David Crockett in Congress
Interview with the authors of David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend, James R. Boylston and Allen Wiener.
AS: Tell us about yourselves and what drove you two to work together to write David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend.
JB: Like a lot of guys from my generation, my interest in Crockett and the Alamo was sparked by Fess Parker’s Disney shows back in the 1950’s. The character made a lasting impression on me, and when I was a teenager I started reading all the Alamo history I could get my hands on. At the time, that was limited to Walter Lord’s A Time To Stand, Lon Tinkle’s Thirteen Days to Glory, and John Myers Myers’ The Alamo, so, like many in our community, I read those books time and again. Other than those titles, my exposure to Crockett biographical material had been limited to books aimed at younger readers by Irwin Shapiro and Constance Rourke.
I didn’t make it to San Antonio until the mid-80’s, but on my first visit I found James Shackford’s David Crockett, The Man and the Legend, in the Alamo gift shop. I devoured Shackford’s book and scoured his bibliography looking for other related titles. In those pre-internet days finding books was real detective work, but I contacted various authors and publishers through the years and eventually built a Crockett library.
Throughout all my research, there were always quotations and references to Crockett correspondence, but I couldn’t find a published collection of Crockett letters anywhere. In 2004, I attended my first Alamo Society Symposium and asked everyone I met whether such a volume existed. The consensus was no, that Crockett’s letters had never been collected. Bill Chemerka suggested that maybe I was the person to tackle such a project, and when I returned home I immediately started researching the whereabouts of Crockett’s extant letters, and began contacting museums, collectors, and repositories.
After a couple of years, I found that I wasn’t making the progress I had hoped on the project, primarily because of the demands of a full time job and the incredible amount of time that needed to be devoted to research for the book. I met Allen at the 2006 Alamo Society Symposium, though we’d been corresponding via email and through an internet forum for some time before that. Allen’s passion for Crockett matched my own, and we shared other interests as well. I asked him if he’d consider jumping in on the project as a co-writer. He was excited about the idea and agreed, so I sent him copies of all my current research and we were off and running.
AW: I, too, first discovered Crockett through the Disney TV series and began perusing the same books Jim mentioned. I remember having to wait weeks to get the sole Crockett book that our small school library had - Sanford Tousey’s 1948 children’s bio Davy Crockett: Hero of the Alamo. I also corresponded with the Alamo staff and collected materials they sent me and even bought books from them. For years I had wanted to do some sort of Crockett project, but could never find something that interested publishers. I was actually in the middle of doing another book, Music of the Alamo, with Bill Chemerka when Jim asked me to come in on the Crockett project. I was thrilled by the idea and flattered that he’d asked me. I had retired from a long career in government and finally had a chance to work on the kinds of projects I’d always wanted to. The Crockett book was exactly the sort of thing I’d been looking for. Initially, we set about finding all of Crockett’s letters, but reading those letters and other Crockett documents began to reveal a man that was very different from what we’d found in the books we’d read. So, we decided to write a book about Crockett’s years in politics based on his correspondence and other primary documents. We became more aware of the fact that Crockett spent most of his adult life in public offices, or seeking them, and that politics was very important to him.
AS: How long did this venture take and how did you both work together to produce the book?
JB: It took five years from when I made the first phone call to a repository to when we turned in the final, completed manuscript. Things really got cranking though when Allen and I started collaborating, so for three years we were doing intensive research. We split the work 50/50, made a list of contacts and possible leads, and just hunkered down and went to work. We spent many long days in research libraries and museums, digging through documents and 19th century newspapers. We went through auction catalogs, card catalogs, any database that might point us toward another letter or collector.
We had planned early on that we would annotate all the letters, but we eventually decided to include a narrative history of Crockett’s political career as well, focusing on the major issues that were important to him. Once we’d amassed enough primary source information, we started writing the narrative history, and sent the chapters back and forth, editing and revising, and making suggestions and corrections. Allen and I worked together well, and I found the partnership to be very rewarding. As a songwriter earlier in my career, I’d done a lot of collaboration, but Allen and I really clicked as a team.
AW: I think the book is far stronger because there were two of us dividing the labor and also bouncing ideas off of one another. I live near Washington, D.C., and was able to spend a lot of time in the Library of Congress and National Archives, while Jim visited repositories in Tennessee. We both spent time at the DRT Library at the Alamo as well. It helped that we shared a common vision of Crockett and writing styles that blended very well. I was very happy when our editor told me that he could not tell which sections of the book each of us had drafted because they flowed so well. This made editing each other’s work much easier and more productive. I can’t recall any time that either of us did not readily agree to changes the other wanted to make. I have to agree with Jim completely; we just clicked right away. I have to say that modern technology has certainly changed and improved research considerably. For example, the Library of Congress has access to many online sources that we could not have accessed ourselves from home. It was so much easier to narrow our search for things we were looking for. Only a few years ago, this would have required months of manual searching in many libraries, and considerably more eye strain, which could never have covered as much material as we found through these online sources. As it was, there were long days at microfilm machines that left me wondering if I’d ever see properly again.
AS: David Crockett in Congress is the first, in-depth political biography about the famous frontier-congressman. What can readers expect from the upcoming book? Any surprises?
AW: The biggest surprise to me involved the reversal of one of Shackford’s key contentions — that Crockett participated in a Whig conspiracy against the Jacksonians. In fact, it was the other way around. Crockett became a threat to the Jacksonians almost immediately and they conspired to unseat him any way they could. The idea of a congressman from Old Hickory’s own state, who was opposing the man they were trying to push into the White House, was tantamount to fundamental disloyalty to the Jacksonians. From that point on, Crockett had the Jackson organization, finances and press placing him in their sights. I think we’ve addressed Crockett’s political career in a thorough and comprehensive way, which I don’t think has ever really been done before. We convey a clear sense of purpose to what Crockett did, rather than accepting older interpretations of him as someone who had no understanding of what he was doing or how politics worked. He understood that very well and had a clear political agenda, which he pursued zealously. There are some specific things that will surprise people who are familiar with earlier Crockett works, like proof positive that he not only voted against Jackson’s Indian Removal bill, but really did give a speech opposing it on the floor of the House of Representatives. Past biographies have expressed doubt that he gave the speech because it did not appear in the Register of Debates in Congress, but we found proof that he gave the speech and information showing that it was not uncommon for speeches to be omitted from the Debates, which was not an official record in any case. We also found earlier discussion of Crockett’s Tennessee land bills to be inadequate, shortsighted, and containing erroneous conclusions. By going through the records and matching it with other documents, including Crockett’s correspondence, his efforts make perfect sense. I also think we’ve done a good job of showing how the mythical “Davy” Crockett image came about and grew beyond Crockett’s control, and how he handled that.
JB: While Crockett saw the value of political factions and alliances, and could be very adept at operating within those constructs, he was adamantly opposed to the idea of strong, organized political parties. He felt that party politics would ruin the country and that constituents would lose their voice in government if elected officials capitulated to party discipline rather than vote their consciences. Part of the reason the Jacksonians were so committed to removing Crockett from office was that he was uncontrollable; he couldn’t be relied upon to vote the way the party wanted him to vote. Many of Crockett’s biographers have claimed that he was naive and was manipulated by the Whigs in an attempt to defeat the Jacksonians, but his relationship with the Whigs was symbiotic. Their support raised his profile even higher, and he hoped to use the political capital to push his land bill through.
I hope, too, that we’ve finally settled the controversy about who wrote the first Crockett biography, Life and Adventures, later titled Sketches and Eccentricities. David Crockett in Congress presents compelling evidence that James Strange French wrote that book, not Matthew St. Claire Clarke as many other sources have claimed. Clarke’s authorship of Sketches was the lynchpin in Shackford’s theory of a Whig literary conspiracy to advance Crockett’s career for their own benefit. With Clarke out of the mix, the theory really falls apart.
Crockett in Congress also includes a complete, annotated collection of Crockett’s correspondence plus selected speeches and circulars, so readers can finally study his political history in his own words. Crockett’s own Narrative is indispensable in understanding him, but despite his many references in his autobiography to the political scene, he doesn’t really delve into his congressional career. We hope that, taken together, the two books will present a clearer picture of the real David Crockett.
AS: The release date is set for this October. Is pre-ordering available? If so, where?
The book can be pre-ordered through Bright Sky Press’s website (http://tinyurl.com/l2t4yp), at Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/lvxblu), or at Borders (www.borders.com).