‘But toom cam’ the saddle, all bluidy to see, And hame came the steed, but hame never came he.’

He spoke no more, and a few minutes after died.  Poor Kate, who will tell this to thee?

The romantic bee-hunter had a sweetheart by the name of Kate in Nacogdoches.  She seems to have been a very affectionate and religious girl.  In parting, she had presented her lover with a Bible, and in anguish of spirit had expressed her fears that he would never return from his perilous enterprise.

The next day, Crockett simply writes, “March 5th.  Pop, pop, pop!  Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day.  No time for memorandums now.  Go ahead!  Liberty and Independence forever.”

Before daybreak on the 6th of March, the citadel of the Alamo was assaulted by the whole Mexican army, then numbering about three thousand men.  Santa Anna in person commanded.  The assailants swarmed over the works and into the fortress.  The battle was fought with the utmost desperation until daylight.  Six only of the Garrison then remained alive.  They were surrounded, and they surrendered.  Colonel Crockett was one.  He at the time stood alone in an angle of the fort, like a lion at bay.  His eyes flashed fire, his shattered rifle in his right hand, and in his left a gleaming bowie-knife streaming with blood.  His face was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead.  About twenty Mexicans, dead and dying, were lying at his feet.  The juggler was also there dead.  With one hand he was clenching the hair of a dead Mexican, while with the other he had driven his knife to the haft in the bosom of his foe.

The Mexican General Castrillon, to whom the prisoners had surrendered, wished to spare their lives.  He led them to that part of the fort where Santa Anna stood surrounded by his staff.  As Castrillon marched his prisoners into the presence of the President, he said: 

“Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive.  How shall I dispose of them?”

Santa Anna seemed much annoyed, and said, “Have I not told you before how to dispose of them?  Why do you bring them to me?”

Immediately several Mexicans commenced plunging their swords into the bosoms of the captives.  Crockett, entirely unarmed, sprang, like a tiger, at the throat of Santa Anna.  But before he could reach him, a dozen swords were sheathed in his heart, and he fell without a word or a groan.  But there still remained upon his brow the frown of indignation, and his lip was curled with a smile of defiance and scorn.

And thus was terminated the earthly life of this extraordinary man.  In this narrative it has been the object of the writer faithfully to record the influences under which Colonel Crockett was reared, and the incidents of his wild and wondrous life, leaving it with the reader to form his own estimate of the character which these exploits indicate.  David Crockett has gone to the tribunal of his God, there to be judged for all the deeds done in the body.  Beautifully and consolingly the Psalmist has written: