Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier
Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, preferred to be called David. He was a frontiersman, but he was also a U.S. congressman. He was an Indian fighter, but he also fought for Indian rights. He probably didn’t spend a lot of time wearing buckskin, despite what Disney would have you believe. (He did die at the Alamo—that part is true.) Thompson’s mission here is to separate myth about Crockett from historical fact. Unfortunately, there’s precious little historical fact to be found. Even the experts—Thompson calls them Crockettologists—freely admit that much of what they know is based on historical detective work, not fact. Crockett became a pop-culture icon in the years just before his death and was the subject of a play, an anonymously written biography (which Crockett hated), and his own autobiography (whose accuracy is also questionable). As colorful as the Crockett legend is, it appears from this very entertaining book that the truth about the man could be equally colorful—if you can somehow get at the whole truth, that is. --David Pitt