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American Hero: The Alamo, 1836
| 1831 | Crockett is defeated in his reelection bid. The James Kirke Paulding
Play, The Lion of the West, based on Crockett's life, debuts. |
| 1832 | Andrew Jackson is reelected president; Martin Van Buren becomes vice president. |
| 1833 | Crockett is elected to the House of Representatives in the 23rd Congress. Matthew St. Clair's Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee is published. |
| 1834 | Crockett conducts a political tour of the Northeast. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, Crockett's autobiography, is published. Several artists complete images of Crockett, including John Naegle and Anthony DeRose. |
| 1835 | Crockett is defeated in his reelection bid and departs for Texas, where the Texas War for Independence has begun. Two ghostwritten Crockett books are published: Col. Crockett's Tour to the North and Down East and the Life of Martin Van Buren. The first Crockett almanac is published. |
| 1836 | Crockett travels to Texas and joins the forces opposed to the dictatorship of General Santa Anna. He participates in the Siege and Battle of the Alamo, where he dies on March 6, 1836. Richard Penn Smith's Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas is published. |
Student Reading
President Jackson's supporters in Tennessee stopped Crockett from winning the congressional election in 1831, but he won two years later. Crockett became more popular in 1833 thanks to Matthew St. Clair Clarke's 1833 book Life and Adventures of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee. In the book, Clarke attributed a bragging monologue to Crockett that became linked with him forever: "I'm that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half-horse, half-alligator, a little touched with snapping turtle."
Crockett published his autobiography the next year and toured the northeastern states as a member of the anti-Jacksonian Whig Party. The various Crockett books, his tour of the Northeast, and the first of a series of Davy Crockett almanacs all added to the optimism of his summer campaign. Nevertheless, he lost the 1835 election.
Disappointed in the outcome of the election, Crockett decided to explore Texas to see if the prospects were pleasing. On his way out of Memphis, Crockett made his now famous remark: "You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas." Crockett, 49 years old and wearing "that same veritable coon-skin cap and hunting shirt," departed Tennessee for Texas where a democratic revolution had broken out against the dictatorship of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
As Crockett traveled westward, other companions joined his party, so that there were eight in his band on reaching Little Rock on November 12, 1835. More young men had joined his party by the time he crossed the Red River at Lost Prairie and entered Texas. At Clarksville, he joined his old friend Captain William Becknell, famed founder of the Santa Fe Trail, for a buffalo hunt. They hunted to the headwaters of the Trinity River before news of Comanche war parties turned them back.
On his trip, Crockett discovered a group of trees swarming with bees and named it Honey Grove. The town of that name was later founded on the site. Crockett's party then traveled southeast along Trammel's Trace to Nacogdoches where he swore an oath of allegiance to Texas. He wrote his daughter from San Augustine that Texas was "the garden spot of the world." He had joined the volunteers but urged her not to worry: "I am in hopes of making a fortune yet for myself and family, bad as my prospects have been."
Crockett and four companions followed the Old San Antonio Road southwestward to what is now Crockett, Texas, before turning south on the Brazos River to Washington-on-the-Brazos. There they attached themselves to Captain William Harrison's company of volunteers for the final ride west to San Antonio de Bexar. Crockett rode into the town in early February 1836, where colonels William B. Travis and James Bowie, commanders of the nearby fort called the Alamo, welcomed him.
Santa Anna's army reached San Antonio on February 23 and the siege of the Alamo began. Immediately outnumbered, Travis sent out riders with pleas for help. His letter of February 24 is particularly memorable for its determination and spirit. "I shall never surrender or retreat," wrote Travis. "Victory or Death." In a letter to Sam Houston, the Texas army commander, dated February 25, Travis praised Crockett as being "seen at all points, animating the men to do their duty."
Santa Anna's soldiers attacked the Alamo on March 6, 1836. After an hour of desperate struggle, Crockett and the others lay dead. Although almost all of the Alamo defenders were killed, one witness, Mrs. Susannah Dickinson, stated that as she exited the Alamo church following the battle she "recognized Col. Crockett lying dead and mutilated between the church and the two story barrack building, [his] peculiar cap by his side."
Unknown to Crockett and the Alamo defenders, delegates to a General Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos had declared Texas an independent republic on March 2, four days before the fateful battle at the Alamo.
Watch this video clip from The History Channel's Boone and Crockett: The Hunter Heroes. Write down at least one fact you learn that is not included in the Student Reading. How does the documentary portray the death of Davy Crockett?
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