Davey Crockett

DAVY CROCKETT

Childhood

David was the fifth of nine children. He was born to cash-poor homesteaders on August 17, 1786. John and Rebecca were his dad and mom. He lived on a hardscrabble farm. The Crockett's came to America from Ireland in the 1700s. The family moved several times and ran an inn on the road between Abingdon, Virginia, and Knoxville Tennessee, for two decades. With only a rudimentary education given to him by his parents, Crockett, at the age of 12 worked as a cattle driver. Young Davy Crockett lived in Morristown after his Father opened its doors in 1796. By 1798 John and Rebecca had six sons and three daughters. Money was scarce. Davy helped feed the family with the game he bagged in the woods. When the boy was eleven, John hired him out to work for Jacob Siler. Siler paid Davy $5.for tending his cattle during the long journey to his farm in Virginia. When they arrived, Siler persuaded Davy to stay with him. Unsure of his rights, the home sick boy agreed. Five weeks later, a friendly teamster helped Davy escape. In the evening, chores finished, Davy sat spellbound as travelers told stories about life on the frontier. The boy soon acquired a lifelong habit of own tales. In 1799 John sent thirteen year old Davy to school. Before the week was out, Davy fought with the class bully. The next year he left home for three years when his father threatened to beat him for not going to school. Davy put of the beating by hiding in the woods each day. A week later the teacher sent a note home, asking about David. John " David's dad" picked up a hickory stick and ordered his son to go back to school, David took off running. He out ran his father and kept on going. He worked as a teamster, bonded himself out to a farmer, did odd jobs, and after returning home he helped pay off some of his father's debts. Davy went to work to pay John's debts. Six months of plowing fields and chopping wood paid off a $36 debt. A second six months retired a $40 debit. His duty done, Davy stayed with the second farmer as a hired hand. John Kennedy was a kind man-and he had a pretty niece. The girl made Davy's heart "flutter like a duck in a puddle." He then worked for three years as a hired hand, content to live near poverty. After losing his first love to another, Crockett decided that without education he would get nowhere. He therefore attended school, acquiring more education than he would later let on when presenting himself as a self-made man. David was known as lean five feet, ten inches tall, brown-haired and blue-eyed. Girls liked his good looks and his sense of humor.

A children's song tells us that Davy " killed him a bear when he was only three." That's a tall tale, of course-but it does contain a germ of truth.

The Alamo

Dawn came to San Antonio about six o' clock on March 6, 1836. Inside the Alamo, the old mission-turned-for-tress, weary Texans checked their guns. The men had been under siege for twelve long, bloody days.

Davy Crockett stood on the south wall. A tall man in coonskin cap, Davy was America's beast-known frontiers-man. He was there to help Texas win independence from Mexico. Freedom, Davy believed, was worth fighting for.

Eight hundred yards away, a red flag flew atop the San Fernando Church. Davy knew what the flag meant. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexico's Dictator had vowed to take no prisoners. Victory lay with in his grasp. The Texans were out numbered, 2,400 to 183. Colonel William Travis commanded the Alamo. On February 24, he had called on Texans to come to his ad. Thirty-two fighting men from Gonzales had slipped into the Alamo on March 1. No further help had come. James Fannin had four hundred men under arms at Goliad, but he refused to risk the march to San Antonio.

Commander-in-chief Sam Houston had ordered Colonel Travis to blow up the fortress. Travis had refused the order. He had prepared his men to fight to the finish. His only course, he said, was " Victory or death!"

Santa Anna's troops advanced to the sound of bugles blowing the deguello. Like the red flag, the stirring music warned, "We take no prisoners."

A hail of rifle and cannon fire poured down on the attackers. A Mexican soldier fell each time Davy's. Long-barreled rifle sang out. The enemy's muskets could not match Old Betsy's three hundred-yard ranges. The first wave slowed and fell back. Santa Anna rallied his men, and they returned to attack. Texans were dying; too those who survived kept firing. They beat back the second assault.

Urged on by their officers, the assault troops carried their ladders forward a third time. Hundreds died, but many reached the walls. Waves of soldiers in blue and white uniforms poured into the fortress. Whit no time to reload, Texans swung their rifles like clubs. The Mexicans pressed forward behind bloodstained bayonets.

Davy and a handful of Texans made a last stand in the barracks. They fought behind a wall of mattresses, chairs, and tables. One by one, the defenders fell, dead or wounded. Mexican reports of the battle told what happened next. Their shot bags empty, Davy and a few survivors laid down their arms. General Manuel Castrillon pledged that the prisoners would not be harmed.

The sight of the prisoners sent Santa Anna into a rage. He ordered the men killed. Several officers thrust themselves forward and with swords in hand, fell upon these defenseless men.

Davy Crockett reached the Alamo in February 1836. He soon learned that Mexican troops were advancing on the fortress. Davy, who was America's most famous frontiersman, volunteered to stay and fight for Texas Independence.

Americans did not want to hear that Davy died a prisoner. By the end of the month, a story that denied the Mexican report was making the rounds. It claimed he was found dead with about twenty of the enemy with him and his rifle was broken to pieces. The details don't matter, what counts is that a great American hero died fighting for freedom.

Source book

Title Davy Crockett

Author Sanford William Green Carol

Publisher/ web address Enslow Publishers INC

Copyright date 1996

Page 5 & 9

Source book

Title: Encyclopedia of the American west

Author