The Death of David Crockett
The author began writing a modern epic poem about an American hero, but his investigations touched off an academic skirmish.
Before sunrise on March 6, 1836, the most famous siege in American history came to an end. More than a thousand troops under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the military dictator of Mexico, stormed the Alamo fortress in San Antonio, where Texan rebels against Mexican authority--Anglo-American settlers, Tejano natives, and soldiers of fortune from the United States and Europe--had been waiting for reinforcements that never came. All of the defenders--roughly 180 or more--were killed in battle or executed soon afterward.
News of the fall of the Alamo sent shock waves far beyond war-torn Texas, where secessionists had just declared the independence of their republic. Among the fallen defenders were two celebrities from the United States. The knifefighter James Bowie was one. But his renown was overshadowed by that of David Crockett, the "congressman from the canebrake" of Tennessee who had replaced Daniel Boone as a symbol of the American frontiersman. After being defeated in a race for Congress, Crockett--whom the Whig party had once considered as a possible presidential candidate--had made his way to insurgent Texas to make a fresh start. A fellow graduate of Tennessee politics, Sam Houston, commander of the weak and disorganized Texan army, had assigned Crockett to the garrison at San Antonio. There, with Bowie and less known figures such as the garrison's young commander, William Barret Travis, Crockett met his death.