David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [49]
Tall and lanky, with reddish hair and blazing blue eyes, the young judge was in fact future U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Later, when Bean was asked why he gave up so easily, he explained that when he looked into Andy Jackson’s eyes he could see the fire, and he knew that he had best give up or die.22 One day—under far different circumstances—those same fiery eyes would glare at David Crockett.
Jackson, in his early career as a circuit court judge, not only presided over matters such as the Bean trial but also had occasion to travel through Franklin County. In 1808, Jackson received a patent from the State of Tennessee for 1,000 acres located on the Boiling Fork, just below Winchester. The following year he acquired an additional 640 acres on the Elk River.23 Jackson also enjoyed a long relationship with the Bean and Russell families. Only ten years after the encounter with Russell Bean, many members of both families faithfully served under then General Jackson when duty called. Among the volunteers was Russell Bean, who, it was said, eventually got back with his wife when Jackson brokered reconciliation.24 Crockett, too, would be in that number fighting under Jackson’s command, as would Jesse Bean, the master craftsman who supplied so many fine hunting rifles.
Jesse lived by the creek that was named for him, and in a nearby cave he set up the gun shop that brought him fame and a bit of fortune well beyond the county and state. Known for their precision, Bean rifles became the standard for all other weapons on the frontier. Rifles crafted by various Beans had been put to good use at the Battle of King’s Mountain during the last days of the Revolutionary War, and were coveted by militia and outback white settlers as their weapons of choice for killing Indians or large game.
As the autumn of 1813 approached, the gunsmith shop and powder mills tucked into the stone grottoes on Bean’s Creek would be pressed into service once again. So would most of the able-bodied men from Franklin County, including the crack shot David Crockett.
FOURTEEN
“REMEMBER FORT MIMS”
THE UNITED STATES STUNNED the diplomatic world on June 19, 1812, when President James Madison declared war on the imperial power of Great Britain.1 Growing resentment over the seizure of U.S. ships primarily caused the conflict, which lasted until 1815, although Eric Jay Dolin notes in Fur, Fortune, and Empire that competing claims over fur territory in the Northwest were compelling factors. Britain, already at war in Europe, was desperate to find fresh sailors, and so began the press-ganging of American crews into the British navy and confiscating of all cargo bound for Napoleonic France. These appropriations caused the United States to cut off all trade with the continent.2 At the same time, some members of Congress began beating the drums of war when they saw an opportunity to claim the rest of the North American continent still in the hands of the King of England.
Nowhere was the cry for war louder than in certain political circles in landlocked Tennessee and surrounding states. These warmongers were not as worried about halting the impressments of American seamen as they were about finding a solution to what was called “the Indian problem.” Mostly southern congressmen—such as Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina—the “War Hawks,” as they were known—firmly believed that taking more Indian property would appease the gnawing hunger