Category: Texas Flag History

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, Greenest state in the land of the free. Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree, Killed him a bear when he was only three. Davy, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier.If you are old enough then you remember and can sing along with this tune that goes with these words. You can see in your mind the tall, good looking Fess Parker, dressed in fringed skins, wearing a coon skin hat and carrying a large rifle, appearing as our favorite hero on early TV in the mid 1950’s. It was a childhood dream come true to own a coonskin cap and wear it sitting in front of the TV for every exciting episode.

Surely David “Davy” Crockett has been one of the most celebrated, romanticized legendary  figures in American history. He is famed as  a frontiersman, folk hero, congressman and Alamo defender.

Biographers often say there are actually two Crocketts: David, the frontiersman and congressman lost at the battle in Alamo, and Davy, the larger-than-life folk hero whose famous exploits are glorified in several books,  almanacs, and television series..

Crockett’s father taught him to shoot a rifle when he was just 8 years old.(So, there goes the shooting the bear myth at age 3, as in the song, maybe.) He eagerly tagged along with his his older brothers on hunting trips.

During the War of 1812, Crockett served in the militia followed later by service as a member of the Tennessee State House of Representatives.

While Crockett was in fact a very skilled woodsman, his fame as as a rebellious super heroic,  sharpshooting, yarn spinning and larger-than-life woodsman style was partially a product of his own doing. He was trying to package himself as super talented to help win votes during his political campaigns. It seemed to work. He was reelected to the US Congress for a third term.

But soon after his last term, he grew disillusioned with politics and decided to leave his home in West Tennessee to join the fight in the Texas War of Independence in 1835.

His youngest child Matilda later wrote that she distinctly remembered the last time that she saw her father:“He was dressed in his hunting suit, wearing a coonskin cap, and carried a fine rifle presented to him by friends…He seemed very confident the morning he went away that he would soon have us all to join him in Texas.”

But Santa Anna’s Mexican Army had other ideas for Crockett’s future. On that day in March 1836 in San Antonio, the Mexicans killed virtually all of the roughly 200 Texans defending the Alamo, including, Colonels William B. Travis and James Bowie, and reportedly the legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett.

The memoirs of a Mexican officer José Enrique de la Peña stated that Crockett and his comrades at arms were gruesomely executed, though they “died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers.”

Some scholars disagree about the truth of this account of his death, and so the exact circumstances of Crockett’s death at the Alamo remain up for debate.

But the fact remains that frontiersman Davy Crockett is a true American hero, and icon who served as an inspiration to us all, young and old.

 

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In 1833 Santa Anna became President of Mexico. An elitist, he feared and thought little of the common man. Ignoring Mexico’s constitution, he dissolved congress, ordered the civil militia disarmed, and established his own dictatorship.  The Americans who had legally settled in Texas, a Mexican state, were not happy about this, to say the least. Texas and many other Mexican states openly rebelled.  Santa Anna then ordered that all foreigners caught under arms on Mexican soil would be treated as pirates and shot. Foreigners made up the great majority of the Texas Army. We all know what happened next at the Alamo, but weeks later a massacre occurred that turned Texan resolve into steel.

In March 1836, 400 Texans were near Goliad when a Mexican army of 1400 caught up with them.  The Texans fought, but the situation seemed hopeless, so they surrendered. Mexican General Urrea treated the prisoners well, and urged Santa Anna to show leniency “after a hotly contested engagement”. But Santa Anna would have none of it, and sent an aide to enforce a brutal order: Execute the nearly 350 prisoners, including the wounded.

Santa Anna made a bad mistake. The staunch Texans were furious!

About three weeks later, Sam Houston’s army was set to charge across the San Jacinto plain. At four o’clock in the afternoon, while the Mexican camp slept, the Texan army opened fire with two six-pound cannons. The entire Texan line surged forward shouting “Remember the Alamo!” “Remember Goliad!”

The Texans were so “blazing, fighting mad” General Houston, commander of the Texan army, did not want the Tejanos, Mexicans who sided with the Texans, to fight fearing the Texans would not distinguish between friend and foe during the battle. But the Tejanos wanted to fight and went into battle wearing cardboard signs in their hats to show that they were on the Texan side  

The fighting was intense. In the eighteen minutes of battle, the fighting became so fast and furious that all the Mexican soldiers could do was drop on their knees and shout their surrender.   

Santa Anna had disappeared during the battle. General Houston ordered a thorough search of the area.  A Texan fighter caught a Mexican dressed as a common soldier trying to escape. When the Mexican was brought back to camp the other Mexican prisoners shouted, “El Presidente!” to reveal Santa Anna’s identity.

So, Santa Anna was forced to surrender to General Houston, and Texas had won its independence. Texas was now free! Sometimes it pays to get “blazing, fighting mad!”

 

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