Episode Details

The coonskin-capped hero swinging his rifle at the Alamo is largely a product of a 1950s pop culture craze. This deep dive examines the real frontiersman: an indentured 12-year-old, a teenage runaway, a reluctant soldier who preferred hunting to combat, and a congressman who sank his own career on a matter of principle.

We trace his birth in the State of Franklin, the debts that sent him on a 400-mile cattle drive, his plain-spoken populism in the Tennessee legislature, and his fights in Washington over land grants and West Point. Then we cover his lone vote against the Indian Removal Act, the contradiction of his own slaveholding, his celebrity journey to Texas, the siege of the Alamo, and the de la Peña diary controversy.

• Being leased out at age 12 to a cattle drover to pay off his father's debts
• Why he hired a substitute to finish his militia service
• Being the only member of Tennessee's delegation to vote against the Indian Removal Act
• Scouting through enemy lines for reinforcements during the Alamo siege
• The de la Peña diary, its authentication, and the furious 1950s reaction to the surrender account