David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [138]
Finally, in early January of 1836, Crockett and his original three companions reined up their horses in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas. He was reluctant to leave the good hunting grounds, but he had also heard stories about the successes of Sam Houston, his old Tennessee friend; Stephen Austin; and other land agents, or empresarios, who had established land agencies and were on their way to becoming wealthy men. Crockett believed that, at last, he could gain his own fortune, and in a place where he could hunt almost every day of the year. As one author noted, Crockett was “in a state of euphoria.”30
Throughout Crockett’s long ride from Tennessee to Texas, Halley’s Comet, the most famous of all the celestial nomads, was clearly visible, just as it is every seventy-six years or so. Across the land people were in awe when they spied the object slowly making its way through the night sky.31 For centuries people believed a comet appeared as a harbinger of chaos and disaster. Comets were to be feared. One medieval pope even excommunicated Halley’s Comet and declared it an “instrument of the devil.”
The appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835–1836 was blamed for catastrophes around the world, including a horrific fire in New York City that raged for several days and nights, the massacre of 280 people in Africa by Zulu warriors, and wars that erupted across Latin America. The Seminole Indians in Florida saw in the comet’s long tail a sign of the tragedy that soon descended on them as they lost their homes and were exiled to Indian Territory.
Among many Americans, especially Anglo Texans, Halley’s Comet signaled the impending fall of the Alamo. But for the Tejanos—the people of Mexican blood living in Texas—the comet was a portent of the Mexican army’s defeat at San Jacinto.
Halley’s Comet was rediscovered in August 1835, about the time of Crockett’s defeat for another term in Congress. It was visible for an extended period and could still be seen long enough for enterprising promoters to issue The Comet Almanack for 1836. It sold well but not nearly as well as the Davy Crockett Almanack of that year with a cover illustration of Crockett wading the Mississippi River on a pair of stilts. Stories made the rounds, in newspapers and future almanacs, claiming that Crockett and his nemesis Andrew Jackson had forged a truce and that Old Hickory had commissioned Crockett to scale the Alleghenies and wring the tail off the comet before it could char the earth.32 By the time the comet finally vanished in May 1836, not to be seen again until 1910, the ashes of the Alamo, the last battle of Crockett’s life, were long cold and scattered.
THIRTY-SIX
EL ALAMO
WHEN THE CROCKETT ENTOURAGE rode into Nacogdoches on January 5, 1836, they were warmly greeted with a cannon salute, and that evening they were feted at a great banquet. Crockett had taken his time in getting to the old Spanish town, where many volunteers were gathering and some of the revolutionary leaders were plotting the overthrow of the Mexican government. The local citizens, of course, assumed Crockett’s sole purpose in coming to Texas was to join in the battle. Mindful of a future in politics and not wishing to disappoint, Crockett responded with one of his robust and colorful speeches.
“I am told, gentlemen,” Crockett said to his hosts,
that when a stranger like myself arrives among you, the first inquiry is, what brought him here. To satisfy your curiosity at once as to myself, I will tell you