Most of us have an image in our mind of Davy Crockett swinging Old Betsy with a pile of dead Mexicans at his feet. Our mind’s eye doesn’t take us past that image, but we know the outcome. He ends up dead, as did all the Texicans who gave their lives for Texas independence. It is the way textbooks tell it. But is this the way Crockett actually died?
Davy Crockett was already famous before he died in the Alamo. Not only was he a colorful exemplar of the frontier, but many Americans knew him through a play in which he was the hero. He was also a politician. He was elected several times to the House of Representatives, but he was a Whig at the time that Andrew Jackson’s Democrats were in the ascendancy. When he lost in 1835, he famously told the voters: “You can go to hell, I’m going to Texas.” At the time Texas had some of the cheapest land and Crockett was hurting financially. It seemed a good place to start over. It is also possible he saw the potential to revive his political career there. It is unclear how he ended up in the Alamo. The official version is that he joined the defenders to fight for independence. However, some historians felt that he was taking refuge there and had no intention of dying there. He got caught up in the siege. The evidence leans toward the official version. Regardless, he was a participant in the battle. The question is: how did he die?
Surprisingly, most stories in newspapers after the fall of the Alamo had Crockett among a group of men who surrendered and then they were executed by Santa Anna. As time went on, that narrative was put aside and replaced by the legendary tale of Crockett fighting until the end and going down in a blaze of glory. Most non-Texans could not have told you how Crockett died until Disney’s series “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter” and John Wayne’s “The Alamo” “taught” Americans how he died. Last man standing, swinging his rifle. Or setting off the gunpowder in the chapel.
This version was not really challenged until the diary of Jose Enrique de la Pena was uncovered in 1955. When the translation was published in 1975, it created a firestorm. Pena was an aide to Santa Anna and an eyewitness to the siege. He wrote that Crockett and five others survived the battle and were brought before Santa Anna. According to Pena, Crockett tried to talk his way out of his predicament, saying that he had merely taken refuge in the Alamo. The dictator wasn’t buying it and ordered Crockett and the rest killed. Mexican officers “fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men just as a tiger leaps upon his prey.” The diary was very controversial as it disputed the established history. Obviously, many Texans were angered by this revisionism. However, the diary has been authenticated.
Pena’s account was not the only Mexican account that told a similar story. Fernando Urissa told of a “Coket” who surrendered and was shot. Another Mexican officer reported a scenario similar to Pena’s but with the captives being shot. There was a total of five Mexican eyewitness accounts that supported the surrender story. One version had William Travis in the group with Crockett and had the Mexicans in such a frenzy to exact revenge that the fusillade wounded eight Mexicans! (That’s the Fox News version.) And it was not just the Mexicans. Soon after the battle, Sam Houston wrote about seven men who surrendered and were shot. A member of Houston’s staff, told that a slave (perhaps Joe, the slave that survived the battle) said that Crockett survived the battle, broke through the surrounding Mexicans and made a run for it. A Mexican lancer galloped after him and speared him in the back.
However, there are several eyewitnesses that supported the heroic ending. Susannah Dickinson (a survivor) told people years later that she saw Crockett’s body lying with others killed in action. A slave who was a cook in the Mexican army told of seeing Crockett’s body in the barracks near numerous Mexican bodies. The mayor of San Antonio told that he saw Crockett’s body where he fell fighting.
We may never know for sure how Davy Crockett died. In my opinion, the evidence is more supportive of the surrender theory. Pena’s diary is hard to refute. He had no reason to lie and his version is sympathetic toward Crockett. He expressed distaste for Santa Anna killing prisoners.
Whether you believe he died fighting or died as a captive, he still died fighting for Texas independence, so he’s a hero either way.
https://www.historynet.com/davys-death-at-the-alamo-is-now-a-case-closed-or-not/
https://www.thoughtco.com/davy-crockett-death-at-the-alamo-2136246
https://truewestmagazine.com/article/how-did-davy-really-die/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/say-aint-davy/
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