A Time to Stand by Walter Lord Read Free Book Online Page A

who opposed free land were clearly grasping villains. Anybody who supported his own position was automatically public-spirited. There was no need to look for deeper motives.
    The Whigs found this very convenient. They were getting much too big a reputation as the party of affluence, of Nicholas Biddle and his powerful United States Bank. They badly needed a little backwoods respectability. Who better than David Crockett? And who easier to reach—with his love of the limelight, his gullibility, his weakness for the easy way?
    They wined him and dined him … laughed at his jokes … sponsored his meetings. The great Daniel Webster shook his hand. The United States Bank lent him money. The Young Whigs of Philadelphia gave him a rifle, and Mr. du Pont came through with some powder. Whig clubs packed his rallies; Whig papers pushed his books; Whig ghosts wrote his speeches. By 1834, David Crockett—who liked to boast that he would never wear a collar marked “My Dog, Andrew Jackson”—was actually the best-trained dog in Washington. In one canned speech full of references that must have mystified him, he labeled Jackson “a greater tyrant than Cromwell, Caesar or Bonaparte.”
    At this point Old Hickory had enough. In the 1835 Congressional campaign, he tore into “Crockett and Co.,” as he contemptuously called the Colonel. David fought back, told his constituents that he had done his best for them; if they didn’t re-elect him, they could go to hell—he would go to Texas.
    It was no use. Crockett lost the election by 230 votes. Hewas already unwelcome in the Democratic camp; now the Whigs, having no use for a loser, quickly abandoned him too.
    “I am on the eve of Starting to the Texas,” he wrote his brother-in-law on October 31. “On tomorrow morning myself, Abner Burgin and Lindsy K. Tinkle & our nephew William Patton from the Lower Country—this will make our Company. We will go through Arkinsaw and I want to explore the Texas well before I return.” Nothing about righting for liberty; the Texas revolution was going full blast, but it was not for him. Crockett wanted only the tonic of exploring new places once again … the thrill of staking out a new claim on a new frontier … the fun of hunting, riding, joking and laughing with good companions … a chance to rinse out the bitter taste of Washington.
    It was nothing new. He had always shoved on when things went against him. He did it as a 12-year-old, when he ran away after four days of school. Again, after the flash flood wrecked his little mill in 1817. Other times too. Nor was family a problem to this most casual of men. As he later explained to a shocked lady in Big Prairie, “I have set them free—set them free—they must shift for themselves.”
    It was all the more important, for time was running out. Crockett was nearly fifty now. His face was flushed; his 190 pounds were no longer distributed the way they used to be. This might be his last chance—his last great opportunity-nothing must interfere.
    Starting down the Mississippi on November 1, Crockett felt truly content for probably the first time in years. By his side, significantly, was “Betsey”—the rifle he used in the old days—not “pretty Betsey,” the fancy gun he got from the Whigs. Around him were long-time friends—none of those scheming Washington lackeys.
    They caroused all night in Memphis—Crockett delivering his “go-to-hell” speech at the Union Hotel bar, again on aflatboat just below the Gayoso Hotel. More drinking and parties at every place the steamboat touched along the Mississippi. Then west on the Arkansas River, arriving finally at Little Rock on November 12. By now the group had increased to eight or ten; Crockett always seemed to pick up new companions on a trip like this.
    When a committee of Little Rock citizens waited upon Crockett, they found him skinning a deer in the back yard of the City Hotel. They suggested a shooting match and Crockett was