Originally posted on April 7, 2011
Yesterday Jim Boylston and Allen J. Wiener, authors of David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend (Bright Sky Press, 2009) announced that they had uncovered a letter written by Crockett to the publishers of his best-selling autobiography. (By the way, I highly recommend their book for anyone interested in Crockett and/or Tennessee history.)
The letter was written a year before his reelection campaign against the subject of my own book Adam Huntsman: The Peg Leg Politician. As he concludes, Crockett is looking ahead to the campaign and asks his publishers for an advance of $150-$200 to help finance it. He writes:
I was beaten the election before the last and it give me a back set in money matters An election costs a man a great deal in my country and I had strength and power to contend against
The “strength and power” he has “to contend against” turns out to be Huntsman, a formidable opponent who narrowly beats him for reelection. Of course this defeat led him to go to Texas, and the rest is history.
Kevin D. McCann 