An Autobiography of Davy Crockett

by Stephen Brennan

  The horses were now giving out and I remem ber to have seen thirteen good horses left in one day, the saddles and bridles being thrown away. It was thirty-nine miles to Fort Strother and we had to pass directly by Fort Talladego, where we first had the big Indian battle with the eleven hundred painted warriors. We went through the old battle ground and it looked like a great gourd patch, the skulls of the Indians who were killed still lay scattered all about, many of their frames were still perfect as the bones had not separated. But about five miles before we got to this battle ground, I struck a trail which I followed until it led me to one of their towns. Here I swap’d some more of my powder and bullets for a little corn.

  I pursued on, by myself, till some time after night, when I came up with the rest of the army. That night my company and myself did pretty well as I divided out my corn among them. The next morning we met the East Tennessee troops, who were on their road to Mobile, and my young est brother was with them. They had plenty of corn and provisions and they gave me what I wanted for myself and my horse. I remained with them that night, though my company went across the Coosa river to the fort, where they also had the good fortune to find plenty of provisions. Next morning, I took leave of my brother and all my old neighbours, for there were a good many of them with him, and crossed over to my men at the fort. Here I had enough to go on, and after remaining a few days, cut out for home. Nothing more, worthy of the reader’s attention, transpired till I was safely landed at home once more with my wife and children. I found them all well and doing well, though I was only a rough sort of a backwoodsman, they seemed mighty glad to see me, however little the quality folks might suppose it. For I do reckon we love as hard in the backwood country as any people in the whole reation.

  But I had been home only a few days when we received orders to start again and go on to the Black Warrior and Cahawba rivers to see if there was no Indians there. I know’d well enough there was none and I wasn’t willing to trust my craw any more where there was neither any fighting to do, nor any thing to go on; and so I agreed to give a young man, who wanted to go, the balance of my wages if he would serve out my time, which was about a month. He did so and when they returned, sure enough they hadn’t seen an Indian any more than if they had been all the time chopping wood in my clearing. This closed my career as a warrior and I am glad of it, for I like life now a heap bet ter than I did then and I am glad all over that I lived to see these times, which I should not have done if I had kept fooling along in war and got used up at it. When I say I am glad, I just mean I am glad I am alive, for there is a confound ed heap of things I ain’t glad of at all. I ain’t glad, for example, that the “government” moved the deposites, and if my military glory should take such a turn as to make me president after the ge neral’s time, I’ ll move them back; yes, I, the “government,” will “take the responsibility,” and move them back again. If I don’t, I wish I may be shot.

  But I am glad that I am now through war mat ters, and I reckon the reader is too, for they have no fun in them at all and less if he had had to pass through them first, and then to write them afterwards. But for the dullness of their narrative, I must try to make amends by relating some of the curious things that happened to me in private life, and when forced to become a public man, as I shall have to be again, if ever I consent to take the presidential chair.

  I CONTINUED at home now, working my farm for two years, as the war finally closed soon after I quit the service. The battle at New Orleans had already been fought and treaties were made with the Indians which put a stop to their hostilities.

  But in this time, I met with the hardest trial which ever falls to the lot of man. Death, that cruel leveller of all distinctions, to whom the prayers and tears of husbands, and of even help less infancy, are addressed invain, entered my humble cottage and tore from my children an af fectionate good mother and from me a tender and loving wife.

  It is a scene long gone by and one which it would be supposed I had almost forgotten, yet when I turn my memory back on it, it seems as but the work of yesterday. It was the doing of the Almighty, whose ways are always right, though we sometimes think they fall heavily on us and as painful as is even yet the remembrance of her sufferings, and the loss sustained by my little chil dren and myself, yet I have no wish to lift up the voice of complaint. I was left with three chil dren; the two oldest were sons, the youngest a daughter and, at that time, a mere infant. It ap peared to me, at that moment, that my situation was the worst in the world. I couldn’t bear the thought of scattering my children and so I got my youngest brother, who was also married, and his family, to live with me. They took as good care of my children as they well could but yet it wasn’t all like the care of a mother. And though their company was to me in every respect like that of a brother and sister, yet it fell far short of being like that of a wife. So I came to the conclusion it wouldn’t do but that I must have an other wife.

  There lived in the neighbourhood a widow lady whose husband had been killed in the war. She had two children, a son and daughter, and both quite small, like my own. I began to think that as we were both in the same situation, it might be that we could do something for each other and I therefore began to hint a little around the matter, as we were once and a while together. She was a good industrious woman, she owned a snug little farm and lived quite comfortable. I soon began to pay my respects to her in real good earnest but I was as sly as a fox when he is going to rob a hen-roost. I found that my company wasn’t at all disagreeable to her and I thought I could treat her children with so much friendship as to make her a good stepmother to mine and in this I wan’t mistaken, as we soon bargained and got married, and then went ahead. In a great deal of peace we raised our first crop of children, and they are all married and doing well. But we had a second crop together; and I shall notice them as I go along, as my wife and myself both had a hand in them, and they therefore belong to the history of my second marriage.

  The next fall after this marriage, three of my neighbours and myself determined to explore a new country. Their names were Robinson, Frazier, and Rich. We set out for the Creek country, crossing the Tennessee river and after having made a day’s travel, we stop’d at the house of one of my old acquaintances who had settled there after the war. Resting here a day, Frazier turned out to hunt, being a great hunter, but he got badly bit by a very poisonous snake so we left him and went on. We passed through a large rich valley, called Jones’s valley, where several other families had settled, and continued our course till we came near to the place where Tus caloosa now stands. Here we camped, as there were no inhabitants, and hobbled out our horses for the night. About two hours before day, we heard the bells on our horses going back the way we had come, as they had started to leave us. As soon as it was daylight, I started in pursuit of them on foot, and carrying my rifle, which was a very heavy one, I went ahead the whole day, wading creeks and swamps and climbing moun tains but I couldn’t overtake our horses, though I could hear of them at every house they passed. I at last found I couldn’t catch up with them and so I gave up the hunt and turned back to the last house I had passed and stayed there till morning. From the best calculation we could make, I had walked over fifty miles that day and the next morning I was so sore and fatigued that I felt like I couldn’t walk any more. But I was anxious to get back to where I had left my company and so I started and went on, but mighty slowly, till after the middle of the day. I now began to feel mighty sick and had a dreadful head-ache. My rifle was so heavy and I felt so weak that I lay down by the side of the trace, in a perfect wilderness too, to see if I wouldn’t get better. In a short time some Indians came along. They had some ripe melons and wanted me to eat some, but I was so sick I couldn’t. They then signed to me that I would die and be buried; a thing I was confoundedly afraid of myself. But I asked them how near it was to any house? By their signs, again, they made me understand it was a mile and a half. I got up to go but when I rose, I reeled about like a cow with the bli
nd staggers, or a fellow who had taken too many “horns.” One of the Indians proposed to go with me and carry my gun. I gave him half a dollar and accepted his offer. We got to the house, by which time I was pretty far gone but was kindly received and got on to a bed. The woman did all she could for me with her warm teas but I still continued bad enough with a high fever and generally out of my senses. The next day two of my neighbours were passing the road and heard of my situation. They came to where I was. They were going nearly the route I had intended to go to look at the country and so they took me first on one of their horses and then on the other till they got me back to where I had left my company. I expected I would get better and be able to go on with them, but, instead of this, I got worse and worse; and when we got there, I wan’t able to sit up at all. I thought now the jig was mighty nigh up with me but I determined to keep a stiff upper lip. They car ried me to a house and each of my comrades bought him a horse and they all set out together, leaving me behind. I knew but little that was going on for about two weeks but the family treated me with every possible kindness in their power and I shall always feel thankful to them. The man’s name was Jesse Jones. At the end of two weeks I began to mend without the help of a doctor or of any doctor’s means. In this time, however, as they told me, I was speechless for five days and they had no thought that I would ever speak again, in Congress or any where else. And so the woman, who had a bottle of Bates-man’s draps, thought if they killed me, I would only die any how and so she would try it with me. She gave me the whole bottle, which throwed me into a sweat that continued on me all night, when at last I seemed to make up, and spoke, and asked her for a drink of water. This almost alarmed her, for she was looking every minute for me to die. She gave me the water and, from that time, I began slowly to mend and so kept on till I was able at last to walk about a little. I might easily have been mistaken for one of the Kitchen Cabinet, I looked so much like a ghost. I have been particular in giving a history of this sickness, not because I believe it will interest any body much now, nor, indeed, do I certainly know that it ever will. But if I should be forced to take the “white house” then it will be good history and every one will look on it as important. And I can’t, for my life, help laughing now, to think that when all my folks get around me, wanting good fat offices, how so many of them will say, “What a good thing it was that that kind woman had the bottle of draps that saved President CroCkett’S life, the second greatest and best”!! Good, says I, my noble fellow! You take the post office or the navy or the war office or may-be the treasury. But if I give him the treasury, there’s no devil if I don’t make him agree first to fetch back them deposites. And if it’s even the postoffice, I’ll make him promise to keep his money’ counts without any figuring, as that throws the whole concern heels over head in debt in little or no time.

  But when I got so I could travel a little, I got a waggoner who was passing along to hawl me to where he lived, which was about twenty miles from my house. I still mended as we went along and when we got to his stopping place, I hired one of his horses and went on home. I was so pale and so much reduced, that my face looked like it had been half soled with brown paper.

  When I got there, it was to the utter astonish ment of my wife, for she supposed I was dead. My neighbours who had started with me had re turned and took my horse home, which they had found with their’s, and they reported that they had seen men who had helped to bury me and who saw me draw my last breath. I know’d this was a whapper of a lie as soon as I heard it. My wife had hired a man and sent him out to see what had become of my money and other things; but I had missed the man as I went in and he didn’t return until some time after I got home, as he went all the way to where I lay sick before he heard that I was still in the land of the living and a-kicking.

  The place on which I lived was sickly and I was determined to leave it. I therefore set out the next fall to look at the country which had been purchased of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians. I went on to a place called Shoal Creek, about eighty miles from where I lived, and here again I got sick. I took the ague and fever, which I supposed was brought on me by camping out. I remained here for some time, as I was unable to go farther; and in that time, I became so well pleased with the country about there, that I re solved to settle in it. It was just only a little dis tance in the purchase and no order had been es tablished there but I thought I could get along without order as well as any body else. And so I moved and settled myself down on the head of Shoal Creek. We remained here some two or three years, without any law at all, and so many bad characters began to flock in upon us that we found it necessary to set up a sort of temporary government of our own. I don’t mean that we made any president and called him the “government,” but we met and made what we called a corporation; and I reckon we called it wrong, for it wa’n’t a bank and hadn’t any deposites and now they call the bank a corporation. But be this as it may, we lived in the backwoods and didn’t profess to know much and no doubt used many wrong words. But we met and appointed magistrates and constables to keep order. We didn’t fix any laws for them, tho’, for we sup posed they would know law enough, whoever they might be, and so we left it to themselves to fix the laws.

  I was appointed one of the magistrates and when a man owed a debt and wouldn’t pay it, I and my constable ordered our warrant and then he would take the man and bring him be fore me for trial. I would give judgment against him and then an order of an execution would easily scare the debt out of him. If any one was charged with marking his neighbour’s hogs or with stealing anything, which happened pretty often in those days, I would have him taken and if there was tolerable grounds for the charge, I would have him well whip’d and cleared. We kept this up till our Legislature added us to the white settlements in Giles county and ap pointed magistrates by law to organize matters in the parts where I lived. They appointed nearly every man a magistrate who had belonged to our corporation. I was then, of course, made a squire according to law; though now the honour rested more heavily on me than before. For, at, first, whenever I told my constable, says I, “Catch that fellow, and bring him up for trial” away he went, and the fellow must come, dead or alive; for we considered this a good warrant, though it was only in verbal writings. But after I was appointed by the assembly, they told me my warrants must be in real writing and signed and that I must keep a book and write my proceedings in it. This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name but to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least a huckle berry over my persimmon. I had a pretty well informed constable, however; and he aided me very much in this business. Indeed I had so much confidence in him, that I told him, when we should happen to be out anywhere, and see that a warrant was necessary, and would have a good effect, he need’nt take the trouble to come all the way to me to get one, but he could just fill out one and then on the trial I could correct the whole business if he had committed any error. In this way I got on pretty well, till by care and at tention I improved my handwriting in such man ner as to be able to prepare my warrants and keep my record book without much difficulty. My judgments were never appealed from and if they had been they would have stuck like wax, as I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man and relied on natural born sense, and not on law, learning to guide me, for I had never read a page in a law book in all my life.

  CHAPTER 3

  Electioneering for the Legislature /

  I Make a New Start / A Big Black Bear

  About the time we were getting under good headway in our new government, a Capt. Mat thews came to me and told me he was a candidate for the office of colonel of a regiment and that I must run for first major in the same regiment. I objected to this, telling him that I thought I had done my share of fighting and that I wanted no thing to do with military appointments.

  He still insisted until at last I agreed and of course had every reason to calculate on his support in my election. He was an early sett
ler in that country and made rather more corn than the rest of us and knowing it would afford him a good opportunity to electioneer a little, he made a great corn husking and a great frolic and gave a gene ral treat, asking every body over the whole coun try. Myself and my family were, of course, in vited. When I got there, I found a very large col lection of people and some friend of mine soon informed me that the captain’s son was going to offer against me for the office of major, which he had seemed so anxious for me to get. I cared nothing about the office, but it put my dander up high enough to see that after he had pressed me so hard to offer, he was countenancing, if not en couraging, a secret plan to beat me. I took the old gentleman out and asked him about it. He told me it was true his son was going to run as a candidate and that he hated worse to run against me than any man in the county. I told him his son need give himself no uneasiness about that; that I shouldn’t ran against him for major but against his daddy for colonel. He took me by the hand and we went into the company. He then made a speech and informed the people that I was his opponent. I mounted up for a speech too. I told the people the cause of my opposing him, remarking that as I had the whole family to run against any way, I was determined to levy on the head of the mess. When the time for the elec tion came, his son was opposed by another man for major and he and his daddy were both badly beaten. I just now began to take a rise, as in a little time I was asked to offer for the Legislature in the counties of Lawrence and Heckman.

  I offered my name in the month of February and started about the first of March with a drove of horses to the lower part of the state of North Carolina. This was in the year 1821 and I was gone upwards of three months. I returned and set out electioneering, which was a branfire new business to me. It now became necessary that I should tell the people something about the government and an eternal sight of other things that I knowed nothing more about than I did about Latin and law and such things as that. I have said be fore that in those days none of us called Gen’l. Jackson the government, nor did he seem in as fair a way to become so as I do now; but I knowed so little about it, that if any one had told me he was “the government,” I should have believed it, for I had never read even a newspaper in my life or any thing else on the subject. But over all my difficulties, it seems to me I was born for luck, though it would be hard for any one to guess what sort. I will, however, explain that hereafter.