Frontier Hero Davy Crockett

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Near the headwaters of the Trinity River, Crockett’s party was met by James Clark, the founder of Clarksville, who turned the hunting party back with tales of raiding Comanches. Crockett called the area Honey Grove because of its swarming bees, a name it came to be forever known by.

Many old friends from Tennessee were in the Red River country, and Crockett agreed to meet several of them for a grand hunt at the falls of the Brazos River in December. He then pushed southeast along Trammel’s Trace to Nacogdoches. News of his coming had preceded him, and yet another dinner in his honor was planned. He delighted the Texans with another version of his hell-and-Texas speech.

In Nacogdoches, Crockett swore an oath of allegiance ‘to the Provisional Government of Texas or any future republican Government that may be hereafter declared.’ He had Judge John Forbes insert the word ‘republican’ before he would sign the standard oath. The political situation in Texas was confused, with the provisional government divided into factions favoring the governor, Henry Smith, and the governing council. The military situation was equally confusing, for although armed conflict had erupted between the settlers and Mexican forces on October l, and General Martin Cós had surrendered San Antonio de Bexar to the rebels on December 11 and retreated with his army south of the Rio Grande, there was no real Texas army, no goal of independence declared to fight for, and no unity of command. General Sam Houston, the new army commander, was unable to exert authority over his scattered and wildly undisciplined forces, while rumors abounded that Antonio López de Santa Anna was leading a large army northward.

Crockett, nevertheless, was in an expansive mood when he wrote his daughter from San Augustine, Texas. He had joined the army and planned to set out shortly to join the Texas forces on the Rio Grande. His mind was on politics, however, rather than martial glory. ‘But all volunteers is entitled to vote for a member of the convention or to be voted for, and I have but little doubt of being elected a member to form a constitution for this province,’ he wrote Margaret on January 9, 1836. ‘I am rejoiced at my fate. I had rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life. I am in hopes of making a fortune yet for myself and family, bad as my prospect has been.’ His last words to his family were soothing. ‘Do not be uneasy about me,’ he wrote. ‘I am among friends.’

Micajah Autry, a Tennessee lawyer and sometime poet, wrote his wife on January 13 from Nacogdoches that ‘Colonel Crockett has joined our company.’ Although Tinkle and Burgin had returned home, Crockett and his nephew, along with many of those who had attached themselves to him, now joined with a dozen other volunteers into a company dubbed the ‘Tennessee Mounted Volunteers’ in honor of the colonel. On January 16 they headed toward San Antonio. ‘We go with arms in our hands,’ wrote young Daniel Cloud of Kentucky, ‘determined to conquer or die.’

Crockett’s company reached Washington-on-the-Brazos in late January. There Crockett hoped to meet with Sam Houston, his old friend from early Tennessee politics. Houston, however, was at Goliad, attempting, without much success, to establish some order to the chaotic Texan army. On January 17 he had ordered Colonel James Bowie to San Antonio with 30 men to destroy the fortifications at the old mission Alamo and withdraw the garrison and artillery eastward. Crockett tarried in Washington for a few days, perhaps hoping for Houston’s return or delaying in order to find some role for himself in the independence consultation that was to meet there on March 1. Finally, on January 24, he pushed on toward San Antonio de Bexar.

Crockett’s company entered San Antonio from the west, through an old Catholic graveyard. They were met there by Colonel Bowie and his aide Antonio Menchaca. Upon arriving at the Alamo, Bowie had disregarded Houston’s orders, writing to Governor Smith that ‘the salvation of Texas depends in great measure on keeping Bexar out of the hands of the enemy…we would rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy.’ He was naturally delighted to see Crockett.

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