In the same year, William Carroll, who had so bravely commanded the rear guard of Jackson’s forces at Enotachopco Creek, was a candidate for the Governorship. He represented, as did Davy, the men who paid rentals to monopolists, and taxes to the State that favored the wealthy in the filling of remunerative offices. When Carroll’s enemies accused him of having let his note go to protest, they threw a boomerang that slew them in its sudden homeward flight; for Carroll’s friends made it known that he had lost everything in going security for them in dire financial straits. His opponent, Ward, was cold and unapproachable. To him a man from the cane-brakes or the windowless cabins of the mountains was little better than the savages just beyond. In Phelan’s history of Tennessee, there is mention of a sarcastic letter printed in the Nashville _Clarion_ over the signature “A Big Fish.” In this the supposed Big Fish, or Big-Bug, as the aristocrat was then often called, gave the reasons why he could not vote for Carroll. He said that Carroll was born of poor parents, and had never learned the rudiments of Latin and Greek; as a boy and a young man, he had plowed and reaped and cleared the land; he had always been handy at log-rollings, country weddings, and huskings; he had gone to the wars, instead of staying home to save the wealth that was needed for the Governor’s position; he could not support the dignity of the great office with fine dinners, splendid carriages, liveried servants, and state balls; he was too ready to shake hands with the ragged soldier because they had fought on the same fields. A man who was not above such low-born loons was not fit to command the votes of the educated and the men of the higher classes. Carroll received forty-two thousand votes, while his austere and wealthy rival had but eleven thousand. On the same popular tidal wave, Davy Crockett was carried to Nashville as a representative of his neighbors in the recent Purchase from the Indians, and in the atmosphere that prevailed in the halls of state he believed he had found his place. Davy had hardly been sworn in as a member of the Legislature when bad news from home reached him. A freshet had swept away his mill, and his distillery was worthless without the corn that was ground by it. When he had served through the session, he rode home, sold all that he had, and paid every dollar he could realize to his creditors. He was left with nothing but his household “plunder,” as he termed it, and the times were hard. The “Loan Bank” scheme that was to provide a currency and credit for development of the State had become a failure. There was nothing to do, in such times, but to live by the sweat of the brow. His wife stood bravely by him, and he gave up all he had, and “took a bran-fire new start.”