Travis's friend and pupil Kuykendall, ever the suffering poet, wrote some verse about them in 1849, calling it “The Valiant Dead.”
The trumpet's voice and war's alarms
Shall summon them no more to arms;
In Valor's ranks they've left a space
And in our hearts a vacant place:
But Sleep evokes in solemn night
Their radiant forms to Fancy's sight,
And waking thought, to sadness wed,
Dwells mutely on the valiant dead.
High Bards shall sing their deathless deeds,
And Freedom's, pilgrims, clad in weeds,
Oe'r their cold graves warm tears will shed
And Heaven rewards the valiant dead.71
It was not a particularly good poem, and verse would present no challenge to legend for custody of their memory. Neither would fact. Myth claimed them all by degrees: Crockett the most, Travis the least. Forgotten entirely was that they had been men of their times, yet somehow exaggerated, larger in life, than the types they represented. They all in a way stood for the aspirations of Jacksonian America, and yet not one of them was a true Jacksonian. Crockett was never a party man, and his personal aspirations were always to rise to property and standing, much more in tune with the Whigs. Bowie left no comment on national political affairs, but it is not hard to see that his sympathies, too, lay chiefly with the Whigs, for they were the men with whom he associated and who stood to further his ambitions. Travis was a Democrat at least, but by all evidence more attached to the school of John C. Calhoun than that of Jackson.
Certainly not one of them, not even Crockett, was the so-called “common man” so exalted in the Jacksonian era, and Bowie and Travis were not even typical Southerners, with their constant efforts at material and financial self-betterment. Indeed, each of the three came from what could have been called the middle class in the context of their time and place, even Crockett. Yet they were all self-made men, building on varying degrees of advantage and disadvantage at birth. The paths they took to “make” themselves varied widely, but they were the roads that all these new men took in building lives for themselves and in conquering the continent. Their roads just happened to lead them to the Alamo. Crockett's type would always be on the outer edge of the new land, living for the thrill of exploration and in the hope of finding that elusive free land on which to settle, though once obtained they almost always pushed on when a new horizon opened farther west. Bowie and his kind followed in the next wave, coming to capitalize and exploit the opportunities proffered by new and unlimited resources, and limited legal restraint. Neither could achieve his life's goal, for neither was capable of satisfaction. Crockett lived doomed to be “Davy,” and original, perhaps, but not a gentleman in the eyes of America, and for him one horizon only led to another. Bowie never got rich because for him no fortune could ever be great enough.
It was the Travises who made the greatest mark, and only Travis truly realized his ambition before he died. They were the third wave of settlement—the professionals, doctors, lawyers, newspapermen, educators—who came to bring stability, learning, and the rule of law. They were the community makers who took what a Crockett would find and a Bowie exploit, and turned it into a state. Had he lived, Crockett might never have settled permanently until too old to keep going on the long hunt toward another sunset. Had he survived, Bowie would only have stayed in Texas as long as opportunity for big land deals afforded, and that drying up, he would have moved on. Unquestionably, if he had still been alive in 1848, a fifty-two-year-old Bowie would have been on his way to California in the first rush after the gold strike. Men like Bowie and Crockett were made to bestride continents. As for Travis, the Alamo got in the way of what almost certainly would have been a career leading to the presidency of the republic, or after Texas achieved statehood, a governorship or even a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Their critics then and thereafter would charge that these were no patriots. The were simply men bent on the main chance. If these three and the two hundred or more who fell with them undeniably died heroes' deaths for the way they put themselves in harm's way when they could have escaped, still they acted out of self-interest, not selfless devotion to a cause. Bowie especially seems susceptible to the accusation. All his involvement in the eleven-league grants gave him a tremendous motive for wanting to see Texas break away from a Mexican government that would repudiate those grants. Travis, though hardly in Bowie's class as a speculator, still evidenced some hope of land profit, and significantly in his very last message out of the Alamo he wrote of the “fortune” he hoped to make for his son, though he might just as well have been speaking in the classical sense of “making one's fortune,” meaning to establish a standing in the world, a good name and reputation. But even those things are personal goals, with seemingly little or nothing to do with patriotism. As for Crockett, he was embracing Texas as a new home, and a new base from which to launch perhaps yet another political career. But would he have stuck with it any longer than he had any of his previous homes? Did he die at the Alamo because of a deep commitment to a cause, or would Texas have been in the end just one more tentative settlement like all the rest, a stop but not a terminus on his ceaseless quest to find his own fortunes?
They all sought their own ends in Texian independence, but to dismiss them as self-serving opportunists—even Bowie, the most opportunistic of all—is to be obtuse, and woefully ignorant of the history and nature of what men call patriotism. Tocqueville observed the struggles of millions like Crockett, Bowie, and Travis throughout America at the very moment that the revolt in Texas approached. He marveled at how an American could one moment devote himself single-mindedly to the relentless pursuit of his personal interests as if he were the only man on the planet, and yet the next instant immerse himself so deeply in the public interest that it might appear he had forgotten his own entirely. “Sometimes he seems to be animated by the most selfish greed and sometimes by the most lively patriotism,” wrote the Frenchman, but he saw perceptively that “a human heart cannot really be divided in this way.” The passions that Americans displayed alternately for their own welfare and then for their idea of liberty were so similar, he found, “that one must suppose these urges to be united and mingled in some part of their being.” To an American, freedom for the body politic was the best and surest guarantee of the prosperity of the individual, and at the same time the best tool for levering that fortune from the continent. Americans loved freedom and prosperity equally “for the sake of each other.” As a result “they think it their most important concern to secure a government which will allow them to get the good things they want and which will not stop their enjoying those they have in peace.”72
Like their ancestors in the days of Elizabeth I, they faced a new world brimming with opportunity for the man with Crockett's spirit of adventure, Bowie's bold daring, and Travis's drive to succeed. Like those earlier men who discovered and exploited an earlier American frontier, Crockett, Bowie, Travis, and legions like them felt no hesitation in displacing others as they seized their new world in the relentless pursuit of personal gain and the spread of their civilization. In their coming together at the Alamo, they signified the combination of all the forces then in mutual contest with the continent. They thought and fought for the day, and not tomorrow. Like the Americans whom Tocqueville saw everywhere, they were ambitious, and “ambitious men in democracies are less concerned than those in any other lands for the interests and judgment of posterity,” he found. “The actual moment completely occupies and absorbs them. They carry through great undertakings quickly in preference to erecting long-lasting monuments. They are much more in love with success than with glory.”73
They had been in every way men of their time. It was only in death that they became unwittingly men for all time, only by their ends at the Alamo that they erected, in their own way, their lasting monument. The elegies came early and were many. William Wharton spoke within weeks o
f how “the gallant Travis was cut off in the flame of his life,” and asserted that “Bowie is a name that was synonymous with all that was manly and indomitable in the character of man.”74 But it was another man, unknown, remembering Crockett a month after the Alamo, who spoke for each of them, and for their generation. “The bear, the wild cat, and the alligator, no longer tremble at the sound of his carabine,” said the eulogist.
“He has ‘gone ahead.’”75
NOTES
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
ADAH
Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery
DRT
Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, San Antonio
HSP
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Jenkins, PTR
John H. Jenkins, comp. Papers of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 (Austin, 1973)
LSU
Hill Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
NA
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
SHC, UNC
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
TSL
Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville
TXSL
Texas State Library and Archives, Austin
UT
Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin
Men and Legends
1 The background and sources for this fable, and an examination of its impossibility, are found in Chapter 9, note 32.
2 The burial of the ashes is covered in the final chapter, including the statement of sources. Whether or not the coffin contained any part of Crockett, Bowie, or Travis, is entirely conjectural. It is supposed, with some foundation, that the large pile of dead burned were those killed inside the Alamo compound, while the two smaller piles were of those killed outside the walls, who would have had to be carried much farther to reach the main pile, hence the formation of two smaller ones. If this is the case, the certainty that Travis and Bowie were killed inside the compound would put their bodies in the large pile, and hence none of their ashes went into the casket. Crockett's place of death is uncertain, though he probably died inside the compound as well, and thus would have missed being included in the coffin.
3 New York Times, October 24, 1996.
4 Galveston Daily News, September 8, 1875. See also New Orleans Times, September 5, 1875.
5 Lucy Leigh Bowie manuscript, Lucy Leigh Bowie Papers, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Elve Soniat to Mr. Bowie, March II, May 12, 1896, Lucy Leigh Bowie Papers, DRT; John S. Moore to W. W. Fontaine, May 14, 1890, William W. Fontaine Collection, UT; New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 24, 1976. Moore's sister-in-law who produced so much was Effie Harrison Snyder, one of her interviews appearing in the St. Joseph, La., Tensas Gazette, May 8, 1931.
6 J. De Stefani, “Handwriting Analysis of Jim Bowie,” Alamo Journal 99 (December 1995): n.d.; Joseph Musso, untitled article on a Bowie knife, Alamo II 21 (February 1982): 1-7. Joe Nickell, ed., Psychic Sleuths: ESP and Sensational Cases (Buffalo, N.Y., 1995), 14, 17, 21-29, 237, exposes the falseness of Hurkos's claims to have helped police solve crimes, noting that even some believers in the questionable field of psychic detection have branded Hurkos “a psychic scoundrel.” For an example of the way he worked, see Ronald A. Schwartz, “Sleight of Tongue,” Skeptical Inquirer 3 (Fall 1978): 47-55.
7 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. Mayer (New York, 1966), 285.
8 Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” in Henry Seidel Canby, ed., The Works of Henry David Thoreau (Boston, 1937), 673.
Chapter 1 Crockett 1786-1815
1 There is some controversy about Crockett's ancestry, with some claims that he descended from a French line, but the true lineage remains uncertain.
2 David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, ed. James A. Shackford and Stanley J. Folmsbee (Knoxville, 1973), 14. Unless otherwise cited, all material on Crockett in this chapter is drawn from this source.
3 Stanley J. Folmsbee and Anna Grace Catron, “The Early Career of David Crockett,” East Tennessee Historical Society's Publications 28 (1956): 59-60.
4 Crockett, Narrative, 15-16; Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 6on.
5 David Crockett to Elizabeth Crowder, January 11, 1835, Barrett Box, Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
6 Crockett, Narrative, 15.
7 James A. Shackford, David Crockett, The Man and the Legend (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1956), 6-7.
8 Crockett, Narrative, 18-21.
9 Ibid., 21-22; Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 61-62. There is, in fact, some dispute about just where the tavern was located, as discussed in the Folmsbee-Catron article and in the notes of the Shackford-Folmsbee edition of Crockett's autobiography.
10 Shackford, Crockett, 6.
11 Crockett, Narrative, 22.
12 John L. Jacobs to the editor of the Morristown Gazette, November 22, 1884, Correspondence by Subject, David Crockett, TSL.
13 Crockett, Narrative, 22-23.
14 Ibid., 23.
15 Joseph Arpad, “David Crockett: An Original Legendary Eccentricity and Early American Character” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, Durham, N.C., 1970), 171-172.
16 Typically in this time and place, when several youngsters of varying age started schooling at the same time, as Crockett and his brothers appear to have done, it meant that the school had just gone into operation, hence the conclusion that Kitchen had just opened his class.
17 Crockett, Narrative, 30.
18 Ibid., 33.
19 Ibid., 47.
20 William C. Davis, A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier (New York, 1995), 166-67; Arpad, “Crockett,” 169-71.
21 Marriage license, October 27, 1805, in “Documents of the Texian Revolution,” Alamo Journal 101 (June 1996), 17.
22 Crockett, Narrative, 53-54.
23 Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 63.
24 Crockett, Narrative, 67-68; Jacobs to the Editor of the Morristown Gazette, November 22, 1884, Correspondence by Subject, David Crockett, TSL.
25 Folmsbee and Catron, “Early Career,” 64; Crockett Vertical, Narrative, 69n.
26 Crockett, Narrative, 71-73.
27 Crockett to James Davison, August 18, 1831, David Crockett Vertical File, DRT.
28 Crockett, Narrative, 82.
29 Ibid., 89-90.
30 John Reid and John Henry Eaton, The Life of Andrew Jackson (1817; reprint, University, Ala., 1974), 90-98.
31 Compiled Service Record of David Crockett, Adjutant General's Office, War of 1812, Record Group 94, NA.
32 Ibid.; Crockett, Narrative, 101-24.
Chapter 2 Bowie 1796-1820
1 John Evans, “Bowie (Boo-wee) or Bowie (Bo-wee)? What's in a Name?” Alamo Journal 69 (December 1989): 6.
2 Savannah, Georgia Gazette, November 7, 1765; Allen D. Candler, comp., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1907), vol. 9, 632; vol 10, 132, 715; vol. 12, 174; Allen D. Candler, comp., The Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1907), vol. 2, 600; Georgia Records of Livestock Brands, March 6, 1769, copy in James Bowie Biographical File, DRT.
3 Walter Worthington Bowie, The Bowies and Their Kindred (Washington, D.C., 1899), 258-59; Martha Bowie Burns article, n.d., for the News Sunday Magazine Supplement, James Bowie Biographical File, DRT; Candler, Revolutionary Records, vol. 2, 729. All these family sources for Bowie history in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries must be used cautiously and in large part be regarded more as family lore than solid documentary history.
4 Deed Book 1. 81-82, 125, 128, 160, Clerk of the Court, Sumner County Courthouse, Gallatin, Tennessee; J. Guy Cisco, Historic Sumner County, Tennessee (Nashville, 1900), 230; John J. Bowie, “Early Life in the Southwest—The Bowies,” DeBow's Review 13 (October 1852
): 379. Of all sources for the early years of the Bowies, the John Bowie article, skimpy as it is, remains the most reliable.
5 Deed Book A1, 28, 29, Clerk of the Court, Logan County Courthouse, Russellville, Ky. This is now the Turnertown Road, Terrapin is now known as Spring Creek, and the site is in Simpson County, which was split away from Logan in the next century.
6 Typical of the wild inaccuracy in much of the writing on James Bowie, his birthplace has been given as Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, even Mississippi—see for instance J. F. H. Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, with Biographical Notices of Eminent Citizens (Jackson, 1880), vol. 1, 259. There has never been any real mystery that Logan County was the site, as his brother John Bowie definitely said that James was born there in the spring of 1796, and since he was eleven years old at the time, John should have been mature enough to have remembered the event accurately later, especially since he associated with his parents who could recall it for him to the end of their lives (Bowie, “The Bowies,” 379). In addition to his DeBow's article, John Bowie also published substantially the same reminiscences in the Washington, Tex. Lone Star, October 23, 1852, in which he reiterates James's spring 1796 birth date. It should be noted that Raymond Thorp, Bowie Knife (privately published, N. Mex., 1948), n.p., states that uncited Logan County tax records revealed James Bowie's birth date to have been specifically April 10, 1796, and this has subsequently been picked up by Bowie students. This was apparently pure invention by Thorp, for no Logan County records even mention James, much less pinpoint the date of his birth. They only establish that the Bowies were living in Logan County during the years covering the period of James's birth, just as John Bowie said they were.
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