“He did so.  And when they returned, sure enough they hadn’t seen an Indian any more than if they had been, all the time, chopping wood in my clearing.  This closed my career as a warrior; and I am glad of it; for I like life now a heap better than I did then.  And I am glad all over that I lived to see these times, which I should not have done if I had kept fooling along in war, and got used up at it.  When I say I am glad, I just mean that I am glad that I am alive, for there is a confounded heap of things I ain’t glad of at all.”

When Crockett wrote the above he was a member of Congress, and a very earnest politician.  He was much opposed to the measure of President Jackson in removing the deposits from the United States Bank—­a movement which greatly agitated the whole country at that time.  In speaking of things of which he was not glad, he writes: 

“I ain’t glad, for example, that the Government moved the deposits; and if my military glory should take such a turn as to make me President after the General’s time, I will move them back.  Yes, I the Government, will take the responsibility, and move them back again.  If I don’t I wish I may be shot.”

The hardships of war had blighted Crockett’s enthusiasm for wild adventures, and had very considerably sobered him.  He remained at home for two years, diligently at work upon his farm.  The battle of New Orleans was fought.  The war with England closed, and peace was made with the poor Indians, who, by British intrigue, had been goaded to the disastrous fight.  Death came to the cabin of Crockett; and his faithful wife, the tender mother of his children, was taken from him.  We cannot refrain from quoting his own account of this event as it does much honor to his heart.

“In this time I met with the hardest trial which ever falls to the lot of man.  Death, that cruel leveller of all distinctions, to whom the prayers and tears of husbands, and even of helpless infancy, are addressed in vain, entered my humble cottage, and tore from my children an affectionate, good mother, and from me a tender and loving wife.  It is a scene long gone by, and one which it would be supposed I had almost forgotten.  Yet when I turn my memory back upon it, it seems but as the work of yesterday.

“It was the doing of the Almighty, whose ways are always right, though we sometimes think they fall heavily on us.  And as painful as even yet is the remembrance of her sufferings, and the loss sustained by my little children and myself, yet I have no wish to lift up the voice of complaint.  I was left with three children.  The two eldest were sons, the youngest a daughter, and at that time a mere infant.  It appeared to me, at that moment, that my situation was the worst in the world.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of scattering my children; and so I got my youngest brother, who was also married, and his family, to live with me.  They took as good care of my children as they well could; but yet it wasn’t all like the care of a mother.  And though their company was to me, in every respect, like that of a brother and sister, yet it fell far short of being like that of a wife.  So I came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t do, but that I must have another wife.”