By Mark Derr
304 pages, hardcover: $23.00
Reviewed by Chuck Hamsa
There are so many stories connected with Davy Crockett that it is nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction. But within the confines of a single title, Derr succeeds admirable in presenting both basic historical information as well as the origins of the many stories concerning Crockett, the man and the myth.
What emerges from these pages is a story concerning the Crockett family and hard times. While Crockett's parents were seemingly interested in their children getting some form of an education, the offspring were not as ambitious in this direction. when David received a lashing from his father for not attending school, he took off for a three-year period. He did eventually return and found that he was expected to pay one of his father's debts. When this was accomplished, Crockett again took to the road.
All this happened before David reached twenty years of age, and at that time he married his first wife, Polly in 1806. A short time later Polly's new husband again went on one of his travels. With the advent of the War of 1812, Crockett joined the Tennessee militia where he served with some distinction, returning home about the same time that Polly died from a lingering illness in 1815. The summer of the same year he married a widow, Elizabeth Paton, whose family would provide him the initial financial base to improve his lot.
The Crockett family moved to Lawrence County, Tennessee, where in 1818 Crockett was elected county commissioner. In this position Crockett received the necessary public exposure to run successfully for state legislator for both Lawrence and Hickman counties in 1821. Constituents began to equate Davy Crockett as the champion for the welfare of the common man. This image would erase any inadequacies that he may have had in the way of education or social upbringing.
Crockett would soon emerge as a supporter of Andrew Jackson versus such men as Clay and Adams. This would culminate in the election of 1827 when Crockett took the election for the 9th Congressional District of Tennessee, the area known as the Western District. He moved to Washington in the latter part of the year. It soon became apparent that Crockett was a hard-drinking man, and because of this affinity, he failed to appear for many roll call votes in Congress.
Crockett considered two objectives as important for the people he represented. These were land reforms and the federal government moving the Indians from the east side of the Mississippi as soon as possible. When he was unable to accomplish either in Congress, he broke ranks with Jackson and his allies. Those forces turned the tables on him, using his failures to cause him to lose the next election.
About the same time, Crockett was achieving national attention after his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, became a best seller. He became a household word at the same time as he was not succeeding as a national politician, and the rise of the myth began to blur the image of Crockett the man.
Rejected by the 9th Congressional District voters, Crockett told them that they could go to hell and that he was going to Texas. Arriving there Crockett found that the myth had preceded him, and he delighted in telling those admirers around him his last words to his Tennessee constituents. But he would have the misfortune in being at the Alamo at the same time that Santa Anna and the elements of the Mexican army lay siege to the fortress. His reported death at the Alamo would eventually elevate the man to a new level of legend and myth.
Thus, Crockett's death gave rise to the man as a symbol of the American frontier, the image of rugged individualism. The rise of the myth wiped the slate clean concerning the man's ineptness as a national politician. In the passing years, Crockett emerged bigger than life, one of the heroes of the American frontier. This reverence to the myth reached fever pitch when Fess Parker came on the television scene in the Walt Disney portrayal of Davy Crockett as the true American hero. Even Democratic politician and Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver would adopt the traditional coonskin hat as part of his campaign attire.
The degree to which the myth was entrenched in the minds of the American public received ample illustration when in 1978 a writer, using original sources of the Mexican army, reported that Crockett had been a survivor of the battle of the Alamo. He was captured and attempted to tell his captors that he was merely a traveler in the wrong place. Santa Anna had Crockett and other survivors hacked to pieces by swords. The national media picked up on the story, branding the author as a malcontent who was attempting to damage the good character of one of the country's national heroes. Indeed, as author Derr has so aptly written, the public would have none of it, choosing to believe that Crockett would have chosen to die at the Alamo when any sane person would have done his best to escape.
Derr has done an outstanding job in attempting to portray Crockett the man, whom anyone would have enjoyed meeting. He was indeed what the author chooses to call "the original common man."
William Morrow and Company.
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