Heroes of the Alamo

"I know not whether, in the eyes of the world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived. We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet scarcely bestow a passing glance upon its noonday splendor." - Davy Crockett
"I'll wage they found no bullets in his back." - Jim Bowie's mother after hearing of his death at the Alamo
The Wild West and the frontier have long held a special place in the narrative of American history, and of all the legends and folk heroes who lived in the 19th century, none became as famous as Davy Crockett, "The King of the Wild Frontier." Crockett had the distinction of being a living legend in his own life. Known as a hardscrabble frontiersman who could spin a good yarn but who also took a no-nonsense approach that brought him from the backwoods of Tennessee to the halls of Congress. Though he served during the presidency of another Westerner, Andrew Jackson, Crockett was very much his own man, and he was distrustful of other politicians, a sentiment that has only endured him further to subsequent generations of Americans.
Like Crockett, Jim Bowie was famous in his lifetime, but it was his death in Texas that made him an American legend. Like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Bowie has come to represent the pioneering spirit of the frontier, along with the masculinity, machismo and swagger that earned him a reputation for fighting. And like any good legend, he is perhaps best remembered for his death at the Alamo than for any aspect of his life.
Much of Bowie's participation in the Alamo is still controversial, and fittingly he was known across America before that for another controversy. In what became known as the notorious Sandbar Fight of 1827, a duel between two men turned into a large fight that included Bowie, who was shot and stabbed during the melee but still managed to stab to death the sheriff of Rapides Parish in Louisiana with a large knife that has since become universally known as the Bowie knife. Between that fight and his death, Bowie became one of the Western frontier's most celebrated folk heroes.
Heroes of the Alamo chronicles the lives, myths and legends of the Alamo's two most famous defenders, examining the known and unknown about their lives and deaths in an attempt to separate fact from fiction. Along with pictures of important people and places, you will learn about Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie like you never have before, in no time at all.