March 10, 1844, John H. Long entered this world in Fairfield County, Ohio. On July 23, 1862, the 5' 6.5" brown hair, gray-eyed, eighteen-year-old joined the Union Army in Delevan, Illinois. This recruitment was for the 73rd Illinois Infantry. This unit comprised men from Adams, Champaign, Christian, Hancock, Jackson, Logan, Platt, Pike, Sangamon, Tazewell, and Vermillion counties. If you look at a map of Illinois you will notice that these counties run East to West through the central part of Illinois, primarily farming. Chances are like Long,, a number of the men in this unit would have been farmers.
The 73rd was mustered in at Camp Butler on August 21, 1862. It numbered 900 soldiers under the command of Colonel Jaquess. They were soon sent to Kentucky, eventually joining the 34th and 100 Illinois infantry, and the 79th and 88th Indiana. Soon, however, the 73rd was moved to a brigade with the 44th Illinois in the 2nd and 15th Missouri. This brigade was assigned to Sheridan's division and saw the following action: on October 1, 1862, the brigade started in pursuit of Bragg on October 8, the unit was engaged in the battle of Perryville. The 73rd engaged in battle, delivering and receiving heavy fire for approximately an hour, from 3 to 4 PM. On November 7 the unit reached Nashville Tennessee. It was during this move that several men were lost due to disability or diseases.
Long would have taken part in the above military activities. He was discharged on August 7, 1863, on a disability.
Long married Isabella Joyce in Illinois in 1864. By 1880 the couple were living in Kansas and had five children. John was still engaged in farming. However looking at the 1880 census records, the oldest child was born in Illinois, the second in Iowa, the third in Illinois, the fourth in Missouri, and the fifth in Kansas. By 1882 the family was living in Colorado Springs and two more children had been added. His occupation in this census is listed as a stone mason. In 1890, John added house raising and moving to his stone mason work. By 1910, at the age of 66, his occupation is house mover. John passed away in August 1920.
His headstone, to honor his service in the Civil War, was not ordered until 1936.
Accessed from Ancestry.
For links to past writing on Civil War Veterans and Civil War Wives:
Hi everyone! I'm back to talk about MORE western movies--faves, and not-so-faves. This is Part 2 of this blog series, so if you missed Part 1 last month, I hope you'll look it up and see what we were talking about in June!
Last month, we talked about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Purgatory, The Magnificent Seven, and El Dorado--all favorites! And...the not-so-favorite, which was The Searchers.But gosh, there’s a lot more ground to cover! I know a lot of you mentioned Tombstone, with Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Michael Biehn, and Sam Elliot. What’s not to love, in this re-telling of one of the most famous gunfights that ever happened—the OK Corral. Kurt Russell is just simply wonderful as Wyatt Earp, and he and Val Kilmer have spectacular chemistry together in this movie. I don’t think there’s ever been a better Doc Holliday than Val Kilmer’s portrayal. The casting was wonderful in this movie, and though it’s a story we are already familiar with, the actors involved bring it to life in a fresh, exciting way that has stood the test of time. One of my favorites, and when I’m scrolling on TV, I cannot ever pass it up.
Another favorite, though much different than most westerns, is Cowboys and Aliens. Now, some may disagree with this one, and at first, I wasn’t so sure about it, but by the end of the movie, I was loving it. Even my husband, a die-hard western fan, enjoyed this one and recorded it to watch it again. (Color me SHOCKED!) Cowboys and Aliens boasts and all-star cast including Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Adam Beach, and Olivia Wilde.
Because they do it so much better than I do, here’s the Google synopsis of the film:
Bearing a mysterious metal shackle on his wrist, an amnesiac gunslinger (Daniel Craig) wanders into a frontier town called Absolution. He quickly finds that strangers are unwelcome, and no one does anything without the approval of tyrannical Col. Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). But when Absolution faces a threat from beyond Earth, the stranger finds that he is its only hope of salvation. He unites townspeople, outlaws and Apache warriors against the alien forces in an epic battle for survival.
There is so much more to this movie, though—the development of the interpersonal relationships is one theme that, of course, can’t be allowed enough space in the synopsis to go into, but this is really worthy of watching, and in our house, watching more than once.
One of my favorites for many years is the original True Grit with John Wayne, Kim Darby, Dennis Hopper, and Glen Campbell. The original movie stays very true to the book by Charles Portis—and in my opinion, that book was a real masterpiece. I will say the same for the movie, even though Glen Campbell was not the best actor that ever graced the screen. But the other characters, and the scenery, as well as the close detail to the actual book, overcame Campbell’s (at times) wooden acting abilities.
True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross, a young teenage girl, who shoulders the responsibility of going after her father’s killer and seeing him brought in to face what he’s done. She is definitely no-nonsense and determined to see justice done.
After hired hand Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) murders the father of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), she seeks vengeance and hires U.S. Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn (John Wayne), a man of "true grit," to track Chaney into Indian Territory. As the two begin their pursuit, a Texas Ranger, La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), joins the manhunt in hopes of capturing Chaney for the murder of a Texas senator and collecting a substantial reward. The three clash on their quest of bringing to justice the same man.
My not-so-favorite candidate this week is Once Upon a Time in the West. I know, I know. It was very artsy and very well-received and highly acclaimed. But…it just went on and on and on forever. I honestly tried to watch this about three times and never could make it completely through in one sitting. It bored me to tears, and just seemed to go on forever. Stars include Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards and Claudia Cardinale.
What’s your favorite “outside the box” western? I mentioned Cowboys & Aliens this week, and last week I talked about Purgatory. I love these kinds of stories. Anyone else got one to talk about? If not—just talk about one of your favorite westerns. And remember it doesn’t have to be famous, just one YOU liked.
Fever! Before the germ theory became popular in the late 1800s, people had no idea what caused the various deadly fevers that swept through towns and cities, sometimes taking thousands of lives. On July 12, 1878, a bad bout of yellow fever began in New Orleans. It would eventually lead to the deaths of some 4,000 citizens—and would spur an effort that saw a new way of managing water and waste which would do away with much of the contagion that bred such disease.
Streets before the 20th Century were filthy places to walk. The pedestrians of a city would be confronted with offensive sights and smells, and often forced to walk through it as well. The streets of New Orleans were no exception: after the Civil War, New Orleans was one of the largest, smelliest, and deadliest cities in America. Its streets, 80% of which were still unpaved in 1880, were littered with refuse, including garbage, food waste, and both human and animal excrement. Dirty, stagnant water lay everywhere. And although the Department of Public Works was responsible for maintaining drainage, the lack of elevation in the city meant that the water had nowhere to go. Workers “cleaned” the gutters and canals by shoveling the muck into the streets—where it just washed back with the first rain.
Most big cities of this time had developed sewage systems, but New Orleans still relied on privies and gutters (even the rare indoor plumbing had to connect to a privy or gutter for disposal). Well water in the city was polluted and the city water from the New Orleans Waterworks Co. came straight from the Mississippi River. Drinking water came from cisterns. Any of these sources of water could transmit diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and yellow fever. Mosquitoes, later discovered to be the actual vectors of disease transmission, found New Orleans the perfect breeding ground.
New Orleans was “a city of epidemics,” especially of yellow fever, which returned practically every year after 1825. Fever epidemics were thought to be caused by “miasma,” humid air acting on filthy, undrained soil. This led to “solutions” such as burning tar or other strong-smelling substances and shooting cannons into the air to “purify” it. Many also felt that disease was brought into the city by immigrants aboard the many ships in port, which led to strong anti-immigrant sentiment and a belief that locals were immune to the disease.
After the Civil War, the nation as a whole made great strides in sanitation but change came slowly in New Orleans. Climate and topography made improvements expensive and the public seemingly had no concern for public sanitation. One report said that “insalubrity was flatly denied, or disbelieved.” It wasn’t until the epidemic of 1978, which swept up the Mississippi River Valley as far as Memphis, that New Orleans was shocked out of its lethargy.
Upriver towns and neighboring Gulf Coast cities like Mobile barred all travel to and from New Orleans at the first hint of disease. The economic impact of quarantine finally moved the businesses of the city to take action. The Board of Health and The Howard Association, both formed to deal with earlier bouts of yellow fever, had for years been trying to educate citizens about their home city’s shameful sanitation conditions. Now, these organizations were joined by businessmen and social leaders, and changes were finally put into effect. Some large businesses (like D.H. Holmes and the Charles Hotel) built their own sewer lines to the river. Other prominent citizens created their own organizations to study the problem and recommend a solution. These didn’t last long, but one that did, the Auxiliary Sanitary Association, improved drainage canals, donated garbage barges to the city, and repaired city-owned equipment. One of its most successful efforts was a system of gutter flushing that cleaned up many New Orleans streets.
Throughout the 1880s, there were few deaths from yellow fever and people stopped voting for sanitation measures to be improved. It wasn’t until the fever struck again in 1897 that people were frightened enough to approve funds for a drainage and sewage system which would permanently clean up the city. When yellow fever broke out again in 1905, the city was armed with the new knowledge of mosquito vectors and ordered citizens to get rid of standing water and cover their cisterns. A quarantine kept people in their homes until the fever ran its course. This marked the last break-out of yellow fever on the North American continent. “America’s most plague-ridden city” had finally cleaned up its act.
A version of the article I used as reference was originally written by John Magill in The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly. It was later enhanced with new research by Emily Perkins, curatorial cataloguer. The Historic New Orleans Collection, May 12, 2020.
My 2024 blogging series, Western Movie Taglines,
began in January when I explained what a tagline is and gave examples of good
non-western movie taglines followed by several disappointing taglines from
western movies.
In February, I shared 15 western movie taglines that were
clever or witty, real groaners, or just plain silly. March through September, I
will share 10 movie taglines each month. October through December will be the
Top 40 Countdown of Best Western Movie Taglines.
I compiled a list of 250 westerns and their taglines. From
that 250, I plucked out the best 125 to share between February and December.
These 125 taglines range from good to outstanding as far as doing justice to
their corresponding movies.
The Top 40 taglines are the ones that capture and sum up the
heart of the movie in such a fabulous way that we're amazed at how a handful of
words can be that powerful or theme-descriptive. Also in December, I will 1)
share taglines I've written for two western movies and one early-settling of
the American frontier movie that deserved better taglines and, 2) offer a
downloadable document of the 250 movies and taglines that I compiled.
Onward
to the July Western Movie Taglines—
The Broken
Star (1956) It
hits like a bullet between the eyes! The
raw ripping story of the renegade Sheriff of Boce Grande… Who murdered
and plundered in the name of the law!
—
“Your
land…Your women…Your lives…I’ll take anything I want – and if my badge doesn’t
convince you, my gun will!”
Catlow
(1971) The Mexican
cavalry wanted him murdered. The
Apache nation wanted him massacred. Texas
rangers wanted him mangled. And
his only hope was a Marshal, who wanted him hanged.
Centennial
(1978) It is
their story. It is
your story. It is
the story of America.
Far
and Away (1992) He
left behind everything he knew for the only thing he ever wanted.
—
What
they needed was a country big enough for their dreams.
The Far
Country (1955) From
Alaska’s first violent days of gold-rich glory comes the story of the stranger
with a gun!
—
…with
wilderness danger the challenge …yellow
dust the lure …and
the fanciest woman in Dawson his pleasure!
—
the Stranger
with the Gun, driven
by restless longings, challenging
the Klondike’s snow and sin and greed, where gold
was the lure and the
fanciest woman in Dawson, his for the taking!
Grey
Owl
(1999) He
fought to change the world.
In Old
Sacramento (1946) Where life
was short…and love was bold!
The Professionals
(1966) Rough,
Tough, and Ready
Rough Night
in Jericho (1967) Their
desires…their hatred...their violence exploded in one furious night!
Two
Mules for Sister Sara (1969) …the
deadliest man alive…takes on a whole army with two guns and a fistful of
dynamite!
Links to the previous western movie taglines by month:
James Warren Bell was a Sergeant with Company F of the 33rd Iowa Infantry. He served from 1862-1865.
He was born April 28, 1833, in Indiana, near Williamsport in Warren County. His family appeared to be farmers. however, by 1859 when he married Martha Linn, in Steady Run, Keokuk County, Iowas, he was still engaged in farming.
James Bell & Wife Martha photo from Find A Grave
When the war began he enlisted as a corporal, although married, on 13 August 1862 and mustered in on September 2, that same year. He mustered out on June 10, 1865, in Fort Gaines, Alabama.
After the war, James, Martha, and their family started moving westward. In 1880 they were living in Luka, Pratt County, Kansas. James was working as a carpenter. By 1885 the Bells were living in Colorado Springs where James continued working as a carpenter.
The town of Colorado Springs, founded in 1871, was growing, so James was probably kept busy. His wife, Martha, died in 1892. James passed in 1893.
The couple had two daughters: Lulu Bell, born in 1866, and Annie Bell, born in 1868. Lulu married Dr. William Sinton in 1885. Annie married Gordon Merrick, who was seven years her junior.
James died, according to the news report in Chicago, Illinois while attending the Columbia Exposition with his daughter Lulu and her husband William.
For those who would like to know more about the 33rd Iowa Infantry, this website has additional information about the activities of this unit in the Civil War: Historical Sketch - 33rd Iowa
For links to past writing on Civil War Veterans and Civil War Wives:
I know we have a lot of western movie lovers here—heck, we love just about ALL THINGS western, don’t we? Today I thought I’d talk a little bit about some western movies that are wonderful (for all kinds of different reasons) and one that, though it was highly acclaimed, is not among my favorites. (Please, hold the rotten tomatoes, and be kind!)
No one is ever going to agree with everyone about what makes a movie “great” or more meaningful, because viewers look for different concepts when they sit down and watch a movie. Some values, and “points to ponder”, are more meaningful to some than to others. There is no right or wrong here, just a fun discussion, so y’all chime in and don’t be shy!
I really don’t have a particular order for these except my favorite, and I’ll start with that one. I would definitely have to say my favorite is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Woody Strode (as Pompey) and Lee Marvin—who was absolutely perfect for the Liberty Valance character. I realize that not everyone has seen all these movies, so will try not to give any spoilers. It’s very rare that I enjoy a movie more than the book it was taken from, but The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of those for me. It was taken from a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson. Although the actors who were slotted in the key roles were much more “mature” than they were in Johnson’s story, I can’t help but think of those portrayals as more realistic—probably because John Wayne’s Tom Doniphon and James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard were embedded in my mind long before I ever read the short story.
An idealistic lawyer, Ranse Stoddard (Stewart) comes west to bring some law to a place that has none. Tom Doniphon (Wayne) generally pokes fun at him and the naïve way he handles himself. Stoddard changes Doniphon’s opinion as he shows the courage and backbone he’s brought with him to accompany his law books. At first, Doniphon faces down the ruthless Liberty Valance (Marvin) to protect Stoddard, but Stoddard learns how to use a gun and in the end, goes out on the street to face Liberty Valance in a fight he’s sure to lose. As the Gene Pitney song goes: “When the final showdown came at last/A law book was no good.” But…who really shot Liberty Valance? This is a movie you will not want to miss.
Another favorite is Purgatory—the story of outlaws who have died going to a place where they must be good for the length of their “sentence” if they ever hope to make it to heaven. So…what happens when some ruthless outlaws who are NOT dead find the town of Refuge? Is there any way the inhabitants can defend themselves without voiding the time they’ve spent there trying to do good?
The final showdown between both groups will have you on the edge of your seat. Now, bear with me. This sounds hokey, in a way, but it’s really a very interesting movie with a premise that I would not have thought of in a million years. Stars include Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, Randy Quaid, Donnie Wahlberg (a few years before Blue Bloods) and musician/songwriter J.D. Souther, one of my favorite singer/songwriters, and one of my favorite characters in this movie. I hope if you haven’t seen this one, you’ll give it a chance—it is very entertaining and different.
Another classic, The Magnificent Seven—starring heavy hitters such as Yul Brynner, Robert Vaughan, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn—also makes my list of best westerns. A group of mercenaries band together to protect a small Mexican village from a marauding outfit of outlaws who will stop at nothing to take over. But…there are only seven of them and they must stand against what looks to be unbeatable odds.
Although it’s somewhat predictable, it’s one you won’t want to miss. Realistic, but avoids a lot of gore, and it’s well worth watching if for no other reason than the beautiful score by Elmer Bernstein. (Well, and who DOESN’T want to watch Yul Brynner in anything he’s in!)
John Wayne has made a LOT of western movies, but one of my favorites is El Dorado—probably because I really enjoy seeing Robert Mitchum in just about anything. This flick also includes James Caan in one of his very early appearances on the silver screen. In a nutshell, Cole Thornton (Wayne) is a hired gun who comes to the aid of an old friend, J.P. Harrah (Mitchum), a sheriff who has become a laughingstock because of his drinking. A wealthy cattle baron is determined to steal water from another ranching family, the MacDonalds, and hires his own gunfighter, Nelse McLeod, (Christopher George), an old nemesis of Thornton’s.
Is there any way that Thornton and Harrah can protect the McDonalds? It’s been common knowledge for years that Thornton and McLeod are evenly matched in their shooting abilities, and Thornton has a bullet lodged near his spine that sometimes affects his ability to draw and shoot—a secret he must hide if he has any hope of surviving and saving the MacDonalds.
As for western movies that didn’t make it to my “favorites” list, probably my number one pick for this week would be, surprisingly, a John Wayne movie that he often said was his own personal favorite—The Searchers. Many readers will disagree with me on this, I know.
Ethan Edwards (Wayne) returns to his brother’s home after an eight-year absence. In a nutshell, his brother’s daughters, Debbie (Natalie Wood) and Lucy, are abducted by Comanches. The Comanches have killed almost everyone else in the family and burned down the house.
Edwards goes in search of the girls, finding Lucy murdered. When, five years later, he and Martin Pawley (Debbie’s adopted brother) find Debbie, she refuses to leave with them. Edwards tells Debbie he’d rather see her dead than living as a Comanche and tries to kill her! Martin saves the day, and in the chaos, Edwards is wounded by a Comanche.
There’s a lot more to this before the end of the movie, but I don’t want to give away the last part of it. The main reason I don’t enjoy this one is because of Edwards’ obsession with finding Debbie, even to the point of wanting to kill her because she’s chosen to stay with the Comanche. Also, it just seems like this entire movie goes on and on and on…That being said, there’s no denying that I’m definitely in the minority. The Searchers won many awards and is filmed beautifully, and it’s hard to say anything bad about any movie John Ford directed. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s not my cup of tea, mainly because I was so disappointed in Edwards.
We’ll do more on this next month! I have really enjoyed revisiting these movies and I always see something I never saw before when I watch them. Hmmm…maybe I better give The Searchers another chance…
Western Fictioneers is proud
to announce the winners of the 14th Annual Peacemaker Awards, presented for the
finest in Western fiction published in 2023. Congratulations to all the winners
and finalists, and special thanks to the judges who make the Peacemaker Awards
possible.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT PEACEMAKER
John Legg
BEST WESTERN NOVEL
Winner: GRAY’S LAKE, John Hansen (Summit Creek Press)
Finalists
THE GOLD CHIP, Douglas Hirt (Wolfpack Publishing)
CHANGING WOMAN, Venetia
Hobson Lewis (Bison Books)
RIDE A FAST HORSE, Kevin
Warren (Kensington)
THE BOOT HEEL, Kevin Wolf
(Thorndike)
BEST FIRST WESTERN NOVEL
Winner (Tie): . . . BY THE WAY THEY TREAT THEIR HORSES, M. Timothy Nolting
(Austin Macauley Publishers)
RIDE A FAST HORSE, Kevin
Warren (Kensington)
Finalists
THE GOOD-TIME GIRLS, K.T. Blackmore (Sycamore Creek Press)
CHANGING WOMAN, Venetia
Hobson Lewis (Bison Books)
THE PENITENT GUN, Rod Timanus
(Thorndike Large Print)
BEST SHORT FICTION
Winner: “The Would-Be Bounty Hunters”, Michael R. Ritt (FORTITUDE, Five Star)
Finalists
“Clarence Flowers”, John Neely
Davis (FORTITUDE, Five Star)
“Prairie Blossoms”, Sharon Frame
Gay (FORTITUDE, Five Star)
“The Sound of Buffalo”, Lisa
Majewski and Del Howison (FORTITUDE, Five Star)
“Next to the Last Chance”, John D.
Nesbitt (BRIGHT SKIES AND DARK HORSES, Five Star)
“The Great Burro Revolt”, P.A.
O’Neil (SADDLEBAGS DISPATCHES, SUMMER 2023)
Today is the anniversary of two important patents so we will just take a look at them in our post for June 14. These are American inventions, of course, and ones your characters would have either used themselves or at least heard of in the news.
In 1834, Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Maine patented the hardhat diving suit. The deep-sea diving suit, hard hat or copper hat equipment, or just heavy gear is a type of diving suit that was used for all relatively deep underwater work such as marine salvage, civil engineering, commercial diving work (like pearl shell diving), and similar naval diving applications.
In 1739, German engineer Konrad Kyeser described a “diving dress” made of a leather jacket with a metal helmet fixed with two glass panes. The jacket and helmet were lined with sponge, which was thought to “retain the air,” and a hose was attached to a bag of air.
The first real helmet was created in the 1820s by brothers Charles and John Deane as a “Smoke Helmet” to be used by firemen. This apparatus consisted of a copper helmet with an attached flexible collar and garment. A long leather hose attached to the rear of the helmet was to be used to supply air. The original concept was that the air would be supplied by pumping it in with a double bellows. A short pipe allowed de-oxygenated air to escape. This firemen’s garment was composed of leather or airtight cloth and secured by straps. In 1828, the brothers decided to find another application for their device and converted it into a diving helmet, which they marketed with a loosely-attached “diving suit.” A diver could work in this suit, but only in a full vertical position, otherwise water flowed in.
Norcross improved on this design, creating a better suit that could be used in any position so that divers could work more efficiently underwater. Your characters could easily have been familiar with underwater engineering and salvage work from newspaper and magazine articles or even from direct observation.
On land in 1834, a new method of producing sandpaper was patented by Isaac Fischer, Jr. of Springfield, Vermont. The first sandpaper we know of was from 13th Century China, when crushed shells, seeds, and sand were bonded to parchment using natural gum. Shark skin was also used as a natural sandpaper, as was the horsetail plant.
According to the patent, Fischer’s idea involved coating paper sheets on both sides with a reducing or polishing solution that would then be glued. At this point, they were making better-quality sandpaper with powered steam rollers. Isaac Fischer Jr. is regarded as the creator of industrialized sandpaper even though he wasn't the first to actually make sandpaper.
Your characters would certainly have used sandpaper, whether mass-produced by Fischer’s method or hand-produced in the more old-fashioned methods. Some of the materials used for the abrading part of sandpaper, in addition to plain old sand, could have been flint (not commonly used in modern sandpaper), garnet, emery, and aluminum oxide. In addition to paper, backing for sandpaper includes cloth or rubber, used for discs and belts, and “fibre” or vulcanized fibre, a strong backing material consisting of many layers of polymer-impregnated paper. Flexible backing allows sandpaper to follow the irregular contours of a workpiece, while inflexible backing is optimal for regular rounded or flat surfaces. Stronger paper or backing increases the ease of sanding, so good quality paper is best.
From diving suits to sandpaper, the Old West saw many important inventions in the 1800s.
No figure – including that glorious tall-tale-spinner Buffalo
Bill Cody – is more riddled with confusion, controversy and misinformation
than that hero of the Alamo, David (Davy) Crockett (1876-1836).
I am too young to have been consumed by the great Crockett
fad started by Walt Disney in 1955, when America’s youth actually wore
coonskin caps and went about singing The Ballad of Davy Crockett.
(“Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee/Greenest state in the land of the
free/Raised in the woods so knew every tree/Kilt him a bear when we was only
three/DAVY, DAVY Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier!” and so on for some 20
verses.) This fad was as pervasive and as powerful as the furor that
surrounded Elvis Presley and the Beatles – if less pernicious than either – and
those who were true believers seem never to have lost the faith. Believe
it or not, I once worked for the head of a global public relations firm who was
still so besotted by the Crockett craze of his boyhood that he still wore a
coonskin cap. Now that is devotion.
However, Davy Crockett comes magically alive to me in Bob
Thompson’s delightful Born on a Mountaintop: On The Road With Davy
Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier, and I finally see why the
Crockett myth is so compelling.
For those looking for a straightforward biography,
Thompson’s book will come as a disappointment. Instead, he goes after
something much more interesting and personal. Thompson writes a book
literally pursuing his subject. He traces the historical Davy by
following him through Tennessee, westward, and then to Washington, where he
served two terms in Congress. We go with Davy on a book tour through
Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, and then retrace those
fateful steps to Texas and the Alamo.
Though chasing ghosts, Thompson is extremely aware of the
difficulties inherent in this method. He writes: “The past is a
foreign country,” as the novelist L.P. Hartley wrote, but I think that Hartley
understated the problem. The past is a foreign country that’s impossible
to visit. You can’t just skip across the border, hire yourself a
translator, and ask old John Crockett where he was on the afternoon of October
7, 1780 --- let alone get up close and persona with his celebrity son.
The historical Crockett he finds is a man of
contradictions. Born dirt poor, he received little education. He
fought the Creeks and took part in several important skirmishes in the Indian
war. After several unsuccessful attempts are raising his standard of
living, he married (after his first wife died) a woman of modest means, but
still of relative means. He became a local politician and ended up going
to Congress – first as a supporter of Andrew Jackson, and then as his bitter enemy.
The paradoxes are many. Here was an Indian fighter
who went to Congress and bitterly fought Jackson on an illegal Indian land
grab. He was really “the poor man’s friend,” but he hobnobbed (or tried
to) with Eastern Brahmans. He concocted the most outrageous tall tales
about himself, but took umbrage (mostly) when others did so. Losing his
seat in Congress – thanks mostly to Jackson (a man who makes our current
politicians look like Mother Theresa) – he heads West again and becomes
embroiled in the battle for Texas liberty.
How and why? Well, Davy’s time in Texas is just
little more than the last three months of his life, but Thompson devotes more
than a hundred pages to it. Like all men, Davy was complicated and
self-contradictory. He really did believe the fight in Texas was “the
good fight,” but he also saw it as a way to revive his flaccid political
career, and maybe get some land out of the deal.
Thompson starts the book by explaining that his two young
daughters became interested in Crockett after hearing Burl Ives sing the
Ballad, and how he spent years becoming fascinated himself. He also
spends a great many pages on the Crockett craze of the 1950s, and examines
where fact and fiction overlap. (Not very often is the verdict.)
Thompson was a longtime features writer for The
Washington Post, and his Born on a Mountaintop is an eccentric,
elliptical, solipsistic and often discursive book. However, it is also a
fascinating read and an interesting meditation on Americana, past and
present. It comes highly recommended.
