David Crockett : $b scout, small boy, pilgrim, mountaineer, soldier, bear-hunter, and Congressman, defender of the Alamo — John Shaqi
David Crockett : $b scout, small boy, pilgrim, mountaineer, soldier, bear-hunter, and Congressman, defender of the AlamoAllen, Charles Fletcher
History
David Crockett : $b scout, small boy, pilgrim, mountaineer, soldier, bear-hunter, and Congressman, defender of the Alamo
Allen, Charles Fletcher
Crockett, Davy, 1786-1836
A careless reading of his story of this period of his adventurous life
is utterly confusing, but with a better understanding of his meaning,
the account is a logical one. Davy called things as he was accustomed
to hear them called, and when he speaks of the Scamby River, meaning
the Escambia, or calls the Conecuh, the Conaker, he gives the best
proof that in his relation he was not indebted to the imagination of
an educated and inventive editor. In Eggleston’s intensely interesting
history of the Creek War, the author tells us that after his treaty
with the Creek nation, August 14, 1814, General Jackson went back to
The Hermitage, because his work was done, and that for a year Red
Eagle, the vanquished chief, was his guest. But from Hickory Grove,
the place of the treaty, Jackson must have gone to Pensacola, which he
occupied November 7, 1814; and as he fought the battle of New Orleans
in January, 1815, it is a cause for wonder that any historian should
make a statement so far from facts known to the ordinary schoolboy.
It was in November that Davy and his regiment set out for Tennessee.
Just how long the trip lasted, we do not know, but before it ended
they met volunteers from the Tennessee mountains bound to New Orleans.
Among them was a younger brother of Davy’s, as well as many of his old
neighbors. The regiment to which Davy belonged seems to have gone to
Fort Montgomery, near Fort Mims, and then towards Pensacola, and back
and forth between the Choctawhatchee and Escambia Rivers, intent, for
the most part, on getting something to eat. Some of their adventures
are of interest, but must be referred to without any attempt to fix
their dates. Davy tells them as they happen to come into his head, and
his book was written twenty years after.
On reaching the Escambia, they found a flooded country, and waded a
mile and a half in cold water up to their shoulders. Reaching the high
land and yellow pine timber, they were drying themselves when their
spies came “leaping the brush like so many old bucks,” with the news
that they had found a hostile Creek camp. After the braves and Major
Russell had been suitably decorated with war-paint they set out for
the place, but before they reached it, two of their Choctaw scouts
treacherously killed two Creeks whom they had met. The fight was thus
prevented, as the firing alarmed the Creek camp, and the hostiles made
good their escape. Davy’s party found that the scouts had already cut
off the heads of the Creeks, and each warrior in turn walked up to the
heads and struck them with a war-club. Davy says that after he had done
this, the Choctaws danced about him, struck him on his shoulders, and
called him “Warrior! Warrior!”
Soon after this they found a Spaniard and his wife and four children
killed and scalped, and Davy says the sight made him feel “ticklish.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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