Thanks to a 1950s Disney hit, a catchy ballad and perhaps the first mega-merchandising campaign in modern history, “Davy” Crockett is (along with Daniel Boone) the iconic image of the frontiersman for much of the world. Buckskins, long rifle, coonskin cap.
Historian Michael Wallis fell under the Davy Crockett spell as a kid and now he has explored his life in a new biography, “David Crockett: Lion of the West.” Note that it’s David; he never went by “Davy.”
Crockett was a passionate hunter and a reluctant warrior. He was traumatized by the brutality of the Creek War of 1813. He signed on with his dander up to avenge the massacre at Fort Mims and ended up war-weary and disgusted. As a frontier partisan, he was no Simon Kenton, no Sam Brady, no Jack Hays.
But he was a brave man and he went down in a battle made for myth creation. I’ll be interested to see how Wallis handles the recent theories regarding a breakout attempt at the Alamo and the nagging controversy over the manner of Crockett’s death.
Wallis is a perfect biographer for Crockett, who proved to be that rare political animal — a genuine populist. Wallis’ books are populist, too, seeming to grow right out of the soil of the American heartland. From Pretty Boy Floyd to Billy the Kid, he’s plumbed the lives and legends of larger-than-life and often wayward men and found the kernels of truth that make the real stories more compelling than the barnacles of legend.
I think I’ll order this as an audio book. Something tells me this is a story better heard than read.
Leave a Reply