Even when fighting in General Jackson’s army, Davy Crockett was “a law unto himself.” The officers decided to let him do as he liked, for he seemed to wish to do the right thing by them all. He would be missing for hours, and then come back with some game, big or little, to feast the company. Food was very scarce on the long march. When they got to fighting the Indians, Crockett knew exactly what to do. His aim was as sure then as it was when hunting bear or deer. Many a time when a big brave had his tomahawk raised to kill a fallen white man, the savage suddenly dropped dead where he stood. The astonished soldier would rise, look around, and mutter, “Davy Crockett must be somewhere around.” Davy’s bear-hunting, sharpshooting, and Indian fighting were so remarkable that his life was a strong proof of the saying, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
After General Jackson had put all the hostile savages out of the way and made it safe to live in those western states, the people were so grateful to Davy Crockett for his part in it that they put him up for election to Congress. Rival candidates, who felt much more fitted to go to Washington, made all manner of fun of Davy Crockett, and said the people ought to be ashamed to send a man like that to represent them in Congress. But the people said, “Davy Crockett ain’t much on book-l’arnin’ an’ spoutin’ poetry, but neither are we. He knows our life and just what we want. He ain’t much of a lawyer, but he’s got good sense, an’ he can represent us better’n a dozen lawyers.”
Those people knew what they were doing. Though Davy Crockett did not know much about books, he was not ignorant, for he was well-educated in the real life of that western frontier. So the people elected him three times to Congress, and he came to be loved and admired there for his homely wisdom and his quaint way of making others understand just what he meant. While he was a member of Congress he traveled up and down the eastern states. Wherever he went he was cheered and feasted. In Philadelphia, the home of American independence, the people presented him with a beautiful rifle and a hunting-knife and tomahawk of razor steel. He told the people he would love and cherish that rifle as he would a daughter. Then and there he named the gun “Betsy.”
While he was away in Congress and the east, Crockett’s enemies worked against him, and he was defeated in the fourth election. The boyish longing for home came over him then, and he wrote:
“In a short time I set out for my own home; yes, my own home, my own soil, and my own humble dwelling; my own family, my own hearts, my own ocean of love and affection which nothing else nor time can dry up. Here, like the wearied bird, let me settle down for a while and shut out the world.”
Yet, much as Davy Crockett loved his home, he loved his country more. With this spirit he had also such reckless love of adventure that he could not bear to live at ease when his country needed him.
The American settlers were having terrible times down in Texas. Thousands of Americans in that country were struggling with the Mexicans, to decide who should control and own the Texas territory. General Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, had sent thousands of soldiers into that region, captured a brave little army of Americans, and, when these had been disarmed, coolly shot them down as if they had been cattle in a slaughter-house.
All these things were more than Davy Crockett’s flesh and blood could bear. In his opinion “such cattle as those Mexicans” should be treated like bears or murderous Indians. Armed with “Betsy,” his new rifle, “to use if need be for his country’s glory,” he was ready to leave for Texas. He was now fifty-four years old, but his heart was young. When his friends tried to convince him that the trouble in Texas was no affair of his, Crockett replied that the news from those struggling heroes down there wrung his heart. “Sorrow will make even an oyster feel poetical,” and Davy left behind him a farewell poem, of which this is a small part:
“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.”
When Davy Crockett arrived at San Antonio, Colonel Travis, the commander of the Americans, had turned an old Spanish mission called the Alamo into a fort. Santa Anna was near at hand with a large army to capture the one hundred and eighty men who were waiting in the Alamo.