Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  No point in the developing canvas seemed too small for Crockett's attention. He scoured Washington and the Potomac suburbs for just the right gear, the proper shirt, leggings, and moccasins. He wanted a butcher knife that was practical rather than ornamental, despite the fact that already Philadelphia cutlers were starting to produce what people called Bowie knives, some of them enormous almost grotesque blades fitted more for Wildfire and Edwin Forrest than a real back-woodsman. The hunting dogs must be mongrels, their tails showing signs of having been bitten off, as if in a fight with a bear. The rifle presented something of a problem until he found nearly the right weapon, plain and unadorned, but a bit too short, in the hands of an old Potomac hunter. Crockett and the rifleman became great friends after he loaned David the weapon, and eventually the man simply gave it to him. “A grand old fellow that,” Crockett said of him, and then with a veneer of humor that scarcely concealed what must have been chiefly on his mind as he posed for this painting, Crockett added that “when I'm President, I'll be shot if I don't put him into the War Department.”

  Crockett even helped direct the pose. After several days of sittings he looked at the result and found it static. He simply stood on the canvas, his hat on his head, his right arm dangling unoccupied at his side. It seemed all wrong, and for some days he brooded over the matter, until one day he strode into Chapman's studio in full costume, lifted the hat from his head and held it out at arm's length, and gave a shout that alarmed people several doors away. This was the right pose: Crockett poised on the hunt, just about to set the dogs and himself on the trail of the next quarry—a bear in the portrait, but rather larger game in his imagination. When Chapman adjusted the portrait, Crockett wholeheartedly approved, and it was done. The artist suggested painting Crockett's name and “go ahead” maxim in the scene, and David suggested the knife handle for his name and the rifle for the quotation, but the handle proved too short to fit in all the letters. Crockett's solution was to spell his name “Croket,” saying “there'll be enough left to tell who the ‘butcher’ belongs to, and three letters saved.” It would only save two letters, actually, but by now the illiterate pose was second nature to David.90

  Never one to pay scrupulous attention to attendance in the House, or to issues that did not interest him, Crockett must have given less heed than usual this session, with all the distractions of the book, the painting, and the new demands of celebrity. “I am well and hanging on to the true faith like a puppy to a root,” he told a friend in January, but he was out of touch.91 He had seen no Tennessee newspapers after he left home for Washington, but when he heard rumors that there would be another gerrymandering attempt, this time in the legislative districts, he told a friend and potential candidate that “let it be laid off as it may I go the whole hog for you against any person whatever.”92 He determined to use his free franking privilege liberally—thereby raising the postal deficit, though that seemed not to trouble him—in order to keep his constituents informed. “I am determined to enliten the people if it costs me my salary,” he declared, though in fact it would cost him only the printing. “I will trust to an honist comunity hereafter for reward.”93 His Jacksonian opponents saw what he was doing, of course, and denounced “our Sham representative” for flooding the district with speeches, but then went on to add that it would do him little good since most of his voters could not read, as evidenced by their election of a man like him.94 Still, despite the carping, most of what Crockett heard from home sounded good. Hearing that the voters of one region approved his course, he defended it, saying “I never did know any mode of legislating only to go and do what my conscince dictated to me to be wright.”95 He needed to make sure that his constituents stood behind him now more than ever, for any attempt at a nomination in 1836 must hinge on him being reelected to his seat in 1835. The “bug” for higher office had seized him. “Among the evils of a new country is the rage for political life,” an editor would write two years hence, “and Crockett was infected by this mania.”96

  There was even a little time for society this session, especially once his health improved and he finished the book. Visitors frequently called at his rooms on Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite Brown's Hotel, though when they did he often felt obliged to perform for them, putting on a hunting hat, throwing one leg over the arm of his chair in a careless pose. He welcomed one group of the curious by bidding them to “take seats, gentlemen—make yourselves at home—glad to see you—hope you find yourselves well,” and more such meaningless pleasantries, his visitors all the while staring at him in curiosity. He entertained them with a few stories, and once they left stood distracted for a moment, and then quickly went out of character, the act ended. Putting his hat back on the table, he forthrightly confessed to a friend that “well!—they came to see a bar, and they've seen one—hope they like the performance—it did not cost them any thing any how—Let's take a horn.”97 Almost without his realizing it, the character he had created out of his own experience and the personality of his people was starting to control him. He profited from being the embodiment of a legend, but in the Faustian bargain he risked the submergence of his own true character as a gentleman.98 It was a bargain that never rested in complete comfort on his conscience.

  Yet he could not deny or resist the attention. The Whig press continued its campaign of lionizing him. “There are some men whom you cannot report,” said Nile's Register shortly after the Narrative appeared. “The Colonel is one. His leer you cannot put upon paper—his curious drawl—the odd cant of his body and his self-congratulation. He is an original in every thing, in the tone and structure of his sentences, in the force and novelty of metaphors, and his range of ideas.”99 Chapman found Crockett's speech irresistible. “Say what he might his meaning could never be misinterpreted. He expressed opinions, and told his stories, with unhesitating clearness of diction, often embellished with graphic touches of original wit and humor, sparkling and even startling, yet never out of place.” As for his backwoods vernacular, now perhaps a bit exaggerated for popular effect, “it was to him truly a mother-tongue, in which his ideas flowed most naturally and found most emphatic and unrestrained utterance.”100 In the most casual encounter people expected wit from him, and others challenged him at their peril. A Massachusetts representative met him on Pennsylvania Avenue one day just as a farmer drove a small herd of cattle down the street. “Hello, there, Crockett,” he said, thinking to get the best of David. “Here's a lot of your constituents on parade. Where are they going?” Without hesitation Crockett responded: “They are going to Massachusetts to teach school.”101

  Invitations came in from all across the East as the demand to see this phenomenon in the flesh grew, and Crockett was wise enough to capitalize on the opportunity to go before a wider constituency. He thought of going into the northern states as early as January, and perhaps even earlier, from the time that the Mississippi convention raised the presidential question. By late April he had a double impetus, for not only would the exposure enhance his prospects, but also it would sell more books, and his debts were slow to disappear. In late March he asked Carey and Hart for an advance of $150 to $200 on his share of sales, and so desperate was he for money that two weeks later he almost violently demanded payment of another $200 that someone owed him, an uncharacteristic act for his gentle nature.102 Unwisely, perhaps, he decided not to wait for the end of the long session, especially since there was no movement on the land bill, and that was his chief interest. He would hardly be missed for the three weeks the trip would take, and if anything, it would be a relief to escape Washington for awhile. Moreover, many of his Whig friends urged him to make the trip, no doubt promising that it would be something in the way of a triumphal procession. They would make all the arrangements, probably even cover his expenses, and he would sell books and get a much needed rest. Most of all—and this was the overriding reason for the trip in the first place—he would venture into the large metropolitan areas where the Whigs still reigned, showi
ng himself to voters and managers alike. He was already a regional phenomenon in the West and upper South. If he could win favor in the Northeast, he might be unchallengeable for the nomination in two years' time.

  In a political career marked by naïveté, miscalculations, and simple blunders, it would be the biggest mistake of all.

  14

  BOWIE

  1831-1833

  Whether they liked him or not, they all knew that he was absolutely brave, and that they could depend upon his being fair to foe and loyal to friends.

  JUAN SEGUÍN, APRIL 10, 1874.

  A few days after his return from the San Saba expedition, James Bowie addressed to the political chief in Béxar, Ramón Músquiz, a long account of his recent journey, most of it taken up with the events of the battle. He was under no requirement to do so, since this had not been an official or military venture, but with the rumblings off native been an official or military venture, but with the rumblings of native unrest on the frontier, the authorities appreciated hearing from anyone with information on the state of affairs there.1 For a man known to be boastful and self-consciously larger than life, Bowie showed great restraint. True, he said nothing at all about the purpose of the expedition, evidence that though he had discussed it with Músquiz before-hand, he did not want all and sundry knowing what he was about. Yet in his report of the fight, he said nothing that would glorify himself, rather paying a compliment to the stamina and bravery of all of the men with him. Nevertheless his report itself soon became well known, only adding to his reputation as a result of the fight. Músquiz forwarded a copy of it to Governor José Letona, who returned his thanks to Bowie, and Músquiz himself meanwhile wrote to Bowie to compliment him on his bravery. José Antonio de la Garza, one off the largest landowners in the Béxar region, and the same man who visited Claiborne shortly before Travis left for Texas, also wrote to Bowie offering his thanks. Clearly James did not have to exaggerate his role in the fight for these influential men to conclude that he was a man of rare courage and leadership ability.2

  Músquiz must have spoken with Bowie about leading another, stronger party out again to strike the Tawakoni hard and put an end to their frequent raids on outlying settlers, and certainly such an expedition would be to his purpose as well, giving him ample opportunity to survey the region for mines, and this time with enough force not to be driven away. But a combination of factors induced Bowie to turn briefly from his fixation on silver mines. Even though Ursula certainly deserved some time with him after her ordeal of uncertainty, that old loyalty to his brothers that so strongly governed his motives induced him instead to accompany Rezin and Stephen back to Louisiana on a brief trip. Rezin was starting to look into a new means of capitalizing on old Spanish land grants, this time legitimately, and Stephen may have brought news of more trouble with the land dealings in Louisiana and Arkansas. The Walkers and Wilkins were having second thoughts, and now President Jackson heard frequently from his cabinet officers of what one called “the far famed ‘Bowie claims.’”3 Perhaps most important, an installment of money that James expected from his share of the sale to the Walkers and Wilkins was due. A quick trip to Louisiana could serve several interests.4

  James rushed back to Texas at the end of the year, in the company of several other friends by ship from New Orleans to Galveston.5 What he found there disturbed him. For all the notoriety his San Saba exploit gained him, it also got him a reputation as a fortunate hunter, and now when several “foreigners” came back to Texas with him, and he started putting together another, larger expedition supposedly to he started putting together another, larger expedition supposedly to strike the Tawakoni and teach them a lesson, rumors flourished that his real intent was to “further the views of speculators in mines.” The fact of his plans being so promiscuously broadcast actually impelled him to publish an announcement in the Texas Gazette, on January 10, denying any such intention, but he probably fooled few if any. At the same time the slaves accompanying the Louisianians that Bowie brought caused concern. Some of them took the opportunity of entering a province that outlawed slavery to run away. When authorities captured them, it led to some debate over whether they should be returned to Bowie's men.6 All the old ghosts were catching up to him, it seemed. Certainly he was Bowie the hero, but land speculation, fortune hunting, and now the perhaps unwitting introduction of illegal slaves all attached themselves to his reputation as well.

  By January 26 he had his company assembled, twenty-seven of them including himself this time, and he led them out of Gonzales northwest toward the Pedernales once more. When he reached that river, two friendly Indians joined the party as guides, and they moved on across the Llano to the San Saba, where nine more attached themselves to the expedition. Finally Bowie marched all the way to the headwaters of the Colorado River, then turned east and went on for several days until they reached the upper Brazos in the country of the Waco. All along the way, at Mu´squiz's request, he surveyed any signs of hostile activity, especially by the Tawakoni, yet in ten weeks of travel saw only six of them. It was “a fruitless search,” he concluded. They would have no opportunity to strike a hard blow at the tribe, and Bowie decided that the well-armed Cherokee from Nacogdoches, long at war with the Tawakoni, must have succeeded in driving them to more remote country.

  While fulfilling the official part of his mission, Bowie always kept one eye on another goal. He noted the abundant beaver along the Colorado. The country between the Llano and the Colorado looked splendid, and he believed that it would “afford large bodies of land not excelled in this or any other part of the country, & at some future day it will & importance to the agriculturist.” And of course there was the matter of gold and silver. “I also spared no pains in extending my examinations to the mineral character of the country, in hopes that something might be discovered that should prove advantageous & beneficial to that section of country.” He collected mineral samples to turn over to Músquiz, and no doubt kept his eyes alert for anything that promised to profit himself in the offing.7

  It was a grueling two and one-half months in the wilderness, and Bowie did not get back to San Antonio until the middle of April, exhausted, and with no silver mine to show for his effort, though his report of the disappearance of the Tawakoni certainly pleased Músquiz. He returned, however, to find that there were problems fomenting for his other interests in his new home. Either at Bowie's behest or at Austin's, José Carbajal, who surveyed land titles for Austin, went to New Orleans while Bowie was on his expedition, his mission to collect from Rezin Bowie the money James had been unable to secure the previous December. He, too, failed, for the Walkers and Wilkins were parting with nothing now.8

  Then there appeared to be trouble brewing with Austin himself. In March, just before leaving to take his seat in the legislature at Saltillo, Austin saw what he believed to be machinations by an unknown hand to “foment discord between Bowie and his connections and me.”9 Austin walked a delicate line in trying to mollify both the unruly and aggressive Texian settlers and the uneasy Mexican rulers in Saltillo and Mexico City. A man like Bowie could have upset things on any number of scores, but it was certainly land speculation that lay at the bottom of this incipient difference. Austin himself bought three of the eleven-league grants from native Mexicans in 1831. But the knowledge that Bowie had been in Saltillo buying more than a dozen of them under suspicious circumstances seemed to endanger the whole business by making the subterfuge of Texians buying through Mexicans public knowledge. Moreover, Bowie was a known speculator with no reputation for subtlety in Louisiana. If he pushed the sales of his grants too hard too soon, he could touch off a wave of speculation that would likely bring the Mexican authorities down hard on the whole colony, and from first to last it was always Stephen, Austin's policy to keep the hand of Mexico City, and even Saltillo, as far removed as possible. At the very least, any untoward activity by Bowie could crush hopes of a repeal of the April 6, 1830, law prohibiting further immigration from the Unit
ed States.

  Then, too, the more the government tried to regulate or control the Texians, the more likely there would come an outbreak of the strong yet until then latent feeling for independence. “The true interest of Texas is never to separate from Mexico,” Austin told Williams while Bowie was still out looking for Tawanoki and silver, but even if he was not a revolutionary himself, James Bowie was the kind of man whose intemperate actions could touch off an incident that would give the real revolutionaries all they needed to act.10 Mary Austin Holley, Austin's observant young cousin, had recently visited Texas and saw only too well that “certain political changes are hastening on.” As for the potential for an explosion of speculation, she surely reflected her cousin's views when she added that “the restrictions will be removed, & when the North Americans come pouring in without restraint, you can not imagine the value of these lands.” James Bowie could.”11

  Bowie seems to have done nothing to push speculation at the moment, nor did he take part in any of the political rumblings that finally began to erupt into action that spring even without his involvement. Yet he cannot have been entirely unaware of the ferment in Texas when he returned from his latest expedition. The centralist government in Mexico City had never been a stable one. The Mexicans prized their hard-won freedom from Spain, but almost immediately found themselves plagued by factionalism from within that led to increased centralization of authority and the abrogation of some portions of their 1824 constitution. Moreover, theirs was huge country, nearly as large as the United States, but without the transportation and communication links to make it manageable. Having been exploited by Spain for so long, it had no efficient infrastructure for supporting itself as a republic. Mexico City could scarcely see beyond its own internal difficulties, let alone give any kind of attention to the faraway province of Coahuila y Tejas, with the result that by 1832 the regime there was already disintegrating.12 That same year Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna precipitated an uprising in favor of a looser republic. Austin expected him to win power but advised his colonists to stay out of the turmoil, for any action on their part could work against Texas, regardless of how the power struggle ended.