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AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS.
DAVID CROCKETT:
HIS
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT, 1874
PREFACE
DAVID CROCKETT certainly was not a model man. But he was a representative
man. He was conspicuously one of a very numerous class, still existing, and
which has heretofore exerted a very powerful influence over this republic.
As such, his wild and wondrous life is worthy of the study of every patriot.
Of this class, their modes of life and habits of thought, the majority of
our citizens know as little as they do of the manners and customs of the
Comanche Indians.
No man can make his name known to the forty millions of
this great and busy republic who has not something very remarkable in his
character or his career. But there is probably not an adult American, in
all these widespread States, who has not heard of David Crockett. His life
is a veritable romance, with the additional charm of unquestionable truth.
It opens to the reader scenes in the lives of the lowly, and a state of
semi-civilization, of which but few of them can have the faintest idea.
It has not been my object, in this narrative, to defend
Colonel Crockett or to condemn him, but to present his peculiar character
exactly as it was. I have therefore been constrained to insert some things
which I would gladly have omitted.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Parentage and Childhood.
The Emigrant.— Crossing the Alleghanies.— The Boundless
Wilderness.— The Hut on the Holston.— Life's Necessaries.— The Massacre.— Birth
of David Crockett.— Peril of the Boys.— Anecdote.— Removal to Greenville;
to Cove Creek.— Increased Emigration.— Loss of the Mill.— The Tavern.— Engagement
with the Drover.— Adventures in the Wilderness.— Virtual Captivity.— The
Escape.— The Return.— The Runaway.— New Adventures.
CHAPTER II.
Youthful Adventures.
David at Gerardstown.— Trip to Baltimore.— Anecdotes.— He ships
for London.— Disappointment.— Defrauded of his Wages.— Escapes.— New
Adventures.— Crossing the River.— Returns Home.— His Reception.— A Farm
Laborer.— Generosity to his Father.— Love Adventure.— The Wreck of his
Hopes.— His School Education.— Second Love adventure.— Bitter
Disappointment.— Life in the Backwoods.— Third Love Adventure.
CHAPTER III.
Marriage and Settlement.
Rustic Courtship.— The Rival Lover.— Romantic Incident. The
Purchase of a Horse.— The Wedding.— Singular Ceremonies.— The Termagant.— Bridal
Days.— They commence Housekeeping.— The Bridal mansion and Outfit.— Family
Possessions.— The Removal to Central Tennessee.— Mode of Transportation.— The
New Income and its Surroundings.— Busy Idleness.— The Third Move.— The Massacre
at Fort Mimms.
CHAPTER IV.
The Soldier Life.
War with the Creeks.— Patriotism of Crockett.— Remonstrances
of his Wife.— Enlistment.— The Rendezvous.— Adventure of the Scouts.— Friendly
Indians,— A March through the Forest.— Picturesque Scene.— The Midnight
Alarm.— March by Moonlight.— Chagrin of Crockett.— Advance into Alabama.— War's
Desolations.— Indian Stoicism.— Anecdotes of Andrew Jackson.— Battles, Carnage,
and Woe.
CHAPTER V.
Indian Warfare.
The Army at Fort Strother.— Crockett's Regiment.— Crockett
at Home.— His Reenlistment.— Jackson Surprised.— Military Ability of the
Indians.— Humiliation of the Creeks.— March to Florida.— Affairs at
Pensacola.— Capture of the City.— Characteristics of Crockett.— The Weary
March,— Inglorious Expedition.— Murder of Two Indians.— Adventures at the
Island.— The Continued March.— Severe Sufferings.— Charge upon the Uninhabited
Village.
CHAPTER VI.
The Camp and the Cabin.
Deplorable Condition of the Army.— Its wanderings.— Crockett's
Benevolence.— Cruel Treatment of the Indians.— A Gleam of Good Luck.— The
Joyful Feast.— Crockett's Trade with the Indian.— Visit to the Old
Battlefield.— Bold Adventure of Crockett.— His Arrival Home.— Death of his
Wife.— Second Marriage.— Restlessness.— Exploring Tour.— Wild
Adventures.— Dangerous Sickness.— Removal to the West.— His New Home.
CHAPTER VII.
The Justice of Peace and the Legislator.
Vagabondage.— Measures of Protection.— Measures of
Government.— Crockett's Confession.— A Candidate for Military Honors.— Curious
Display of Moral Courage.— The Squirrel Hunt.— A Candidate for the
Legislature.— Characteristic Electioneering.— Specimens of his Eloquence.— Great
Pecuniary Calamity.— Expedition to the Far West.— Wild Adventures.— The Midnight
Carouse.— A Cabin Reared.
CHAPTER VIII.
Life on the Obion.
Hunting Adventures.— The Voyage up the River.— Scenes in the
Cabin.— Return Home.— Removal of the Family.— Crockett's Riches.— A Perilous
Enterprise.— Reasons for his Celebrity.— Crockett's Narrative.— A
Bear-Hunt.— Visit to Jackson.— Again a Candidate for the
Legislature.— Electioneering and Election.
CHAPTER IX.
Adventures in the Forest, on the River, and in the City
The Bear Hunter's Story.— Service in the Legislature.— Candidate
for Congress.— Electioneering.— The New Speculation.— Disastrous Voyage.— Narrow
Escape.— New Electioneering Exploits.— Odd Speeches.— The Visit to Crockett's
Cabin.— His Political Views.— His Honesty.— Opposition to Jackson.— Scene
at Raleigh.— Dines with the President.— Gross Caricature.— His
Annoyance.
CHAPTER X.
Crockett's Tour to the North and the East.
His Reelection to Congress.— The Northern Tour.— First Sight
of a Railroad.— Reception in Philadelphia.— His First Speech.— Arrival in
New York.— The Ovation there.— Visit to Boston.— Cambridge and Lowell.— Specimens
of his Speeches.— Expansion of his Ideas.— Rapid Improvement.
CHAPTER XI.
The Disappointed Politician.— Off for Texas.
Triumphal Return.— Home Charms Vanish.— Loses His Election.— Bitter
Disappointment.— Crockett's Poetry.— Sets out for Texas.— Incidents of the
Journey.— Reception at Little Rock.— The Shooting Match.— Meeting a
Clergyman.— The Juggler.— Crockett a Reformer.— The Bee Hunter.— The Rough
Strangers.— Scene on the Prairie.
CHAPTER XII.
Adventures on the Prairie.
Disappearance of the Bee Hunter.— The Herd of Buffalo Crockett
lost.— The Fight with the Cougar.— Approach of Savages.— Their
Friendliness.— Picnic on the Prairie.— Picturesque Scene.— The Lost Mustang
recovered.— Unexpected Reunion.— Departure of the Savages.— Skirmish with
the Mexicans.— Arrival at the Alamo.
CHAPTER XIII.
Conclusion.
The Fortress of Alamo.— Colonel Bowie.— Bombardment of the
Fort.— Crockett's Journal.— Sharpshooting.— Fight outside of the Fort.— Death
of the Bee Hunter.— Kate of Nacogdoches.— Assault on the Citadel.— Crockett
a Prisoner.— His Death.
DAVID CROCKETT.
CHAPTER I.
Parentage and Childhood.
The Emigrant.— Crossing the Alleghanies.— The boundless
Wilderness.— The Hut on the Holston.— Life's Necessaries.— The Massacre.— Birth
of David Crockett.— Peril of the Boys.— Anecdote.— Removal to Greenville;
to Cove Creek.— Increased Emigration.— Loss of the Mill.— The Tavern.— Engagement
with the Drover.— Adventures in the Wilderness.— Virtual Captivity.— The
Escape.— The Return.— The Runaway.— New Adventures.
A LITTLE more than a hundred years ago, a poor man, by
the name of Crockett, embarked on board an emigrant-ship, in Ireland, for
the New World. He was in the humblest station in life. But very little is
known respecting his uneventful career excepting its tragical close. His
family consisted of a wife and three or four children. Just before he sailed,
or on the Atlantic passage, a son was born, to whom he gave the name of John.
The family probably landed in Philadelphia, and dwelt somewhere in Pennsylvania,
for a year or two, in one of those slab shanties, with which all are familiar
as the abodes of the poorest class of Irish emigrants.
After a year or two, Crockett, with his little family,
crossed the almost pathless Alleghanies. Father, mother, and children trudged
along through the rugged defiles and over the rocky cliffs, on foot. Probably
a single pack-horse conveyed their few household goods. The hatchet and the
rifle were the only means of obtaining food, shelter, and even clothing.
With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a comfortable camp could be constructed,
which would protect them from wind and rain. The camp-fire, cheering the
darkness of the night, drying their often wet garments, and warming their
chilled limbs with its genial glow, enabled them to enjoy that almost greatest
of earthly luxuries, peaceful sleep.
The rifle supplied them with food. The fattest of turkeys
and the most tender steaks of venison, roasted upon forked sticks, which
they held in their hands over the coals, feasted their voracious appetites.
This, to them, was almost sumptuous food. The skin of the deer, by a rapid
and simple process of tanning, supplied them with moccasons, and afforded
material for the repair of their tattered garments.
We can scarcely comprehend the motive which led this solitary
family to push on, league after league, farther and farther from civilization,
through the trackless forests. At length they reached the Holston River.
This stream takes its rise among the western ravines of the Alleghanies,
in Southwestern Virginia. Flowing hundreds of miles through one of the most
solitary and romantic regions upon the globe, it finally unites with the
Clinch River, thus forming the majestic Tennessee.
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