Michael Wallis (1) (1945–)

"Print the legend," goes the famous line from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance." And the same could be said about David Crockett.

Like the author, I was obsessed with all things Davy Crockett as a child, due to the Disney TV portrayal of him (in the person of Fess Parker). But here's the truth about Crockett: he wasn't born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, nor did he kill himself a "bar" when he was only 3. He had no sidekick naked George. There was no adventure with Mike Fink and the river show more boatmen. He didn't refer to himself as "Davy." He didn't even wear a coonskin cap, for heaven's sake (except to glean popularity with the crowds)!

On the other hand, here is what he was: a profligate hunter (he killed hundreds of bears in his lifetime, and who knows how many other creatures). A pretty poor politician. While a loner, someone who loved the adulation of crowds. A poor money-manager. A slave owner. Neglectful of his wife and family.

Though not to simplify--though Crockett was active in the Creek Indian War, he was adamantly opposed to Andrew Jackson's displacement of Indians from the eastern states to west of the Mississippi, which led to the Trail of Tears. Crockett denounced this as an atrocity, and paid dearly for it because of the wrath of Jackson.

History tends to temper heroes. This book does that "Davy" Crockett. show less

This is a fascinating, enlightening foray into separating Crockett the bear hunter, frontiersman, soldier, and politician from the popular Disney depiction preceded by the more cartoonish Nimrod Wildfire. The man mythologized while still alive awkwardly plotted a political career -- without apparently in the legislature or ever wearing a coonskin cap -- largely trying to get mostly Indian land at low prices for his fellow frontiersmen. When he balked at the Andrew Jackson Indian Removal he show more undercut his political career and made it worse by leaving his constituents behind for a few months to do a book tour. Like others fed up encroaching civilization, he went to Texas on a trail that ended at the Alamo. This does nothing to settle the details of his demise while it succeeds in proving the rest of his life was much more interesting, anyway. show less

The best and most comprehensive book I’ve read so far about the Donner Party. Author Michael Wallis doesn’t really add that much to earlier accounts, (History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra; Ordeal by Hunger; The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride and The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate) but Wallis has his material well organized and is an excellent writer. He starts the story earlier than the others, with the family show more histories of George Donner and James Reed, noting that the Donner family had always been ready to pack up and try new land, even if they were prosperous where they were.

Wallis notes the crucial decision was taking the “Hastings Cutoff”; on the map this looked like a short cut, in reality it went through nearly impassible terrain. It also alienated the rest of the group against James Reed; he had pushed for this route and the others blamed him when it turned disastrous, eventually forcing him to leave after he killed a teamster in self defense. Reed eventually returned with a relief expedition, saving the lives of many of the party (he had left his own family when he was forced out). Reed was enough of a leader that if he had been allowed to remain he might have gotten the party over Donner Pass before they were snowed in.

As it was Wallis emphasizes something noted by all the other writers; the Donner Party seemed to be composed of people almost pathologically determined to do the wrong thing. When cooperation and mutual aid would have been of benefit to all, everybody was a rugged individualist going their own way; when some of the stronger could have broken out by leaving the rest (and possibly returned with aid) everybody wanted it put to a vote and have majority rule. The most tragic case here was Charles Stanton; Stanton had left the party in September to go ahead to Sutter’s Fort and return with supplies, which he did by late October. He then tried to motivate the rest to push over the mountains – and they refused; they had built a huge fire and just wanted to stay around it and get warm. Then it started snowing again and everybody hunkered down. There was a break in the snow in late November, and Stanton led out another party. This time they actually got over the pass and were on the west side – but now it was Stanton who inexplicably gave up. He was leading pack mules he’d borrowed from John Sutter, and while the people could walk on crusted snow, the mules could not and kept breaking through. Stanton turned around and went back to the camp and the rest of his party had no choice but to follow (the mules were lost later when the snow started again). Stanton made one final attempt in mid-December, organizing a group on snowshoes; snowblind and delirious he was abandoned by the rest. At least they didn’t eat him.

The other tragic case was Tamzene (spelled Tamsin in some of the accounts) Donner, George’s wife; she was looking forward to organizing a school and collecting botanical specimens in California. George was dying of an infected wound, and despite offers from three separate relief parties, she refused to leave him, sending her children on instead. The fourth relief party found no sign of her; Louis Keseberg, the sole survivor found by the fourth group, admitted to eating her but claimed she had died a natural death first.

One question not answered is why the Donner party is so fascinating; there had been other emigrant groups that had come to bad ends, including cannibalism. I suspect the inexplicable nature of the Donner collapse it what makes the group interesting. Wallis notes that even contemporaries commented on it; California newspapers were publishing stories about the Donner party’s ineptitude even before the final relief expedition arrived.

Wallis is an excellent writer; the book “reads like a novel” but everything is thoroughly researched and footnoted. Good maps. The only thing I would have liked is a comparative chronology, showing what was going on at each of the mountain camps and back in California.

The pass over the Sierras, nameless then, is now Donner Pass; Truckee Lake is now Donner Lake; and there’s a Donner Camp Historic Site and Picnic Ground in Tahoe National Forest. I’m not sure if the picnic ground is in good taste, but I’ll have to visit – and perhaps picnic – if I’m ever out that way. show less

An excellent, no holds barred biography of one of America’s greatest historical legends, this books sets straight all the misconceptions that both Hollywood and especially Walt Disney placed before the public. This is not really a criticism of Disney, just an observation. After all, it specifically was Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett that turned me on to history while I was in the 1st Grade and that eventually turned into a 29 year teaching career, but boy did it bear little resemblance to show more the truth. This book was, therefore, a fascinating examination of his life from his childhood through his death. I learned so much about this character I never imagined.

From running away from home to avoid a whipping from his father (and not returning for a couple of years), to his favorite pastime of bear hunting, Crockett’s adventures were harrowing and, at time death defying. In fact, between near drownings, near freezings, serious bouts with malaria and doses of a medication considered at the time to be of lethal strength, and wars with Andrew Jackson against the Red Sticks (Upper Creeks), it almost seems amazing to me that he lived long enough to get killed at the Alamo.

If you have any interest in knowing the real David Crockett, read this book. show less