CHAPTER XI.
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."
