SAMUEL HOUSTON, THE WINNER OF

TEXAS INDEPENDENCE

THERE are few of us who have not read, with bounding pulses, the story of the heroic defence of the Alamo, and with bitter indignation of the martyrdom of the heroes by the base Santa Anna. This was a spirit-stirring episode in the history of the Texan struggle for independence, in which the leading figure was General Samuel Houston, or Sam Houston, as he preferred to be called. The story of this hero, which we have next to tell, was one full of the elements of romance. Half Indian and half American in his career, he ended by making himself famous in American history.

In the early days of the republic of the United States the wild region of Kentucky and Tennessee was the paradise of the hunter and the pioneer. Thither came hundreds of the strong, hardy, adventurous sons of the older settlements, and with them came a Virginia matron with her nine fatherless children, one of them, Samuel Houston, born near Lexington, Virginia, in 1793.

A daring, impulsive, roving fellow was young Houston. He was only thirteen when his mother settled in a new home on the banks of the Tennessee River, then the boundary between the frontiersmen and the savages. Beyond it lay the country of the Cherokee Indians, and among these the adventure-loving boy soon learned to rove. During much of his boyhood, indeed, he fairly lived with the redmen, learning their

language and falling into their ways of life. He lived among them in later years also, as we shall state farther on, and they grew to look upon him as one of their chiefs and leaders.

In this regard there is an interesting anecdote extant. In 1846, when Houston was in Washington as a member of Congress, a party of forty Cherokee braves was brought to that city by General Moorhead. These sons of the wilds looked about them with suspicion and distrust, but when their eyes fell upon Houston their expression changed. They ran to him, hugged him like bears in their brawny arms, and with high delight greeted him as "father."

Houston, as we have said, was a stirring and daring fellow, with a hand in all that was going on. When General Jackson called for volunteers in the war with the Creeks, he, then in his early manhood, joined the ranks, and was desperately wounded in the war that followed. He remained in the army until 1818, rising from private to second lieutenant, then left the army, studied law, and soon began to practice, making Nashville his home. To all appearance he had a quiet life before him, but the Fates decided otherwise.

The bright young lawyer rose rapidly in his profession, soon had a large practice, was elected district attorney, and in 1823 was chosen to represent his district in Congress. Four years he spent in Washington, as a national legislator, and made himself so popular in the State that in 1827, when thirty-four years of age, he was elected governor of Tennessee. His progress had been remarkably rapid; he had become one of the leading men in the State; he might aspire to any position; but now came an event that changed the

whole current of his life and sent him adrift as a wanderer among his old friends, the Indians.

The trouble came from marriage. He was by no means the first man who came into difficulty through getting a wife, but his was of a peculiar kind and led to a strange result. He married in 1829, his bride being Miss Eliza Allen, a young lady of excellent family and of the highest character. What was the trouble between the governor and his wife no one knew, but the union proved short and unhappy. In less than three months they separated. Society was filled with excitement. For a governor thus quickly to set aside his wife was unprecedented and stirred up the whole State. Reports of various kinds rose and spread. The people of the State divided into two parties, one for Governor Houston, the other for his wife, and popular feeling was highly strained. The lady's friends charged the governor with odious faults; his friends supported him as warmly; ignorance of the real cause of the separation trebled the excitement that prevailed.

Meanwhile Houston kept silent, not offering a denial of any calumny, not seeking to vindicate himself in any particular or permitting his friends to speak for him. Whatever the mystery, he would not permit a word to be said in his presence that cast a shadow on the lady's character. Silence was preserved on both sides, and the public was left to rumor and conjecture.

In the end, the situation grew so painful that Houston could bear it no longer. He determined to forsake the haunts of civilization and seek the wilderness. He resigned his office as governor and left the city for the forest, taking refuge among his old friends, the Cherokees. In his boyhood days, while a rover among

the Indian villages, their chief Oolooteka had become his warm friend and had adopted him as a son. This chief and his tribe were now dwelling in Arkansas. The old friendship had not died out. Though for more than ten years they had not met, tokens of kind feeling had passed between them, and when now the heartsick wanderer sought the wigwam of his redskin "father" he was greeted with the warmest welcome.

For the three years that followed the late governor lived the life of an Indian, dwelling in the villages of the tribe, going with them on their hunts, taking part in their councils, making himself one of them. He had cut loose from the life of the whites and it seemed as if he would never return to it again.

But during these years he kept in close touch with what was going on in the country to the south, that broad and fertile land of Texas, which was then an unquiet part of the republic of Mexico. Texas was an outlying section of the Spanish republic, in which few of the Mexicans had settled, and the almost unoccupied region proved a strong attraction to the neighboring Americans, numbers of whom crossed its borders and settled on its plains. By 1830 there were about twenty thousand American settlers on the fertile Texan soil.

66

These hot-blooded Southerners had no love for the Mexicans. They had not cut loose from allegiance to the starry flag, had no idea of submitting to the rule of the greasers," as they contemptuously designated the Mexicans, and were in a state of chronic revolt. They rose in rebellion in 1832, fought with the Mexican troops, and drove them all out of the country.

This state of affairs appealed strongly to Houston, whose soldierly instincts were aroused. Like many of the Southerners, he had learned to detest the Mexicans,

and there now seemed an opportunity of winning that fine country, nearly all of whose people were Americans, for the United States. In this he was probably in accord with his old friend and leader, General Jackson, then at Washington as President, who is thought to have encouraged him in his desire to win new territory for the South and its institutions. At any rate, in December, 1832, Houston left the wigwam of Oolooteka and crossed the Texan border. He was the man that was needed. The settlers were fairly ripe for a warlike leader.

Texas was comparatively quiet during the two years that followed, but immigrants kept pouring over the border and the sentiment for independence grew daily. It was brought to a head by an order from the Mexican government, to the effect that all the people should be disarmed. This was like throwing fire into gunpowder. A company of Mexican soldiers was sent to the little town of Gonzales to remove a small brass six-pounder. Near the town a party of Texans met and put them to flight, killing several of them. This battle was called "the Lexington of Texas."

On all sides the Texans sprang to arms, and it was not long before all the Mexican troops were driven out of the country. They were few in number and were under weak leaders, while the Texans had arisen in their might, Houston chief among the men in arms. He knew well that there was a war before them that must be prepared for, and he was not mistaken, for Santa Anna himself, the President, or rather Dictator, of Mexico, a skilled and ruthless soldier, was quickly in the field, with an army of several thousand men.

Houston, who had been made commander-in-chief by the Texan patriots, hastened to dispose effectively