David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [62]
Repeating the scenario when he first enlisted, Crockett had to deal once again with Polly and fend off her tearful pleas for him to stay. “Here again the entreaties of my wife were thrown in the way of my going, but all in vain; for I always had a way of just going ahead, at whatever I had a mind to.” A neighbor who had been drafted came to Crockett and offered $100 if Crockett would go in his place, but in a show of noble cause, Crockett turned the man down.17 “I told him I was better raised than to hire myself out to be shot at; but that I would go, and he should go too, and in that way the government would have the services of us both.”
Once again, Crockett said his sad good-byes to Polly and the children, and rode off for his second hitch as a soldier. Brig. Gen. John Coffee asked all volunteers from West Tennessee to assemble at Camp Blout near Fayetteville, the seat of Lincoln County, where the Crocketts had briefly lived. On September 28, 1814, Crockett reported to the first muster and signed up for a six-month enlistment in Capt. John Cowan’s company of Tennessee Mounted Gunmen. This time, Crockett entered as a noncommissioned officer with the rank of third sergeant.18
In about a week, Gen. Coffee had gathered a thousand volunteers and was ready to move south to join Gen. Jackson and face the British at Pensacola. But there was one problem—no food. As happened continually through the Creek campaigns, Coffee was forced to report to Jackson, “I have been detained by the contractors for want of traveling rations.”19 Finally, in early October, the brigade was supplied and followed the trail south. They crossed the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River near Melton’s Bluff and then passed through the Choctaw and Chickasaw country.
Crockett’s outfit tried to catch up with the main army but remained at least two days behind. In early November, the troops reached a place known as Cut Off, near the juncture of the Tombigbee River with the Alabama River, only to find out that there was no forage available for their mounts.20 They left their horses and some guards and covered the last of the journey on foot. “It was about eighty miles off,” noted Crockett, “but in good heart we shouldered our guns, blankets, and provisions, and trudged merrily on. About twelve o’clock the second day [November 8], we reached the encampment of the main army, which was situated on a hill, overlooking the city of Pensacola.”21 Because Crockett’s commanding officer, Maj. Russell, was well liked by Gen. Jackson, the tardy troops’ arrival “was hailed with great applause, though we were a little after the feast, for they had taken the town and fort before we got there.” Without permission from federal authorities, Jackson had invaded and temporarily seized Pensacola. His soldiers faced feeble Spanish resistance and the British detachment beat a retreat to the warships moored offshore in Pensacola Bay. In one stroke, and with just a few men lost, Jackson had eliminated the threat of British intrigue in Florida and scattered the remnants of the Red Sticks. After sloshing through palmetto-studded wetlands swarming with mosquitoes and snakes, the Tennesseans were ready to explore Pensacola, its narrow streets filled with mulattoes, runaway slaves, and Creoles. Brothels and drinking houses offered rum, smoked mullet, turtle, and oyster suppers.
“That evening we went down into the town,” recounted Crockett, “and could see the British fleet lying in sight of the place. We got some liquor, and took a ‘horn’ or so, and went back to camp. We remained there that night, and in the morning we marched back towards the Cutoff. We pursued this direction till we reached old Fort Mimms, where we remained two or three days.”22
Jackson had scattered a large number of his troops at garrisons throughout the Mississippi Territory. By mid-November, he issued new orders,