illustrates that he was an incredibly adaptable, sharp, and inquisitive learner and astute student of human nature. His later letters show that he significantly increased his early education over time, and especially his writing skill, almost exclusively through self-study.

7
Marriage License and Bond Book 1792-1840
(Jefferson County, TN). Crockett,
Narrative,
49-50, 14n.

8
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
13. Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
14.

9
Crockett,
Narrative,
62, 10n. Folmsbee notes the many references to Crockett’s presence when wolf scalps were brought in, recorded, and purchased, in
Lawrence County Minutes
1818-1823. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
39, 298n.

10
Crockett,
Narrative,
65, 16n.

11
Ibid, 67. Folmsbee and Catron. “Early Career,” 63n. Two days have passed between the Finley altercation and the actual performance of the ceremony.

12
Crockett,
Narrative,
68.

13
Ibid, 20n. Folmsbee and Catron. “Early Career,” 64.

14
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
295n.

15
Davis,
Three Roads,
25.

16
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
17.

Chapter 4: “My Dander Was Up”

Direct Crockett quotes in this chapter are taken from his
Narrative,
unless otherwise noted.

1
Davis,
Three Roads,
25.

2
Robert V. Remini,
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
(New York, 2001), 5-6.

3
Davis,
Three Roads,
25. Derr,
Frontiersman,
59-60.

4
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
19. Remini,
Indian Wars,
50. John Sugden,
Tecumseh: A Life
(New York, 1997), 352.