David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [136]
His decision to go to Texas, then, was not impulsive. Texas promised Crockett a fresh start and new opportunities for homesteading as well as politicking.17
A desire for land and not heroism was on Crockett’s mind as he and his companions made their way south. The quartet of riders made stops at several towns, including Jackson and Bolivar, and along the way picked up others who wanted to go to Texas. As many as thirty riders had joined Crockett’s entourage by the time they finally rode into Memphis on November 10. Most of them would stay in Memphis or drop out along the journey through Arkansas and across the Mexican border into Texas.
While spending a few days in Memphis, Crockett looked up old friends such as Mayor Marcus Winchester, the well-known business and political figure who had invested money and energy in his earlier political campaigns. The river town, with its many pleasurable distractions, had always proved inviting to Crockett. Much time also was spent enjoying horns of drink with citizens and comrades at the Union Hotel, Hart’s Saloon, and Neil McCool’s establishment. It was at this time that Crockett made his famous declaration to the Tennessee voters: “Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.”18 Most likely he repeated the statement many times as he traveled southward to the U.S.-Mexico border.
From Memphis, Crockett and his followers were ferried across the Mississippi and into Arkansas. They reached the territorial capital of Little Rock in the late afternoon of November 12. “A rare treat,” declared the Gazette, one of the city’s daily newspapers.
Among the distinguished characters who have honored our City with their presence within the last week, was no less a personage than Col. DAVID CROCKETT—better known as DAVY CROCKETT—the reel critter himself—who arrived on Thursday evening last, with some 6 or 8 followers…. The news of his arrival rapidly spread, and we believe within bounds, when we say, that hundreds flocked to see the wonderful man, who, it is said, can whip his weight in wild-cats, or grin the largest panther out of a tree.19
While in Little Rock, Crockett visited a popular tavern, was entertained by a puppet show, and bagged a deer he hung up and butchered behind the Jefferies Hotel. At one point, he showed off his skill with Betsey at a shooting match where it was said he struck the center of the bull’s eye with both his first and second shots. Later a large group of anti-Jacksonians toasted Crockett at a banquet held in his honor at the hotel. He obliged them by lambasting the president and vice president. Crockett also had high praise for Arkansas and told the overflow crowd: “If I could rest anywhere it would be in Arkansas, where the men are the real half-horse, half-alligator breed such as grow nowhere else on the face of the universal earth but just around the backbone of North America.”20
But Crockett was not ready to rest and soon departed Little Rock with his followers bound for Texas. Many others were making the same journey. “The Texas fever is beginning to develope [sic] itself in Little Rock,” reported a Virginia newspaper. “Four young men, who have caught the patriotic flame, took their departure from our city…to gather laurels on the plains of Texas.”21 Large bands of heavily armed men rode down the old military road that had been used to herd the displaced Choctaws to the western lands of Indian Territory. At the crossroads town of Washington, Arkansas, they paused to refresh and then continued on the Southwest Trail winding its way to the border crossings on the Red River.
Crockett may have traversed at least a short stretch