We can not follow our hero—for he was a moral hero—in his adventures while going across the country to Texas. Only one incident have we room for. On the way he rode apace with a circuit preacher, a man not less a hardy adventurer than himself. He narrates this:
“We talked about politics, religion, and nature, farming, and bear-hunting, and the many blessings that an all-bountiful Providence had bestowed upon our happy country. He continued to talk on this subject, traveling 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 their 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 one watchful eye over me; no matter whether I dwelt in the populous cities, or threaded the pathless forests 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.”
Crockett reached Texas just in time to take part with the American filibusters in the famous defense of the fortress of the Alamo, against Santa Anna’s army. On the 6th of March, 1836, the citadel was carried by the Mexicans by assault, only six of the little garrison surviving, of whom Crockett was one. When captured he stood at bay in an angle of the fort, his shattered rifle in one hand and a bloody bowie-knife in the other; twenty Mexicans, dead or dying, were at his feet. His face was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners to be put to the sword. Crockett, hearing the order, though entirely unarmed, sprang like a tiger at the throat of the Mexican general, but a dozen swords interrupted him and cut off his life.
Thus in its prime was thrown away a life that in many respects was one of the most extraordinary in our annals. If he had enjoyed early advantages, he would have been one of the greatest of Americans. Nay, it is possible that if he had not been so deeply wounded by ingratitude, treachery and defeat, and had remained at home, he, instead of General Harrison, would have been the one to lead the popular revolution, when came the reaction from the unlicensed regime of Jackson and Van Buren.
David Crockett’s courage, independence, honesty, goodness of heart, made him shine “like a good deed in a naughty world.” He ought not to be forgotten by his countrymen, for a noble illustration of the capabilities that may be found among the common people, and of the career possible to even the lowliest-born American citizen.
FOOTNOTE:
[H] Abbott.
When a man is called feeble, what is meant by the expression? Feebleness denotes a relative state; a relative state of the being to whom it is applied. He whose strength exceeds his necessities, though an insect, a worm, is a strong being; he whose necessities exceed his strength, though an elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, though a god, is a feeble being.—Rousseau.